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The meat is page 5 under "The changes the proposal would bring". Highlights: * Job-seekers would have a right to information about the pay range of posts they

The meat is page 5 under "The changes the proposal would bring". Highlights: * Job-seekers would have a right to information about the pay range of posts they apply for * Employers would be prohibited from asking about an applicant's pay history * Employees would have a right to ask their employer for sex-disaggregated information on the average pay of other workers doing the same work or work of equal value. * Employers with at least 250 employees would have to report on their gender pay gap and carry out a pay assessment if the gap exceeds 5 % and cannot be justified. * Compensation would be available to victims of pay discrimination, with the burden of proof placed on the employer and sanctions for infringements of the equal pay rule.

mustyoshi 5y ago
How does making salary public and not asking about applicants pay history work? If you tell them your title and employer, can't they just look up what you probably got paid?
- the_lonely_road 5y ago
  I don't believe salaries are public but instead salary ranges alongside job postings. Someone please correct me if I am wrong as the former would be a much more valuable tool for labor. Under the latter the range for SWE could be 40-80K and so a new employer could possibly find that job posting from around the time you say you were hired but still shouldn't have any idea if you were making the 40k or closer to the 80k. I believe this is intended to curb the market behavior of offering someone a pay you think they will accept rather than offering to pay based on the value of a role. Turning the difference between those two numbers into cream for upper management to butter their bread is the status quo in America at the very least and likely in all of the western world, but leads to systemic discrimination amongst protected groups with weaker negotiating power.
- DharmaPolice 5y ago
  You would only know what a new starter might be offered, not what someone actually received after a period of time. I don't think the problem is organisations basing salaries on what other employers are offering (that's just market testing) but choosing to pay an individual person more or less based on what they personally managed to negotiate elsewhere. If I'm buddies with my department head and I get an extra $10k because of that, why should other employers replicate that when I move companies? (Note : I don't really agree with this as it's relying on salary secrecy but I think that's the logic.)
- tpm 5y ago
  No. Individual personal salary is private information protected by law (at least in our country). Starting salary range in job offers is public, that's not enugh information.
  - Hamuko 5y ago
    Salaries might be private here, but taxes sure aren't. A recruiter could feasibly walk into the local tax office and ask to see my taxable income for 2020.
    - FredPret 5y ago
      That’s wild, I can’t believe it. Where is this if you don’t mind me asking?
      - Hamuko 5y ago
        Finland. https://www.vero.fi/en/About-us/finnish-tax-administration/data-security-and-information-access/public-information-on-taxes/public-information-on-individual-income-taxes/ https://www.vero.fi/en/About-us/finnish-tax-administration/d...
      - mellavora 5y ago
        also true in Sweden
    - tpm 5y ago
      Interesting. Taxes and incomes are private in Slovakia for private persons whether they are employed or self-employed or whatever (unless they are a judge or a politician). They are only public for companies.
- alistairSH 5y ago
  In the US (I realize the article is about EU), salary information for a given individual is not public* and employers typically will not share it (when queried by a prospective employer, they will only confirm employment history - "yes, Bob worked here for 5 years as a developer"). Several states have implemented similar rules (CO and CA, IIRC). A job listing would typically list either a minimum salary or range for a position. "Senior Developer, $120,000-$150,000" or whatever. Two upsides to this approach... First, an employee is not limited by their current salary - they can negotiate on their value. Second, it's widely accepted that women and minorities tend to be less aggressive salary negotiators. Those two things together, applied over a career, can make a massive reduction in lifetime earnings for employees. * Government jobs are the big exception - you can search for most university salaries because most receive government funding. Same for local government offices.
  - lesuorac 5y ago
    Eh, salary information isn't posted in a newspaper but if your company has a subscription to Equifax they can look it up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_Number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_Number
- tibbetts 5y ago
  Large employers already subscribe to services which tell them what you likely got paid at your last job by geo/title/seniority/tenure.
  - runnerup 5y ago
