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New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

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Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No thank you. My salary is private. I do not want my family and friends to know how much I make. I also have never told a potential employer my salary. I believe it stopped things from going on to the interview stage but the way they took my refusal made me assume they paid under market rate.

>No thank you. >My salary is private. I do not want my family and friends to know how much I make. But have you thought about why you feel this way? I assume you are American, as am I, and so I understand we've been socialized by our culture to feel this way, but it really makes no sense. It's just a way to harm workers by keeping us from seeing when we're being screwed. I'd even go so far as to wager that this entir…

Julian Assange in the house.

I can see an argument for forcing public companies to post anonymized data about salaries, perhaps including gender, race and age. Thus ensuring employees or advocates can understand if they are being treated fairly. But, My salary is very private. Exposing it means I have less leverage in some negotiations. Not just wage, but sticking with that example, what if employers created a cabal that said "hey, we're not going to give anyone more than a 10% raise for jumping ship to ensure that theres still some incentive, but less, for 'disloyalty.'" This isn't exactly speculation either, there have been numerous reports of companies creating back door policies not to hire away from each other, which ultimately only hurts the employee.

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you seeing this? There is zero income information on any of my credit reports. In addition, if it was so easy to obtain how come my credit card bank still constantly begs me to update my income information?

Basically if this doesn't already exist I could start a business tomorrow recommending salary offers to employers based on position and applicant. Possible sources of salary info include Job sites where people review and report on salary at their employer, even if anonymous its super likely that figuring out exactly who you are could be less than rocket science. Credit reporting agencies. Bullshit surveys where peopl…

That would be illegal under this new law as well:

> The bill also would prohibit an employer from seeking salary history information about an applicant for employment and would require an employer, upon reasonable request, to provide the pay scale for a position to an applicant for employment.

They're not allowed to try to find out from someone else, either.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate? This looks like a very throw-away, pithy comment. Edit: Thanks

See my edit.

That's a bit different than "excellence not being rewarded" isn't it? Salaries in general seem to be very non-meritocratic, and there are other ways of compensating exceptional people that don't wind up in the check.

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No thank you. My salary is private. I do not want my family and friends to know how much I make. I also have never told a potential employer my salary. I believe it stopped things from going on to the interview stage but the way they took my refusal made me assume they paid under market rate.

>No thank you. >My salary is private. I do not want my family and friends to know how much I make. But have you thought about why you feel this way? I assume you are American, as am I, and so I understand we've been socialized by our culture to feel this way, but it really makes no sense. It's just a way to harm workers by keeping us from seeing when we're being screwed. I'd even go so far as to wager that this entir…

Yes! We need to know more, so we can make more rules... just a few more rules, and we'll be living in a Utopian society! Right?!

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

It should be private information so long as it's not considerably out of the ordinary (that could easily be a listing requirement established by an exchange). Just as in the case of eg acquisitions, which often will be or must be reported in specific financial terms if they're above a certain size. If an programmer makes $100,000 in a company where programmers regularly earn that, it should not be public information.…

[deleted]

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See my edit.

That's a bit different than "excellence not being rewarded" isn't it? Salaries in general seem to be very non-meritocratic, and there are other ways of compensating exceptional people that don't wind up in the check.

I want money for my work, thank you very much. And if I provide more value to my employer, I expect more money than the guy who provides less.

Yes, it's up to me to make sure I'm getting my fair share. If I'm too insecure to get what I'm worth, that seems like my problem, not anyone else's.

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#287
post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All Americans have a right to privacy. Their reason for privacy doesn't matter and doesn't need to make sense to you. Compensation is an important conversation to make sure a job is a win/win. I think "What would you like to be paid?" is the most relevant question anyway.

> All Americans have a right to privacy. Their reason for privacy doesn't matter and doesn't need to make sense to you. Seeing how the right to privacy is not specifically enshrined, I would argue that the reasons for keeping some things private is very much at the heart of the matter. For instance, why does the government not think the benefits of transparency outweigh the disadvantages when it comes to individual r…

It's not specifically enshrined because it doesn't need to be. It's implied under the bill of rights: "no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law ... nor deny any person the equal protection of the laws," (Amendment 14 Section 1).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> Yes. I don't want to increase my attractiveness regarding a house robbery, as I live well below my means If you live below your means, why would robbers target you? They don't care how much you make, they care what TV you have.

How would the robbers know he lives below his means? All they see is that he's making 2x his neighbors.

And that money could be going to an ex-spouse, paying down debt, etc. It's not like we're making the contents of OPs bank account public.

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it was equally legal for companies to drop you from consideration for a job if you refused. :/

Is this actually happening? After a good interview, qualified employees are being turned away by companies in the later stages of the interview/employment process, simply due to candidates refusing to divulge their current salary? I mean, I'm sure it _has_ happened, not sure if that's a strong argument though.

Impossible to know, because employers are not required to share the reason for dropping candidates from consideration. Candidates would need to speculate about the real reason, but I can tell you with pretty high certainty that it has happened to me at least once.

Re: New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it really makes no sense If you have jealous and spiteful family you might feel differently. Unless you like hearing sob stories or being blamed for other people's problems.

And who doesn't have at least one person like that in their life? Although it definitely wouldn't be limited to just jealous or spiteful family. Public salary information for all people would cause routine problems between friends and family across countless situations and issues over a lifetime. It's a recipe for social disaster.

Tax information, which is both salary and wealth information, is public in Norway since some years now, in electronic form. Media did a bunch of useless posts about celebrities for a while. But apart from that I cannot think of any bad outcomes, certainly not a lot of social disasters.
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