Newsom Signs California Pay Transparency Bill SB 1162 (protocol.com) 128
More pay transparency is coming to California. The Golden State is joining New York City, Colorado, and Washington in requiring employers to disclose pay ranges in job ads. From a report: Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 1162 into law on Tuesday, according to statements from the California Legislative Women's Caucus and the TechEquity Collaborative. Under the law, employers with 15 or more workers will be required to include pay ranges in job postings, and those with 100 or more employees or contractors will have to report median and mean hourly pay rates by job category and "each combination of race, ethnicity, and sex."
"This is a big moment for California workers, especially women and people of color who have long been impacted by systemic inequities that have left them earning far less than their colleagues," said state Sen. Monique Limon (D-Santa Barbara) in a statement. Limon introduced the bill in February. The TechEquity Collaborative's chief programs officer, Samantha Gordon, praised the law in a statement as "an important step in equalizing the playing field for the 1.9 million contractors, temps, vendors, and contingent workers" in California. Companies will have to comply by January 2023.
"This is a big moment for California workers, especially women and people of color who have long been impacted by systemic inequities that have left them earning far less than their colleagues," said state Sen. Monique Limon (D-Santa Barbara) in a statement. Limon introduced the bill in February. The TechEquity Collaborative's chief programs officer, Samantha Gordon, praised the law in a statement as "an important step in equalizing the playing field for the 1.9 million contractors, temps, vendors, and contingent workers" in California. Companies will have to comply by January 2023.
"Pay Range: (Score:2)
From $1 to $100,000,000 depending on experience and success rate".
Re:"Pay Range: (Score:5, Informative)
And then include the median and mean as required.
Re:"Pay Range: (Score:4, Interesting)
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I also don't negotiate. I'll walk away from a job offer or a car dealer if someone tries to make a bad offer. But I won't waste time or play games.
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If you're in no position to walk away from a job offer, you're also in no position to negotiate the price.
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No negotiating (Score:2)
I also don't negotiate. I'll walk away from a job offer or a car dealer if someone tries to make a bad offer. But I won't waste time or play games.
Is traveling to other car dealers less of a waste of time compared to 20 minutes spent negotiating at the first car dealer?
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If the original car dealer wants to hide their "we'll sell at this price" point, then they're willing to hide things that are wrong about the car being sold. A seller wants you to haggle? Let them have someone else as their sucker.
I don't have car sales all figured out, but I do know that that's not how it works. A salesman has no incentive to reveal his break-even point. Why would you expect him to? Altruism? He wants a commission as much as you want a good deal on a car.
Behavioral economists would say you'll feel good (fair) when you split the difference between the lowest amount he'd sell for and the highest amount you'd pay. But deciding how much one would pay or how much one would sell for is actually a complicated analysis. (Th
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There are ways to find out whether you are overpaid or underpaid. Sites like salary.com can help you. Who really cares if the specific company you are applying to, has a lower-than-typical salary range? What matters is, what is your salary expectations based on market conditions. If the company's pay range is too low, move on. If it's too high, one must ask why it's too good to be true.
Re:"Pay Range: (Score:4, Insightful)
>I fail to understand why people are so butt-hurt over this kind of information being made available.
TL;DR - Bad data is worse than no data.
I can understand how you feel, so let me try to explain.
As background, my example is based my own experience where I was compensated close to $1m year while other engineers in my "job and level" were paid the same salary and bonus as I was in the $150-$170k range in the companies "publicly disclosed" gender & minority pay transparency report.
We can probably agree that bad, misleading, or inaccurate data is worse than no data. Right?
A tech company can disclose data that they pay an engineer at level X a range of $125-$150k. They can also disclose that men, women, and minorities are all perfectly equal at that level and in that pay range. Compliance met, law fulfilled. We all feel better. Almost all big tech companies already disclose this information.
Meanwhile, some of those level X employees are given stock & retention stock grants that exceed $800k per year which is NOT required to be disclosed. Most probably deserve the extra compensation, some only receive it because of their "buddy network" (which has always existed and will continue to exist).