    And sometimes exactly what you got paid. Actual data from your own paystubs is often for sale as well.
- jsmcgd 5y ago
  I wonder if this will be one of the unintended (intended?) consequences? Normally the best way to get a pay increase is to apply for jobs that pay a lot more. Previously you could apply for a job that paid much more than your current role. Your new employer might assume that you were on something similar or a little bit less. Now employers will be able to see what you were paid previously and will probably not offer much of a pay increase, or you'll have to have a really good reason why you think your salary should be doubled.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  Yes, but they wouldn't get an exact figure because it's a range. Anyway it doesn't really matter; you apply for a job, if you don't meet the criteria, that's fine. But if you DO meet the criteria but pay you a little more than your previous job, but less than others with the same job, that's going to be tackled by this legislation. The best they can do is that instead of underpaying you, they will say "You did not pass the interview process for this job".
0xedd 5y ago
despite pay gap shown time and time again to be fiction, government monkeys are still dancing to that out of key tune.
- boomskats 5y ago
  Any external references to back up your 'pay gap shown time[0] and time again[1] to be fiction' claim? FYI I had to read your comment a few times to try to pick out what you're trying to say without getting distracted by the gratuitous vitriol. It might make you feel better but it's not an effective means of actual communication. [0]: ? [1]: ?
  - simonh 5y ago
    It's not fiction, that's hyperbole, but there are factors other than gender by itself that accounts for a lot of the remaining disparity between men and women's pay. Taking a career break to have children, historical 'steering' of women away from STEM subjects in education, some apparent natural tendency for many women to avoid such subjects even when they have a free choice, a tendency for women to not challenge their compensation or push for raises compared to men, women's tendency to avoid overtime compared to men which can affect their advancement prospects. There are a lot of factors that come down to personal choice, and women often make different choices from men. Nevertheless even controlling for all this there is a remaining gap of a few percent at least, which varies greatly depending on the industrial sector and also by region. Since this thread is about the EU, it's reverent to point out that the gap is particularly high in some EU countries. https://www.epi.org/publication/what-is-the-gender-pay-gap-and-is-it-real/ https://www.epi.org/publication/what-is-the-gender-pay-gap-a...
    - gjulianm 5y ago
      > Taking a career break to have children, historical 'steering' of women away from STEM subjects in education, some apparent natural tendency for many women to avoid such subjects even when they have a free choice, a tendency for women to not challenge their compensation or push for raises compared to men, women's tendency to avoid overtime compared to men which can affect their advancement prospects. I mean, all of those are heavily related to gender. And while you can frame them as "personal choice", that's only useful when analyzing an individual. When a significant part of the women make these choices that hurt their salaries and work prospects, one maybe should think about how society is influencing those choices, and turns out the vector is gender.
tialaramex 5y ago
> Employers would be prohibited from asking about an applicant's pay history Aw, that was one of the fun moments when getting my current job. I moved from private sector to public sector and they're like "You understand that the previous pay you listed is more than our boss's boss, the director of our entire org unit gets paid right?". Yes, yes I do. Which is why when you asked at interview "Why do you want this role?" I didn't say "Because I would like to get rich". But overall this seems like a good idea. Pay transparency is a known good strategy. I remember years ago working for a huge international corporation I asked about pay transparency at one of those bogus "Ask us anything" board events and the CEO answered and he's like, "My pay is a matter of public record because that's the law here" and I'm like "Yes, and it's fine, you can see that now so why not the same for everybody else?" and of course he just deflected. How "inability to give a straight answer on anything" and "refusal to make any meaningful decisions" came to be considered good leadership traits is a mystery to me, but I do know how much it pays so that's nice.
- dijonman2 5y ago
  The reality is that not everyone brings equal value to an org. Some are rockstars and others are meh. It’s natural, and you should be incentivized to improve.
  - iso1631 5y ago
