It should also ban potential employee disclosing the pay of previous employment. Otherwise it would become a norm soon that the companies specifically won't ask about it, but will hire only the candidates who disclose it by themselves, which makes the candidate to disclose the previous income by themselves for having a better shot at getting hired.
New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary
51–60 of 539 posts
Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary
#52Would have rather seen a bill also legitimize complete and total lying in response to the question. Answers or claims regarding past salary may not be verified or used as the basis of any employment action.
A bill to legitimize lying would help people who know about it. But the people who most need the help are those who have never heard about this controversy or don't think they have the power in the negotiation to consider lying. The way NYC did it, the law protects the most vulnerable.
Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let's say they make a law saying you can't ask your coworkers what their salary is - wouldn't you agree that is against freedom of speech?
No, I would not. Freedom of speech pertains to legislation from congress preventing political speech. Most companies already prohibit employees from discussing salaries, under penalty of termination. Any business can ask you to leave, as a patron, for using profane speech in their establishment, or any number of other reasons. Please stop participating in this absurd and obnoxious fallacy wherein you decry anything y…
Retribution for discussing salaraies is a violation of federal labor relations guidelines. Companies can write that in their handbook but not enforce it. If they do, contact a lawyer and the national labor relations board.
Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I would not. Freedom of speech pertains to legislation from congress preventing political speech. Most companies already prohibit employees from discussing salaries, under penalty of termination. Any business can ask you to leave, as a patron, for using profane speech in their establishment, or any number of other reasons. Please stop participating in this absurd and obnoxious fallacy wherein you decry anything y…
>Most companies already prohibit employees from discussing salaries, under penalty of termination. This is actually illegal in many states. Workers have a legal right to discuss salaries. >Freedom of speech pertains to legislation from congress preventing political speech. Not correct. Free speech is about any freedom of expression, not just political speech. There is endless amounts of case law to back this up.
Please document some of this case law!
Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary
#55Good. Not enough people realize the best way to answer this question is with a straight-up lie.
It took me a while to understand that most people don't realize you can lie on this with almost zero downside. Very few employers are checking, and very few times is that information legally available to them. The most they can typically get is the "typical" salary for a given position at a large company. There are exceptions of course, and the good ole' boys network can sometimes run deep. But in the end, if you are…
You have some leeway. If you say "My compensation was $70K" and your salary was $50K, you may well be telling the truth.
Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let's say they make a law saying you can't ask your coworkers what their salary is - wouldn't you agree that is against freedom of speech?
No, I would not. Freedom of speech pertains to legislation from congress preventing political speech. Most companies already prohibit employees from discussing salaries, under penalty of termination. Any business can ask you to leave, as a patron, for using profane speech in their establishment, or any number of other reasons. Please stop participating in this absurd and obnoxious fallacy wherein you decry anything y…
> Freedom of speech pertains to legislation from congress preventing political speech.
Freedom of speech is broader than that. Freedom of speech not only extends beyond congress (which the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed), it also goes beyond political speech. You have the right to espouse openly racist beliefs. You have the right to espouse religious beliefs, and beliefs on the best way to grow corn, and what the best auto maker is. These are not political opinions except to the extent that they are protected from suppression by politicians. (Alternatively you can argue that basically all speech is in some fashion political, in which case the "political" distinction is meaningless.)
Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary
#57Good. Not enough people realize the best way to answer this question is with a straight-up lie.
Careful!! There's quite a few ways to verify past salary. Specially some employers report employment information to private databases and your potential employer runs a "employment report," like banks run a credit report, as part of a mandatory background check. To see if you lied. Of course, they can't do that without your permission but agreeing to a background check is a condition of employment. The database i am…
Also to add, if you work for a public institution, your salary for the past three years is in public records.
Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary
#58Have a google for: "can i lie to a employer about past salary" - it really really messes with people - people feel super uncertain about how to approach this situation. Throwing any confidence they have during the negotiation out the window. Even now I hesitate to write this as a million people will come out and say never lie - what if they found out. More than banning. There needs to be acceptance that if someone as…
In Geemany you are allowed to lie to any question the employer doesn't have the right to ask (e.g. Are you pregnant?)
Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
What does this have to do with freedom of speech?
Making a law that says "Employers can't say or ask X" goes directly against freedom of speech.
That sort of concept of freedom of speech is so broad that if actually enforced, it would effectively prevent any laws that regulate businesses.
While it's true that businesses can assert First Amendment rights, as with this recent Supreme Court case https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/business/supreme-court-cr..., that doesn't mean that laws that make it illegal to inquire about or take into account past salary history, marital status, pregnancy status, etc. are all unconstitutional simply because spoken communication might take place during the process of flouting the law.
Or to put it another way, it's not the words, "So, are you pregnant?" themselves that are the problem. The problem is the implicit idea that an interviewee's answer to this question will affect the employer's hiring decision, and the law says it should not.
Re: New York City bans employers from asking potential workers about past salary
#60I never understood this one. I have always told recruiters straight up that I'm not going to disclose that information. Nobody involved with making the hiring decision is going to be asking you how much you made at your last job.