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posted by martyb on Friday January 26 2018, @04:24PM   Printer-friendly
from the shift-in-the-balance-of-power dept.

Here in California, our government has passed a strange new law.

Although intended to force employers to stop offering different pay rates to men and women, the new law has the strange side effect of forcing recruiters to play fair - and recruiters aren't liking it. The law also forbids asking candidates for their prior compensation history. Again, recruiters and hiring managers aren't liking the new shift in the balance of power:

Assembly Bill No. 168
SECTION 1. Section 432.3 is added to the Labor Code, to read:

432.3. (a) An employer shall not rely on the salary history information of an applicant for employment as a factor in determining whether to offer employment to an applicant or what salary to offer an applicant.

(b) An employer shall not, orally or in writing, personally or through an agent, seek salary history information, including compensation and benefits, about an applicant for employment.

(c) An employer, upon reasonable request, shall provide the pay scale for a position to an applicant applying for employment.

(d) Section 433 does not apply to this section.

(e) This section shall not apply to salary history information disclosable to the public pursuant to federal or state law, including the California Public Records Act (Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 6250) of Division 7 of Title 1 of the Government Code) or the federal Freedom of Information Act (Section 552 of Title 5 of the United States Code).

(f) This section applies to all employers, including state and local government employers and the Legislature.

(g) Nothing in this section shall prohibit an applicant from voluntarily and without prompting disclosing salary history information to a prospective employer.

(h) If an applicant voluntarily and without prompting discloses salary history information to a prospective employer, nothing in this section shall prohibit that employer from considering or relying on that voluntarily disclosed salary history information in determining the salary for that applicant.

(i) Consistent with Section 1197.5, nothing in this section shall be construed to allow prior salary, by itself, to justify any disparity in compensation.

(emphasis added)

To drive salaries and wages down, Silicon Valley has for many years outsourced their recruiting efforts to other states, where the cost of living is much lower and recruiting agency employees were less likely to respect the inevitable protests from candidates over the low wages being offered, because the wages being offered were comparable to the wages being offered in the state where the recruiter was located.

Now Silicon Valley's employers have the unpleasant duty of educating their remote, far-flung, outsourced networks of workers of the new law.

If you're a job-seeker, here in California, how has this new law affected your ability to seek employment and your experience with recruiters?

If you're a recruiter - inside or outside California - how is this affecting your business? How are you treating candidates who inform you of this new law?

If you're a hiring manager, are you informing recruiters of this law? Are they informing you of this law?

Violation of the law is a misdemeanor.

The California Legislature is interested in receiving feedback from employees and candidates, also.

Obviously, the Legislature has already heard, and is hearing, from employers. But they need to hear BOTH sides in order to make (and defend) their decisions.

It's tempting to badmouth the California Legislature - but I was pleasantly surprised to discover legislative information was available, via Archie (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_search_engine), from the leginfo.legislature.ca.gov website, two decades ago.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @07:28PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @07:28PM (#628442)

    Got it.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @07:36PM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @07:36PM (#628449)

    A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent.[1] One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man".

    I was directly refuting the appeal to science, there is no straw man. Some people may be swayed by crap like: "Sentience is the question How should this or that resource be allocated? There was economics before humans." It is still crap, conflating a human construct with physics in the most basic way in an appeal to authority, "It is SCIENCE therefore I am right!!"

    It is sad, you are sad, take a decade to get some real experience and wisdom. You sound like some college kid trying to push your personal "revelations" on the world without realizing your own limitations. Woops, I assumed that you're the AC making the argument, but still feels like a safe bet as who would bother to call out my response repeatedly? lol

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @08:18PM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @08:18PM (#628483)

      Why can you make a statement like "Humans developed society before economics."?

      That is in dispute; you have not defended that statement, while the other AC has built a much richer and more fundamental framework for discussing it.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @08:33PM (4 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @08:33PM (#628499)

        Incorrect. Economics is a modern construct and humanity. There are currently still tribes of humans that have no conception of money or private property. That you cling to the idea that economics is some base function of the universe is weird. As to how I can make such a statement, it is because I have a brain and learned a bit about human history. Comparing the incredibly convoluted modern human economics system to any sort of reductionist framework is a dumb exercise. Our current economy includes lots of quirky mechanisms, and a good portion of the economy is literally based on faith. Faith that the value will remain stable. The greedy actions of one individual can literally topple small nations, so unless you want to bring God into your "fundamental framework" then get a freakin clue!

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @09:23PM (3 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @09:23PM (#628537)

          The AC isn't endorsing or basing his argument on what you seem to be calling humans' "current" "economic system".

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @09:36PM (2 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @09:36PM (#628543)

            And how would you know what the OTHER AC is endorsing? Or that it is a he? Could you and he be THE SAME PERSON??? wooo wee wooo weee ooooo

            "current" "economic system"

            extra quotes why? actually, why any quotes? I think you are just incapable of admitting when you're wrong and you'll have to do more than give opinions full of holes.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @10:05PM (1 child)

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @10:05PM (#628575)

              Only special, precious, or exotic things (such as boats, or females) are referenced with feminine forms; the word "he" is neutral, and says nothing about gender.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @10:22PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @10:22PM (#628585)

                I get it already, you're working on your journalism degree and this is your master's project; examining a real world experiment in online trolling. Nice choice, you get to have fun trolling a forum while billing it as authentic research. *clap clap*