    The reality is I spend time applying for a job which claims a "competitive" salary for a "network architect", and eventually find it's in the 35-45k range "depending on skills" Those companies then run off to government saying "we can't employ anyone" Fortunately more and more job listings on linked in are listing ballpark salaries so it's easy to ignore them, there's a few coming up which are reasonable salaries for what they want too IMO, so that's good.
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      I get why employer's tendency is to withhold pay information. But ultimately, it's a waste of my time and their time if we're not close enough. So disclosure seems win/win.
hughrr 5y ago
I rather liked it when employers asked about pay history because I used to lie about it. I managed to double my salary in two job jumps!
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  You are lucky they did not use equifaxs https://theworknumber.com/ https://theworknumber.com/ to get your salary info. Or maybe they did and your salary info wasn’t there. Many of my employers have reported my salary to that database without my consent. It is easy to obtain. There was an article on HN about it within the last month.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    How does a company participate in this system? Are there headcount/turnover/etc requirements? What prevents someone from setting up companies that claim to employ anyone (you can "apply" for a nominal fee online and you get "hired" immediately and your chosen salary figure gets sent to these assholes)?
    - sgerenser 5y ago
      I think it’s difficult unless your company uses a big payroll processor like ADP or Paychex, who in turn report to TheWorkNumber. Faking payroll through one of those companies probably wouldn’t be worth the effort and you’d be setting yourself up for tax issues.
    - mywittyname 5y ago
      Most payroll companies support the integration. So step 1 is probably pay for an expensive payroll platform. They are going to have meta data for the fake company, so your $2MM salary is coming from a 1-10 person company with no website or anything might be suspect.
  - wing-_-nuts 5y ago
    This is why I redirect the question to my comp requirements, instead of my pay history. Any company that absolutely insists on salary history is not one I will work for anyway.
tomp 5y ago
Transparency is good, but what about freedom of choice, to enable individuals to act on that information? Ideal would be outlawing non-competes.
- ATsch 5y ago
  They are already effectively outlawed in most of the EU. E.g. in Germany, you must be paid at least 50% of your current salary while the clause is active, for a maximum of two years and "unreasonably broad" clauses are invalid.
  - tomp 5y ago
    If by “effectively outlawed” you mean “not effectively outlawed at all”, then yes, sure. How many people can survive for 2 years on 50% lower salary? In addition, the biggest impediment of non-competes is actually the inflexibility (“your job offer sounds amazing, I’ll start working in 18-24 months!”).
    - throwawayben 5y ago
      The point is that will very very rarely happen because how many companies are actually going to pay that much to stop you working at a competitor? And if they ARE willing to do it, then you probably held a very high status job there and so 50% will still be a lot.
    - Bayart 5y ago
      The assumption is that a job that would incentivize non-competes would be so well paid that 50% would still be comfortable, isn't it ?
      - tomp 5y ago
        From my experience working in finance in London, no. Good salary? Sure! Able to live comfortably with 50% salary (when rent is 30-50% of take-home pay)? Zero chance. In practice the biggest impediment to even longer non-competes is legal risk; the tiny chance of an employee challenging the non-compete in court and the court ruling unreasonable or overly broad, would result in all other employees knowing their non-competes are effectively void.
ensignavenger 5y ago
What I could not find in the document is how it defines 'equal work' and 'equal value'?
- aembleton 5y ago
  Its a job for lawyers.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  Job title -> pay range. If you do work that does not match your job title (or job description) and your boss refuses to acknowledge it, I'm confident there's existing legal pathways to deal with it - with the help of unions if need be.
  - dahfizz 5y ago
    What about flat companies? At my current company, everyone is simply a software engineer and you are paid based on your value. Everyone seems happy with the arrangement.
    - ncpa-cpl 5y ago
      > What about flat companies? I also work in a flat company. Actually some weeks ago, one of my colleagues was applying to a new credit card. So the bank called our HR team to very a colleague's salary. I ended up taking the call due to a mishap on the phone system. So they needed to double check her salary, because she had mentioned 50% raise but no change in her job title. So I had to explain that's the way our company is.
    - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
      Same problem here... small company, everybody does everything, same title, but different hours and output. I guess we'll have to think of unique position names for everybody