End result, the data is worse than nothing - it is factually incorrect and intentionally misleading... The eventual solution will be we will need yet another law and another political donation for yet another election cycle where the slick politician keeps stringing people along with feel-good measures that actually accomplish nothing except ensuring the politician keeps his power grabs moving forward.
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So what you're saying is that the law should be required to disclose total compensation as well? Who wouldn't agree to that?
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Who wouldn't agree to that?
Companies/people who have things to hide. I feel as though that is the largest driver for the pushback against initiatives like this.
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The people who are "overpaid" as compared to their counterparts definitely know it. You don't accidentally get offered a good deal more money than others in your position, you have to hustle for it.
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Re: "Pay Range: (Score:2)
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Re: "Pay Range: (Score:3)
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They will offer you $68k, and claim its so you have room to grow.
Negotiations are a two way street. If you don't like the offer, tell them to kick rocks.
At any time you can also lookup an employee and see what their salary or hourly wages are.
Care to expand on that? I certainly don't have access to such a tool. I guess you could say I did at a prior company. For troubleshooting purposes I had full unfettered access to our accounting software, but I was never dumb enough to go rifling through places I had no business being in.
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I think it's generally a good idea. There are two, related, implicit problems I see with it, however:
1) There is no criteria specified for a) time in position, b) time in career, or c) relative proficiency in said job. You can have 2 individuals with the same position, drastically different responsibilities, and different amounts of experience - and this is going to be more substantial with larger organizations where you might have people with the exact same titles, and very similar position descriptions, w
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The problem is that there are legitimate intangibles that make someone a better fit for a job or promotion or even just simple merit raises. There can still be SIGNIFICANT differences between 2 people who both may be performing 100% of the bare minimums of their job description, but one of them may take every single bit of vacation/sick/PTO/comp time available to them while the other person doesn't and also same with being available for emergencies. I shouldn't have to explain to someone why they are making
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2 people who both may be performing 100% of the bare minimums of their job description
one of them may take every single bit of vacation/sick/PTO/comp time available to them while the other person doesn't
So one of these people performs 100% the same amount of work as a workaholic but they do it in less time and are healthier. I'd take that second one any day.
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Because I'm a fairly private person in general. My personal finances are personal and (at the moment) private. And I prefer them to remain so. Why? Because I'm a fairly private person in general. I have other reasons too. But no other reason should be necessary.
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Just how short was your school bus?
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Re:"Pay Range: (Score:5, Informative)
But that has nothing to do with the fact that they're passing laws like this, because apparently those groups get paid less because they don't know what they're worth, what a job generally pays and how to negotiate their worth.
How would you know your worth unless honest averages are published? You're sitting there with a shit eating grin thinking you really pulled one over on the employer when they could be under paying you.
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Well, unlike years past when you had to really research it....we have this little thing called the "internet" and you can find out pretty much any info on there, including industry salaries across the nation, usually divided up by state.
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So you're arguing against the information being out there...because it's out there. I'm not sure I follow you.
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When employers are able to easily access what other companies are paying for the same positions, what happens to wages?
At best they stabilize, but more often than not they drop. When information isn't immediately available, or there is some variability, it encourages competition and subsequently wages increase.
In truth this is actually a very business-friendly law.
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Just because you saw the average wage for a position, what makes you think you're worth that?
There's a lot people bring to a job besides performing the general duties. There's a lot some people don't bring to a job.
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they are now essentially saying there is one more thing that women and minorities cannot do on their own
That's a load of bullshit and you know it. I'm a little more than sick of you right wing racist fucks saying that the people actually doing something about these problems are the "real racists". Fuck right off with that bullshit. No one is buying it.
First, everyone suffers when we keep salary information like this hidden. Just about every company has a policy that forbids discussing your compensation with coworkers. Why do you think that is?
Second, women and minorities are more often offered compensat
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First, everyone suffers when we keep salary information like this hidden. Just about every company has a policy that forbids discussing your compensation with coworkers. Why do you think that is?
