10 ms·

Are all employers corporations? And even as such, this is just outlawing information. I do not understand how so many on the left support such a measure. It's

by lend000 10y ago

Are all employers corporations? And even as such, this is just outlawing information. I do not understand how so many on the left support such a measure. It's a question -- outlawing questions, especially between private parties in a consensual relationship (applicant and employer), is backwards. You can choose not to answer it; you can lie; you can choose not to work for employers that ask the question in the first place, especially if they coerce you into providing records. This will just undermine the efforts of companies that have differentiated themselves with noninvasive hiring practices and set them back on the same playing field as less scrupulous employers. Why is free choice so difficult to understand?

adidalal 10y ago
Because
tabeth 10y ago
> You can choose not to answer it; you can lie; you can choose not to work for employers that ask the question in the first place, especially if they coerce you into providing records. >> you can choose not to work for employers that ask the question in the first place >>> you can choose not to work And here is the disconnect. Not everyone has the ability to simply "choose not to work...". Hence, laws. Your reasoning could be applied to simply working in general. After all, one can just choose not to work until they find a job that meets all of their criteria (salary, vacation time, commute, great people, great mission, etc). Unfortunately, life doesn't work like that.
- dsfyu404ed 10y ago
  The (typically salaried) people that get to negotiate their pay that this stuff affects do have those choices.
- lend000 10y ago
  Not that I agree with the logical leaps here, but you skipped a step: > you can choose not to work for employers You don't have to work for any particular employer, and you also don't have to work for any employer at all. You can consult, contract, start a company, etc. But of course this is not necessary even if you're basing your entire career around avoiding that question, because it's not like every single employer asks it.
  - tabeth 10y ago
    I skipped that step because it leads to the same conclusion. Or do you think a regular person in this country is capable of consulting, contracting, starting a company, etc?
    - lend000 10y ago
      Contracting? Yes... Starting a company? Sure. There sure are a lot of restaurants, food trucks, and dry cleaners out there. Although it's not easy with all the legal barriers to entry created by well-intentioned regulators like yourself :) This is a tangent, but the whole nanny-state ideology advocated by many of the people arguing with me here is the reason people are so dependent on employers instead of having freedom to easily create their own enterprises. But this is not necessary regardless, as I addressed in my previous closing statement. Edit: curious if HN users are downvoting based on opinion versus content. Feels a bit like a hive mind whenever I post against a generally left-leaning argument.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - coolgeek 10y ago
        Contracting and consulting is a legal/economic framework for shifting the risk/reward ratio from the entity purchasing services to the entity providing the services. It does nothing to change the market of service purchasers in any way. As such, if you had problems as an employee with the pool of service purchasers, you're going to have those same problems as a vendor of services. > Although [starting a business] is not easy with all the legal barriers to entry created by well-intentioned regulators like yourself :) Because that's the hard part of a successful business?
michaelmrose 10y ago
If one group in a negotiation has near all the power sometimes society benefits from negotiating on behalf of the one with none.
- lend000 10y ago
  Hiring the right person is more difficult than you may think, if you've never had the misfortune of doing it yourself. Only a minority of well-known tech companies have an endless supply of talent knocking on their door-steps, and coincidentally, they tend to have above average hiring practices (Google, for example).
ch4s3 10y ago
Probably because there is a very large disparity in power and information. A few points: 1. You will always need the job more than Comcast will need you (unless you're unusually skilled, most workers aren't) 2. Comcast knows how much the pay every one of their employees, you the job seeker do not. 3. Comcast is only asking so they can figure out the lowest pay you'll accept. You have no way to figure out how high they are willing to go, so you start out at a disadvantage. 4. Limiting a company's ability to ask intrusive questions in no way impinges on individual liberty, you are not a company, and a company is not a person. 5. If you choose to not answer, they likely will not hire you, if you lie and they find out, they will likely fire you. If they lie the you about the pay range and you accept, you have no recourse but to quit if you catch them in that lie, which brings us back to point #1.
- TheSageMage 10y ago
  I think all your other points are good, but a response to #4. I think one issue might be that it's ambiguous to enforce. If implemented, could an employer not rephrase the question: "How much would you like to get paid?" and still get away with the same discrimination? Is the final solution here a race to the bottom to normalize wages to prevent perceived discrimination based on non-quantifiable metrics?
  - literallycancer 10y ago
    "As much as possible."
  - jimbokun 10y ago
    "How much would you like to get paid" pretty much has to be asked and answered at some point if there is going Robb's an employment relationship. "How much did you make previously" does not.
  - crdoconnor 10y ago
    >If implemented, could an employer not rephrase the question: "How much would you like to get paid?" and still get away with the same discrimination? That's not rephrasing the question. That's a completely different question.
harmegido 10y ago
For myself, these sorts of libertarian arguments seem very similar to the concepts presented in Econ 101. They are very logical, consistent, and compelling. They also rely on a ton of assumptions that do not hold up in the real world.
hackuser 10y ago
The principles you raise require a relationship where parties have relatively equal power. For example, if the CEO of a Fortune 500 company pushes a janitor for sex, you can say the janitor has the "free choice" to deny the CEO, but that's not really the case. If a high-profile coach tells one of their team members to do something inappropriate, the college kid has the 'free choice' to say no, but not really. This rule is actually the law; the validity of contracts depends in part on the relative power of the parties who negotiated it. A bank can negotiate a contract with a naive person which sells the bank all the the person's possessions for $1, but no court will enforce it.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
pasquinelli 10y ago
sure, i agree, so in the spirit of free exchange of information, let's require employers to list their salary range in all job listings, and let's require employers to give salary statistics to prospective employees before salary negotiations. if an employer doesn't want to disclose that information, then they are free to not hire anyone.
- lend000 10y ago
  Coercion is not freedom my friend -- anything with the word "Require" is a safe bet to be a confused argument for freedom. But this would be a moot point regardless, because: https://www.glassdoor.com/index.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/index.htm
  - vertex-four 10y ago
    A functioning free market depends on getting as close to perfect information as you can get. You can either have a functioning free market, or freedom to hide information.
literallycancer 10y ago
Do you think the employer should be able to ask about your heritage then? Whether you have any grandparents of ethnicity X? How long ago did your ancestors arrive in the country? >you can choose not to work for employers that ask the question in the first place You can choose that, but not everyone can. That's the issue here, most people on HN never even encounter the problem, but they are definitely not the average employee.
wnevets 10y ago
how is it different than a company asking someone's sexual orientation, religion, etc during an interview?
crdoconnor 10y ago
>this is just outlawing information. So is intellectual property. We live in a world where information is routinely outlawed. Some of us are used to it. >outlawing questions, especially between private parties in a consensual relationship (applicant and employer), is backwards It would be a consensual relationship if there were some sort of basic income that were enough to live on with dignity. It's an article of libertarian faith that the employer/employee relationship is an equal and consensual one, and an easily disprovable one at that: try living with debt, no savings and no job for 5 years.