- trashtester 5y ago
  Pretty sure the wording is intentially fuzzy, so the special interest groups can add the meaning after it becomes law. I would expect them to push for a Marxist view on "value" of work, basically each hour is of equal value, but where you adjust for number of years of formal education, again where the type of eduction is not important. A developer with a MSc from a top college may be compared to someone with an MSc/MA in Sociology, working in the HR department, for instance. The key alternative is to gauge value based on market demand, but where I live (Northern Europe), those who advocate "equal pay for work of equal value" don't seem to go for that. Instead, they claim that nurses and engineers should have the same salary, as the length of their education is different, at least for people employed by the public.
gigatexal 5y ago
I love this. This is amazing. This is going to make salary negotiations a bit more transparent.
ksec 5y ago
>* Employers would be prohibited from asking about an applicant's pay history Would they be able to contact previous employer for this information. One of the thing I really hate is the amount of leverage your previous employer has over you.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  That is the only good bullet point in my opinion. Otherwise I don't see the positives. It would probably lead to pay depression in any case.
Gareth321 5y ago
>Employees would have a right to ask their employer for sex-disaggregated information on the average pay of other workers doing the same work or work of equal value. This is literally impossible in anything other than rote manual labour. Even then, I'm not convinced this is possible.
- mhoad 5y ago
  I don’t know this sounds like it maps to a SQL query to me assuming you use consistent job titles and possibly the concept of “grades” e.g Level 1 Software Engineer
  - Gareth321 5y ago
    I'm glad you related it to my industry because I can assure you that not every L3 in Google contributes the same value to the company. They have vastly different backgrounds, education, experience, and aptitudes. Some are willing to work 80 hour weeks. Some aren't. Some are very skilled in technologies which aren't in-demand and don't currently generate a lot of value for Google. Some work on projects which generate a lot of value for Google. Some have excellent qualifications but little experience. Some have lots of experience but no qualifications. Some are extroverts and some are introverts. Some are great at communicating their thoughts and ideas. Some aren't. Some are grumpy and surly. Some are super friendly. There are thousands and thousands of ways in which an L3 is not the same as another L3, and I promise you, no two L3s generate exactly the same value to Google.
    - mhoad 5y ago
      As I said in another comment though surely this is the precise reason for bonus structures no? Where you as the business owner / operator can both reward the above and beyond efforts and try to incentivise more of it in the future.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  Err, no it's not, big engineering firms (google, facebook, etc) have formalized job titles and 'ranks' and provide a clear path for advancement - and they publish pay ranges for those titles/ranks.
cm2012 5y ago
Bullets 1-3 are excellent reforms that should be the case everywhere. Bullet 4 could end up with bad consequences because there's so many ways to fudge the data. And justification is in the eye of the beholder. For instance, in digital marketing, direct response advertising roles tend to be higher paid than marketing roles without strict KPIs (brand, organic social, etc.) Direct response advertising, for whatever reason, is split 80% men/20% women, with men and women making the same (high) salaries. The softer marketing roles make significantly less on average, and are 80% women/20% men. Can this law distinguish between a direct response marketer and a brand marketer, both of whom may be running Facebook and Youtube ads? Would a giant bureaucracy know or care about these nitty gritty differences in 1000s of industries? I foresee a lot of headache.
- craigie 5y ago
  Can this law distinguish between a direct response marketer and a brand marketer Yes that's not equal work. You have to compare two brand marketers.
  - s3r3nity 5y ago
    > Yes that's not equal work. You have to compare two brand marketers. The devil's in the details here though, as the debate can come under work of "equal value."
  - cm2012 5y ago
    When a marketer lodges a complaint and points out they did 80% of the same work as the other person (Planning ad campaigns, getting creative made, launching on ad channels, etc.), the EU, not being subject matter experts, is going to have a hard time figuring out who is right.
bufferoverflow 5y ago
> Job-seekers would have a right to information about the pay range And there you go, they can just list $1 - $999999, but you won't be offered the higher end of that range. "OH, that's for really special candidates who know Javascript and speak Korean and Farsi"