[citation needed]
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Just about every company has a policy that forbids discussing your compensation with coworkers
Technically discussing wages with coworkers is a federally protected right.
Many companies try to obfuscate that right but the rule technically will only say "not in front of customers" or "not on company time" but that is not emphasized. This tactic is used as an anti-union measure.
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Second, women and minorities are more often offered compensation at the lower end of the range than white men. This is a simple fact.
That's not quite true: https://www.shrm.org/resources... [shrm.org] - the direct salary gap basically is within the margin of error (see the third graph). The gender gap persists, though.
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That's a load of bullshit and you know it. I'm a little more than sick of you right wing racist fucks saying that the people actually doing something about these problems are the "real racists". Fuck right off with that bullshit. No one is buying it.
It is wrong to promulgate policy specifically because of the effect you believe it would have on members of specific tribes regardless of how noble you believe such a cause to be.
First, everyone suffers when we keep salary information like this hidden. Just about every company has a policy that forbids discussing your compensation with coworkers. Why do you think that is?
My first guess would be it causes unnecessary animosity. Everyone likes to think they are king shit and deserve to be paid in kind. When what employers perspective of value differs from that of employees view of their own value especially in relation to other employees all you've done is created a tinderbox for avoidable bickerin
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Re:"Pay Range: (Score:5, Informative)
But, this is slashdot, so the unfamiliarity with a woman's point of view is understandable.
As brilliantly illustrated by your entire comment.
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Well, there's this [qz.com] article which starts out with stating basically the same thing I stated... if you can read past the headline.
And my own experience reflects this as well - I'm not saying it's right, or the way things should be, but it's the reason why people are sensitive to salary. Why I was modded troll for simply answering the OP's question remains a mystery to me... maybe people don't want to face reality?!
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Why I was modded troll for simply answering the OP's question remains a mystery to me...
Because your post comes across as a whining Incel. I'm not saying you are, that's just how it comes across.
if you can read past the headline.
One line that caught me, when I read past the headline, "In more gender-unequal nations, such as Turkey, women rate the earning potential of partners as twice as important compared with women in the most gender-equal nations, such as Finland." and this one "The more gender-unequal men’s personal attitudes, the more they prefer qualities in women such as youth and attractiveness;" So basically w
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What 1950s magazine did you crawl out of this morning?
Job title games (Score:1)
I'm sure employers will screw with job titles to get around useful numbers. IT job titles are already convoluted such that doubling the convolution won't be a problem. Many are invented out of managers' asses. And gov't auditors often don't know enough about IT to clamp down.
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literally yesterday i had to pull a new title for myself out of my ass because i had to get a promotion for "reasons", but it couldn't be the normal title (also, of course, for "reasons"). It was announced today. I also apparently got a pay increase. (You could call it a raise, but it's less than inflation over the past year. (and there's no automatic annual adjustment :-/ ) )
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Honestly, that's better than nothing. At least looking at that ad I would know that working for them will probably shit shitty if they can't even give a real pay range and save myself a lot of time.
Sure. Conform and then work around. (Score:3)
"I know you applied for this job with these salary ranges, but rather than fill that post, but we think you might be better suited for this position with these different ranges."
"Oh, that original post? We deemed it redundant and closed it without filling it."
Re: Sure. Conform and then work around. (Score:1)
There are lots of laws you can get around by running your business poorly. Meanwhile everyone with the same job description as the advertised position asks for a raise.
I'm sure there is some slashdotter restaurantour who tried laying off his waitstaff as they entered the bathroom and hiring them on the way out to evade the "Employees must wash hands" tyranny of the woke state.
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If you were in a red state with pro corporates packing the judiciary you could get away wi
Re: Sure. Conform and then work around. (Score:2)
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Each combination? (Score:2)
Each combination of race, ethnicity, and sex? Job ads are going to be HUGE.
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I'm sorry, you forgot to list the median income of your non-binary white Eritrean-Americans.