by lend000 10y ago

adidalal 10y ago

Because

tabeth 10y ago

> You can choose not to answer it; you can lie; you can choose not to work for employers that ask the question in the first place, especially if they coerce you into providing records. >> you can choose not to work for employers that ask the question in the first place >>> you can choose not to work And here is the disconnect. Not everyone has the ability to simply "choose not to work...". Hence, laws. Your reasoning could be applied to simply working in general. After all, one can just choose not to work until they find a job that meets all of their criteria (salary, vacation time, commute, great people, great mission, etc). Unfortunately, life doesn't work like that.

dsfyu404ed 10y ago
The (typically salaried) people that get to negotiate their pay that this stuff affects do have those choices.
lend000 10y ago
Not that I agree with the logical leaps here, but you skipped a step: > you can choose not to work for employers You don't have to work for any particular employer, and you also don't have to work for any employer at all. You can consult, contract, start a company, etc. But of course this is not necessary even if you're basing your entire career around avoiding that question, because it's not like every single employer asks it.
- tabeth 10y ago
  I skipped that step because it leads to the same conclusion. Or do you think a regular person in this country is capable of consulting, contracting, starting a company, etc?
  - lend000 10y ago
    Contracting? Yes... Starting a company? Sure. There sure are a lot of restaurants, food trucks, and dry cleaners out there. Although it's not easy with all the legal barriers to entry created by well-intentioned regulators like yourself :) This is a tangent, but the whole nanny-state ideology advocated by many of the people arguing with me here is the reason people are so dependent on employers instead of having freedom to easily create their own enterprises. But this is not necessary regardless, as I addressed in my previous closing statement. Edit: curious if HN users are downvoting based on opinion versus content. Feels a bit like a hive mind whenever I post against a generally left-leaning argument.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - coolgeek 10y ago
      Contracting and consulting is a legal/economic framework for shifting the risk/reward ratio from the entity purchasing services to the entity providing the services. It does nothing to change the market of service purchasers in any way. As such, if you had problems as an employee with the pool of service purchasers, you're going to have those same problems as a vendor of services. > Although [starting a business] is not easy with all the legal barriers to entry created by well-intentioned regulators like yourself :) Because that's the hard part of a successful business?