mustyoshi 5y ago

How does making salary public and not asking about applicants pay history work? If you tell them your title and employer, can't they just look up what you probably got paid?

the_lonely_road 5y ago
I don't believe salaries are public but instead salary ranges alongside job postings. Someone please correct me if I am wrong as the former would be a much more valuable tool for labor. Under the latter the range for SWE could be 40-80K and so a new employer could possibly find that job posting from around the time you say you were hired but still shouldn't have any idea if you were making the 40k or closer to the 80k. I believe this is intended to curb the market behavior of offering someone a pay you think they will accept rather than offering to pay based on the value of a role. Turning the difference between those two numbers into cream for upper management to butter their bread is the status quo in America at the very least and likely in all of the western world, but leads to systemic discrimination amongst protected groups with weaker negotiating power.
DharmaPolice 5y ago
You would only know what a new starter might be offered, not what someone actually received after a period of time. I don't think the problem is organisations basing salaries on what other employers are offering (that's just market testing) but choosing to pay an individual person more or less based on what they personally managed to negotiate elsewhere. If I'm buddies with my department head and I get an extra $10k because of that, why should other employers replicate that when I move companies? (Note : I don't really agree with this as it's relying on salary secrecy but I think that's the logic.)
tpm 5y ago
No. Individual personal salary is private information protected by law (at least in our country). Starting salary range in job offers is public, that's not enugh information.
- Hamuko 5y ago
  Salaries might be private here, but taxes sure aren't. A recruiter could feasibly walk into the local tax office and ask to see my taxable income for 2020.
  - FredPret 5y ago
    That’s wild, I can’t believe it. Where is this if you don’t mind me asking?
    - Hamuko 5y ago
      Finland. https://www.vero.fi/en/About-us/finnish-tax-administration/data-security-and-information-access/public-information-on-taxes/public-information-on-individual-income-taxes/ https://www.vero.fi/en/About-us/finnish-tax-administration/d...
    - mellavora 5y ago
      also true in Sweden
  - tpm 5y ago
    Interesting. Taxes and incomes are private in Slovakia for private persons whether they are employed or self-employed or whatever (unless they are a judge or a politician). They are only public for companies.
alistairSH 5y ago
In the US (I realize the article is about EU), salary information for a given individual is not public* and employers typically will not share it (when queried by a prospective employer, they will only confirm employment history - "yes, Bob worked here for 5 years as a developer"). Several states have implemented similar rules (CO and CA, IIRC). A job listing would typically list either a minimum salary or range for a position. "Senior Developer, $120,000-$150,000" or whatever. Two upsides to this approach... First, an employee is not limited by their current salary - they can negotiate on their value. Second, it's widely accepted that women and minorities tend to be less aggressive salary negotiators. Those two things together, applied over a career, can make a massive reduction in lifetime earnings for employees. * Government jobs are the big exception - you can search for most university salaries because most receive government funding. Same for local government offices.
- lesuorac 5y ago
  Eh, salary information isn't posted in a newspaper but if your company has a subscription to Equifax they can look it up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_Number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_Number
tibbetts 5y ago
Large employers already subscribe to services which tell them what you likely got paid at your last job by geo/title/seniority/tenure.
- runnerup 5y ago
  And sometimes exactly what you got paid. Actual data from your own paystubs is often for sale as well.
jsmcgd 5y ago
I wonder if this will be one of the unintended (intended?) consequences? Normally the best way to get a pay increase is to apply for jobs that pay a lot more. Previously you could apply for a job that paid much more than your current role. Your new employer might assume that you were on something similar or a little bit less. Now employers will be able to see what you were paid previously and will probably not offer much of a pay increase, or you'll have to have a really good reason why you think your salary should be doubled.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
Yes, but they wouldn't get an exact figure because it's a range. Anyway it doesn't really matter; you apply for a job, if you don't meet the criteria, that's fine. But if you DO meet the criteria but pay you a little more than your previous job, but less than others with the same job, that's going to be tackled by this legislation. The best they can do is that instead of underpaying you, they will say "You did not pass the interview process for this job".