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The solution: Stop underpaying women and minorities.
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You can't stop what you never started.
The solution to discrimination in wages is not to enforce discrimination.
I expect this to backfire in any of a number of ways. If a court case doesn't take it down immediately then it could trigger all kind of complaints until it does.
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You're going to deny reality? Then fuck off. I don't have time for trash that can't accept basic facts.
Employees should talk about their wages (Score:5, Insightful)
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We want the employee/employer relationship
No, YOU want the relationship to change. There are already tools out there like salary.com, glassdoor.com, various others for the people who want to voluntarily disclose their personal income information for others to see.
What this bill does is effectively dox those people who would rather keep their financial information private. The reasons for that don't matter. It's their business; not mine or yours. I guarantee there is more than enough information disclosed by the mandatory reporting requirement o
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Then no one should be surprised when the end result is that everyone will make the same wage, regardless of performance. Because any other condition will immediately result in every other employee bitching that someone makes more than them and / or threatening to sue, and management ain't dealing with that. Poof! You now all have the same "equity," no matter if you're a complete grind / top contributor or a lazy-ass slacker. That's what you wanted anyway, because merit is really just a myth created by u
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As a fairly friendly person, I happen to know what most of my direct colleagues are paid. I know some incompetent but arrogant people that get paid a lot more than other extremely competent people. It seems people get paid depending on how good they are at convincing HR that they are good. So personally I don't really care about how the pay is decided. It's never gonna be fair - we could make it based on objective factors like 'years of experience' and 'certificates achieved' rather than easily fudged thing
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That's why pay will never by fair, exactly what you said.
Because those people who are just 'good at raising their own flag' could be the lowest performers and will still demand they get more money and that it's not fair and discimrination.
Real world 101, almost everyone feels they are better than everyone else and should be the top, and if they aren't it's not them it's everyone else, discrimination and not fair.
Good luck.
Re:Employees should talk about their wages (Score:4, Interesting)
>Then no one should be surprised when the end result is that everyone will make the same wage, regardless of performance
I would be somewhat surprised at least as that that is not what happens here in Finland at least.
Here you cannot know the salary information in real time, but tax data is open to all. You can and I know many people who do, go to the tax office the next year and look up your coworkers tax information for free, they have specific terminals there for that searching, as they do not want people to do "bot searches" and to spend some effort on it, but searching say 50 co-workers salary information takes way less than an half an hour if you do not want to write each one down separately, but just get the things like a feel for the range and high and lows and similar.
So if you are nosy or feel that you might be slighted you can check easily afterwards, and yet there are meaningful pay differences based on things like performance.
Employer accepts your offer. You bid too low. (Score:5, Insightful)
We want the employee/employer relationship to be as level as possible and this asymmetric knowledge is in some fields the biggest advantage employers have.
Which is why employers push job seekers to reveal their expected salary range. The first side to reveal a range is at a disadvantage in the negotiation.
Car dealership accepts your initial offer. You bid too high.
Employer accepts your initial offer. You bid too low.
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Because, obviously, regular people never ostracize you for your income.
Ouch (Score:3)
This might actually be good for companies, but not for potential employees. Except for maybe your first job.
Tech workers stay on average about two years on a job: https://developerpitstop.com/h... [developerpitstop.com], and then jump ship for a raise. That means you'd eventually push "beyond" these ranges. And recruiters will normally accommodate demands beyond the range. It just needs a simple ask.
It is usually extra bonus, or stock options, not base pay. But still, with this change they might easily say: "nope, unfortunately we cannot give you more, the law binds us". And that means you'd stay at your old job, with a below inflation rate "cost of living adjustment", or try to interview for level+1. And level+1 might not always be as easy.
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And that means you'd stay at your old job, with a below inflation rate "cost of living adjustment", or try to interview for level+1. And level+1 might not always be as easy.
Or you leave California, like so many are already doing.
f#$k head hunters that don't include salary (Score:2)
Then just hire minority women. (Score:1, Insightful)
If minorities and women are getting paid less for the same work then I'd expect companies to hire only minority women and rake in the profits.