michaelmrose 10y ago

If one group in a negotiation has near all the power sometimes society benefits from negotiating on behalf of the one with none.

lend000 10y ago
Hiring the right person is more difficult than you may think, if you've never had the misfortune of doing it yourself. Only a minority of well-known tech companies have an endless supply of talent knocking on their door-steps, and coincidentally, they tend to have above average hiring practices (Google, for example).

ch4s3 10y ago

Probably because there is a very large disparity in power and information. A few points: 1. You will always need the job more than Comcast will need you (unless you're unusually skilled, most workers aren't) 2. Comcast knows how much the pay every one of their employees, you the job seeker do not. 3. Comcast is only asking so they can figure out the lowest pay you'll accept. You have no way to figure out how high they are willing to go, so you start out at a disadvantage. 4. Limiting a company's ability to ask intrusive questions in no way impinges on individual liberty, you are not a company, and a company is not a person. 5. If you choose to not answer, they likely will not hire you, if you lie and they find out, they will likely fire you. If they lie the you about the pay range and you accept, you have no recourse but to quit if you catch them in that lie, which brings us back to point #1.

TheSageMage 10y ago
I think all your other points are good, but a response to #4. I think one issue might be that it's ambiguous to enforce. If implemented, could an employer not rephrase the question: "How much would you like to get paid?" and still get away with the same discrimination? Is the final solution here a race to the bottom to normalize wages to prevent perceived discrimination based on non-quantifiable metrics?
- literallycancer 10y ago
  "As much as possible."
- jimbokun 10y ago
  "How much would you like to get paid" pretty much has to be asked and answered at some point if there is going Robb's an employment relationship. "How much did you make previously" does not.
- crdoconnor 10y ago
  >If implemented, could an employer not rephrase the question: "How much would you like to get paid?" and still get away with the same discrimination? That's not rephrasing the question. That's a completely different question.

harmegido 10y ago

For myself, these sorts of libertarian arguments seem very similar to the concepts presented in Econ 101. They are very logical, consistent, and compelling. They also rely on a ton of assumptions that do not hold up in the real world.

hackuser 10y ago

The principles you raise require a relationship where parties have relatively equal power. For example, if the CEO of a Fortune 500 company pushes a janitor for sex, you can say the janitor has the "free choice" to deny the CEO, but that's not really the case. If a high-profile coach tells one of their team members to do something inappropriate, the college kid has the 'free choice' to say no, but not really. This rule is actually the law; the validity of contracts depends in part on the relative power of the parties who negotiated it. A bank can negotiate a contract with a naive person which sells the bank all the the person's possessions for $1, but no court will enforce it.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

pasquinelli 10y ago

sure, i agree, so in the spirit of free exchange of information, let's require employers to list their salary range in all job listings, and let's require employers to give salary statistics to prospective employees before salary negotiations. if an employer doesn't want to disclose that information, then they are free to not hire anyone.

lend000 10y ago
Coercion is not freedom my friend -- anything with the word "Require" is a safe bet to be a confused argument for freedom. But this would be a moot point regardless, because: https://www.glassdoor.com/index.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/index.htm
- vertex-four 10y ago
  A functioning free market depends on getting as close to perfect information as you can get. You can either have a functioning free market, or freedom to hide information.

literallycancer 10y ago

Do you think the employer should be able to ask about your heritage then? Whether you have any grandparents of ethnicity X? How long ago did your ancestors arrive in the country? >you can choose not to work for employers that ask the question in the first place You can choose that, but not everyone can. That's the issue here, most people on HN never even encounter the problem, but they are definitely not the average employee.

wnevets 10y ago

how is it different than a company asking someone's sexual orientation, religion, etc during an interview?

crdoconnor 10y ago

>this is just outlawing information. So is intellectual property. We live in a world where information is routinely outlawed. Some of us are used to it. >outlawing questions, especially between private parties in a consensual relationship (applicant and employer), is backwards It would be a consensual relationship if there were some sort of basic income that were enough to live on with dignity. It's an article of libertarian faith that the employer/employee relationship is an equal and consensual one, and an easily disprovable one at that: try living with debt, no savings and no job for 5 years.