0xedd 5y ago

despite pay gap shown time and time again to be fiction, government monkeys are still dancing to that out of key tune.

boomskats 5y ago
Any external references to back up your 'pay gap shown time[0] and time again[1] to be fiction' claim? FYI I had to read your comment a few times to try to pick out what you're trying to say without getting distracted by the gratuitous vitriol. It might make you feel better but it's not an effective means of actual communication. [0]: ? [1]: ?
- simonh 5y ago
  It's not fiction, that's hyperbole, but there are factors other than gender by itself that accounts for a lot of the remaining disparity between men and women's pay. Taking a career break to have children, historical 'steering' of women away from STEM subjects in education, some apparent natural tendency for many women to avoid such subjects even when they have a free choice, a tendency for women to not challenge their compensation or push for raises compared to men, women's tendency to avoid overtime compared to men which can affect their advancement prospects. There are a lot of factors that come down to personal choice, and women often make different choices from men. Nevertheless even controlling for all this there is a remaining gap of a few percent at least, which varies greatly depending on the industrial sector and also by region. Since this thread is about the EU, it's reverent to point out that the gap is particularly high in some EU countries. https://www.epi.org/publication/what-is-the-gender-pay-gap-and-is-it-real/ https://www.epi.org/publication/what-is-the-gender-pay-gap-a...
  - gjulianm 5y ago
    > Taking a career break to have children, historical 'steering' of women away from STEM subjects in education, some apparent natural tendency for many women to avoid such subjects even when they have a free choice, a tendency for women to not challenge their compensation or push for raises compared to men, women's tendency to avoid overtime compared to men which can affect their advancement prospects. I mean, all of those are heavily related to gender. And while you can frame them as "personal choice", that's only useful when analyzing an individual. When a significant part of the women make these choices that hurt their salaries and work prospects, one maybe should think about how society is influencing those choices, and turns out the vector is gender.

tialaramex 5y ago

> Employers would be prohibited from asking about an applicant's pay history Aw, that was one of the fun moments when getting my current job. I moved from private sector to public sector and they're like "You understand that the previous pay you listed is more than our boss's boss, the director of our entire org unit gets paid right?". Yes, yes I do. Which is why when you asked at interview "Why do you want this role?" I didn't say "Because I would like to get rich". But overall this seems like a good idea. Pay transparency is a known good strategy. I remember years ago working for a huge international corporation I asked about pay transparency at one of those bogus "Ask us anything" board events and the CEO answered and he's like, "My pay is a matter of public record because that's the law here" and I'm like "Yes, and it's fine, you can see that now so why not the same for everybody else?" and of course he just deflected. How "inability to give a straight answer on anything" and "refusal to make any meaningful decisions" came to be considered good leadership traits is a mystery to me, but I do know how much it pays so that's nice.

dijonman2 5y ago
The reality is that not everyone brings equal value to an org. Some are rockstars and others are meh. It’s natural, and you should be incentivized to improve.
- iso1631 5y ago
  The reality is I spend time applying for a job which claims a "competitive" salary for a "network architect", and eventually find it's in the 35-45k range "depending on skills" Those companies then run off to government saying "we can't employ anyone" Fortunately more and more job listings on linked in are listing ballpark salaries so it's easy to ignore them, there's a few coming up which are reasonable salaries for what they want too IMO, so that's good.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    I get why employer's tendency is to withhold pay information. But ultimately, it's a waste of my time and their time if we're not close enough. So disclosure seems win/win.

hughrr 5y ago

I rather liked it when employers asked about pay history because I used to lie about it. I managed to double my salary in two job jumps!