This is all a bunch of virtue signalling based on a false premise. Real virtue has a cost associated with it. Virtue signalling costs nothing because it has all the outward appearances of virtue but no real costs attached to acting them out. Newsom can pass this bill because it costs him nothing, he's not the one going to see his business suffer from the out-of-sta
Need professional information for real analysis (Score:2)
We should be treating people based on the content of their character, not the color of their skin. I recall someone pointing that out as an ideal we should all strive to reach. This is a racist and sexist law, and I'd hope to see it struck down for that reason.
Protected class information alone is grossly insufficient for anything other than a political analysis, a gimmick to appeal to the base with. Any solution trying to actually address any social inequalities would have professional information along side the protected class information. Years of relevant experience, level of relevant education, etc. Any professional information that could increase a salary needs to be alongside the protected class info.
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If minorities and women are getting paid less for the same work then I'd expect companies to hire only minority women and rake in the profits
Your expectations are stupid and don't even come close to matching reality. They are undoubtedly being paid less. [americanprogress.org]
Further [census.gov], white alone or in combination makes up a little over 70% of the population. Even if we pick the lower 62% white alone figure (down over 8% since 2010, better panic right wing nuts) that leaves less that 20% of the population as minority women and girls. Children obviously don't work, and many of the remainder will be "white passing", leaving employers an awfully small pool from whi
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Your expectations are stupid and don't even come close to matching reality. They are undoubtedly being paid less.
I'm not claiming there is no pay disparity. I'm pointing out that if hiring minorities and women gets the same output at lower cost then there's a profit incentive to hiring only minority women. Since we aren't seeing companies hiring only minority women dominating the market then there must be value in how the race and sex are proportioned in the workforce. Maybe there are places that hire a disproportionate amount of minorities and women which are raking in disproportionate profits but I suspect such a
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I did the basic math for you. Try harder.
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It is to someone's advantage now to "pass" as a minority.
That's complete bullshit and you know it. No one is clamoring to get less compensation.
Intrusive? (Score:3)
In a company with just 100 employees and a fairly wide range of activities (such as a HW company that designs its own hardware, provides support for that hardware, warehouses and ships their own product, has an IT guy/gal, a lab tech or two, a few managers, etc...), this will quite precisely reveal individual's salaries in many cases.
Why not just publish every employee's salary (like governments in California have to do and third parties publish on web sites) along with race, ethnicity, and sex (gender?). This shouldn't bother anyone who thinks that compensation should be "transparent" and would protect the small employers from having to effectively reveal many individual employee's compensation where big companies don't have to.
Actually, misleading ... (Score:2)
100 or more employees or contractors will have to report median and mean hourly pay rates by job category and "each combination of race, ethnicity, and sex."
Actually its more misleading than intrusive. Where are the years of relevant experience information, where is the highest level of relevant education information, etc? Protected class information alone is grossly insufficient for anything other than a political analysis.
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The simple solution is to just pay everyone fairly, and not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, or ethnicity.
Wage transparency is good for everyone except shitty employers.
it may flatten company hierarchy (Score:3)
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Which is why both the mean and median salaries must be posted as well. There's no way to completely obscure the real salary range without breaking this law.
Oops posted this reply in the wrong place... (Score:2)
Companies won't be as able to hire people as easily because fewer will find the right job for them. Those inefficiencies will become pretty expensive in unexpected ways.
Publishing salaries is the worst (Score:1)
Experience bias? (Score:2)
Are they going to require that these position postings curve based on experience, as well?
Two people can both work as an "Engineer II", one with 2 years of role experience and 5 in their career, and another with 8 and 12, and the pay be drastically different while their jobs are roughly the same.
Once you adjust for time in career and time in position, women tend to make drastically more than men.
Hot take: this will be one of the first things to become readily apparent to the public.
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That's what I want too. if an ethnic group / sex has more experience and more credentials, but gets paid less than others in that role, it will be nearly impossible for a company to back peddle on the results.