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
You are lucky they did not use equifaxs https://theworknumber.com/ https://theworknumber.com/ to get your salary info. Or maybe they did and your salary info wasn’t there. Many of my employers have reported my salary to that database without my consent. It is easy to obtain. There was an article on HN about it within the last month.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  How does a company participate in this system? Are there headcount/turnover/etc requirements? What prevents someone from setting up companies that claim to employ anyone (you can "apply" for a nominal fee online and you get "hired" immediately and your chosen salary figure gets sent to these assholes)?
  - sgerenser 5y ago
    I think it’s difficult unless your company uses a big payroll processor like ADP or Paychex, who in turn report to TheWorkNumber. Faking payroll through one of those companies probably wouldn’t be worth the effort and you’d be setting yourself up for tax issues.
  - mywittyname 5y ago
    Most payroll companies support the integration. So step 1 is probably pay for an expensive payroll platform. They are going to have meta data for the fake company, so your $2MM salary is coming from a 1-10 person company with no website or anything might be suspect.
- wing-_-nuts 5y ago
  This is why I redirect the question to my comp requirements, instead of my pay history. Any company that absolutely insists on salary history is not one I will work for anyway.

tomp 5y ago

Transparency is good, but what about freedom of choice, to enable individuals to act on that information? Ideal would be outlawing non-competes.

ATsch 5y ago
They are already effectively outlawed in most of the EU. E.g. in Germany, you must be paid at least 50% of your current salary while the clause is active, for a maximum of two years and "unreasonably broad" clauses are invalid.
- tomp 5y ago
  If by “effectively outlawed” you mean “not effectively outlawed at all”, then yes, sure. How many people can survive for 2 years on 50% lower salary? In addition, the biggest impediment of non-competes is actually the inflexibility (“your job offer sounds amazing, I’ll start working in 18-24 months!”).
  - throwawayben 5y ago
    The point is that will very very rarely happen because how many companies are actually going to pay that much to stop you working at a competitor? And if they ARE willing to do it, then you probably held a very high status job there and so 50% will still be a lot.
  - Bayart 5y ago
    The assumption is that a job that would incentivize non-competes would be so well paid that 50% would still be comfortable, isn't it ?
    - tomp 5y ago
      From my experience working in finance in London, no. Good salary? Sure! Able to live comfortably with 50% salary (when rent is 30-50% of take-home pay)? Zero chance. In practice the biggest impediment to even longer non-competes is legal risk; the tiny chance of an employee challenging the non-compete in court and the court ruling unreasonable or overly broad, would result in all other employees knowing their non-competes are effectively void.

ensignavenger 5y ago

What I could not find in the document is how it defines 'equal work' and 'equal value'?

aembleton 5y ago
Its a job for lawyers.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
Job title -> pay range. If you do work that does not match your job title (or job description) and your boss refuses to acknowledge it, I'm confident there's existing legal pathways to deal with it - with the help of unions if need be.
- dahfizz 5y ago
  What about flat companies? At my current company, everyone is simply a software engineer and you are paid based on your value. Everyone seems happy with the arrangement.
  - ncpa-cpl 5y ago
    > What about flat companies? I also work in a flat company. Actually some weeks ago, one of my colleagues was applying to a new credit card. So the bank called our HR team to very a colleague's salary. I ended up taking the call due to a mishap on the phone system. So they needed to double check her salary, because she had mentioned 50% raise but no change in her job title. So I had to explain that's the way our company is.
  - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
    Same problem here... small company, everybody does everything, same title, but different hours and output. I guess we'll have to think of unique position names for everybody
trashtester 5y ago
Pretty sure the wording is intentially fuzzy, so the special interest groups can add the meaning after it becomes law. I would expect them to push for a Marxist view on "value" of work, basically each hour is of equal value, but where you adjust for number of years of formal education, again where the type of eduction is not important. A developer with a MSc from a top college may be compared to someone with an MSc/MA in Sociology, working in the HR department, for instance. The key alternative is to gauge value based on market demand, but where I live (Northern Europe), those who advocate "equal pay for work of equal value" don't seem to go for that. Instead, they claim that nurses and engineers should have the same salary, as the length of their education is different, at least for people employed by the public.

gigatexal 5y ago

I love this. This is amazing. This is going to make salary negotiations a bit more transparent.

ksec 5y ago

>* Employers would be prohibited from asking about an applicant's pay history Would they be able to contact previous employer for this information. One of the thing I really hate is the amount of leverage your previous employer has over you.

raxxorrax 5y ago
That is the only good bullet point in my opinion. Otherwise I don't see the positives. It would probably lead to pay depression in any case.

Gareth321 5y ago

>Employees would have a right to ask their employer for sex-disaggregated information on the average pay of other workers doing the same work or work of equal value. This is literally impossible in anything other than rote manual labour. Even then, I'm not convinced this is possible.

mhoad 5y ago
I don’t know this sounds like it maps to a SQL query to me assuming you use consistent job titles and possibly the concept of “grades” e.g Level 1 Software Engineer
- Gareth321 5y ago
  I'm glad you related it to my industry because I can assure you that not every L3 in Google contributes the same value to the company. They have vastly different backgrounds, education, experience, and aptitudes. Some are willing to work 80 hour weeks. Some aren't. Some are very skilled in technologies which aren't in-demand and don't currently generate a lot of value for Google. Some work on projects which generate a lot of value for Google. Some have excellent qualifications but little experience. Some have lots of experience but no qualifications. Some are extroverts and some are introverts. Some are great at communicating their thoughts and ideas. Some aren't. Some are grumpy and surly. Some are super friendly. There are thousands and thousands of ways in which an L3 is not the same as another L3, and I promise you, no two L3s generate exactly the same value to Google.
  - mhoad 5y ago
    As I said in another comment though surely this is the precise reason for bonus structures no? Where you as the business owner / operator can both reward the above and beyond efforts and try to incentivise more of it in the future.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
Err, no it's not, big engineering firms (google, facebook, etc) have formalized job titles and 'ranks' and provide a clear path for advancement - and they publish pay ranges for those titles/ranks.

cm2012 5y ago

Bullets 1-3 are excellent reforms that should be the case everywhere. Bullet 4 could end up with bad consequences because there's so many ways to fudge the data. And justification is in the eye of the beholder. For instance, in digital marketing, direct response advertising roles tend to be higher paid than marketing roles without strict KPIs (brand, organic social, etc.) Direct response advertising, for whatever reason, is split 80% men/20% women, with men and women making the same (high) salaries. The softer marketing roles make significantly less on average, and are 80% women/20% men. Can this law distinguish between a direct response marketer and a brand marketer, both of whom may be running Facebook and Youtube ads? Would a giant bureaucracy know or care about these nitty gritty differences in 1000s of industries? I foresee a lot of headache.

craigie 5y ago
Can this law distinguish between a direct response marketer and a brand marketer Yes that's not equal work. You have to compare two brand marketers.
- s3r3nity 5y ago
  > Yes that's not equal work. You have to compare two brand marketers. The devil's in the details here though, as the debate can come under work of "equal value."
- cm2012 5y ago
  When a marketer lodges a complaint and points out they did 80% of the same work as the other person (Planning ad campaigns, getting creative made, launching on ad channels, etc.), the EU, not being subject matter experts, is going to have a hard time figuring out who is right.

bufferoverflow 5y ago

> Job-seekers would have a right to information about the pay range And there you go, they can just list $1 - $999999, but you won't be offered the higher end of that range. "OH, that's for really special candidates who know Javascript and speak Korean and Farsi"