It's also carries a risk of people making crap out being outed, so it's a win win in my book.
Race Doctors jobs program (Score:2)
>"each combination of race, ethnicity, and sex."
So this is a jobs program for race doctors, who will have to sit down and try to figure out averages for every permutation available. Which incidentally is going to be far more than you have people as it requires to break all people based on three separate categories all of which have several possible answers, and grow exponentially with every additional person in the work pool. So more jobs for race doctors.
Meritocracy (Score:1)
Okay, this is good, it's going to catch some people discriminating against people.
While you're at it, let's make sure people aren't more equal than others. I want you also to provide the average experience and education / certifications per ethnic background as well.
That way we'll catch companies dead to rights, when you see a specific ethnic background that has more valid credentials, and years of experience in a role, and gets paid less than other people with less credentials and experience in the role. T
Not all it's cracked up to be (Score:2)
Having worked at a public institution that posted all salary ranges, it typically goes something like this:
"Wanted: programmer ($40,000 to $80,000)"
Management is thinking 40k or maybe as high as 42k while the applicants are thinking 75k.
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Having worked at a public institution that posted all salary ranges, it typically goes something like this:
"Wanted: programmer ($40,000 to $80,000)"
Management is thinking 40k or maybe as high as 42k while the applicants are thinking 75k.
In my Canadian province, all public sector pay over 50K/yr are published publicly each year. My wages as a city IT employee were posted each year - not just the range for the job description but our actual income - online for all to see. I see what all my coworkers make. I know the mayor is not the highest paid, the police chief and COO make more. I also see what provincial employees make. I see what doctors (in our public health care system) bill the government. If tax dollars are involved we have ex
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another benefit of this, for contractors (Score:2)
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Are women and people of color somehow less capable than, say, white men in negotiating their wages?
What else will these idiot politicians decide women and people of color are incapable of?
If only mental gymnastics could be awarded.
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Are women and people of color somehow less capable than, say, white men in negotiating their wages?
It is not a matter of them being less capable, it's that they face additional obstacles that white men simply do not face when negotiating compensation. Women, for example are often unfairly perceived as "bitchy" or "unreasonable" when they stand up for themselves, this is in addition to being unfairly perceived as less capable than equally qualified men. Racial stereotypes can also unfairly impact people's perceptions, often negatively, which automatically puts them in a weaker position.
You know this, bu
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This may come as a bit of a shock to you, but businesses aren't just owned by white men. In fact, I'd hazard a guess that most are not.
Strangely it seems it's the democrats who are so hyper focused on race and sex when it comes to employment, most business owners really only care about finding the best candidates regardless of their sex and/or skin color.
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Reality begs to differ. It's not just white people [racialequitytools.org] that are subject to those biases, you disgusting racist shitstain.
Like I said, fuck off with your racist right wing bullshit. No one is buying it.
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Equity is equality of outcome regardless of input. Equity is racist, because it means that if someone is a black woman, she'll get paid the same for doing a worse job or doing less than a white man.
Equality of opportunity, the thing being talked about here on the other hand means that if you do worse at something or do less of something, even if you're a black woman, you get less in return.
You provided a link to a set of "racial equity tools". Something that actively promotes racism on the fucking sticker.
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I'm actually kinda surprised he refrained from calling me a fascist too, lol.
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And now that you're done telling us you know nothing on the subject, sit down and actually read what authors of papers on "equity" say what they mean by it. They mean equality of outcome regardless of merit. In fact, one of the defining features of equity scholarship is that they define merit itself as a fundamentally evil or in their modern marxist lingvo that seeks to conflate everything they see as bad with white people, "white" concept.
Hence the solution of equity, ignoring merit and deciding outcome fr
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Bad actors would totally weaponize that. Big corps would be fine. Their armies of lawyers will create processes and boiler plate written reasons to reject candidates that satisfy the law. Small businesses without full-time lawyers will lack the expertise to protect themselves and would be targeted by bad actors who are willing to settle instead of go to court.