*(But Not In Colorado)
May 21, 2021 1:46 PM Subscribe
The US state of Colorado's Equal Pay for Equal Work Act (Part 2)(full text pdf) (Plain language summary) imposes a number of new requirements on employers associated with Colorado: limiting acceptable reasons for wage differentials between employees, prohibiting employers from asking about wage history, announcing promotion opportunities to all employees, and requiring salary ranges for both internal and external job posting. This includes remote jobs being worked by, or advertised as remote to residents of the state.
Tech company Digital Ocean advertised a job with the unusual rider of "*This position may be done in NYC or Remote (but not in CO due to local CO job posting requirements)" (they have since removed it, but not added a pay range).
The act was immediately challenged, with Rocky Mountain Association of Recruiters claiming that it violates the interstate commerce clause. A decision on an injunction is pending.
via r/Denver
Tech company Digital Ocean advertised a job with the unusual rider of "*This position may be done in NYC or Remote (but not in CO due to local CO job posting requirements)" (they have since removed it, but not added a pay range).
The act was immediately challenged, with Rocky Mountain Association of Recruiters claiming that it violates the interstate commerce clause. A decision on an injunction is pending.
via r/Denver
It's not a free market if no one knows how anything is priced. I approve of this wholeheartedly.
posted by 1adam12 at 3:46 PM on May 21, 2021 [32 favorites]
posted by 1adam12 at 3:46 PM on May 21, 2021 [32 favorites]
The rapid, mostly unplanned pandemic driven shift of the workforce from office based to working remote has had the consequence of putting lots of companies into uncharted legal territory. There are lots of local taxes, rules and laws that are being ignored either because there is minimal chance of enforcement, or more likely because with the 9000 localities in the US its really impossible to keep up and it isn't even clear which policies apply to remote employees. It will be years before the lawyers, HR departments and local governments catch up. For example many local jurisdictions charge employers impact fees to offset the costs of providing municipal services to workers and facilities in the jurisdiction -- such as charging a fee per square foot of office space. Are employees or employers going to end up paying for all these home offices now that traditional commercial office tax revenue is in decline?
posted by interogative mood at 4:10 PM on May 21, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by interogative mood at 4:10 PM on May 21, 2021 [9 favorites]
It's interesting that this is focused on the (mostly) uncontroversial injustice of within-labor wage gaps between races and genders, but could have real effects on labor/capital power dynamics. While this could do some good, I'd much rather see limits on wage differentials between workers and management...
posted by ropeladder at 4:20 PM on May 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by ropeladder at 4:20 PM on May 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
I too want to see stuff like if your ceo makes more than 30x total compensation to your lowliest line worker, that compensation is taxed at 100%. Same thing for "bonuses" for c-suite people...those should just be siezed and distributed among the rank and file employees.
posted by maxwelton at 5:56 PM on May 21, 2021 [17 favorites]
posted by maxwelton at 5:56 PM on May 21, 2021 [17 favorites]
Huh, those are all the kind of things that collective bargaining could achieve, if people didn't hate the U word.
posted by ctmf at 5:58 PM on May 21, 2021 [15 favorites]
posted by ctmf at 5:58 PM on May 21, 2021 [15 favorites]
more likely because with the 9000 localities in the US its really impossible to keep up and it isn't even clear which policies apply to remote employees.
This would be a great opportunity for a huge law firm to turn itself into a clearinghouse for interfacing companies with local regulations. For each hire, you plug in your location, the prospective hire’s location, and you get an itemization of the regulations and costs involved in making the hire.
posted by mr_roboto at 6:50 PM on May 21, 2021 [5 favorites]
This would be a great opportunity for a huge law firm to turn itself into a clearinghouse for interfacing companies with local regulations. For each hire, you plug in your location, the prospective hire’s location, and you get an itemization of the regulations and costs involved in making the hire.
posted by mr_roboto at 6:50 PM on May 21, 2021 [5 favorites]
This is a great step towards pay equity. I hope the policy becomes standard practice. Next we need to decouple healthcare insurance from job opportunities. Allowing the freedom of job choice unencumbered by insurance policy would empower the worker and free up resources for businesses. I've long wondered why people are so gun-shy to discuss their pay in US corporations - why give the employer more power in pay negotiations.
posted by djseafood at 7:21 PM on May 21, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by djseafood at 7:21 PM on May 21, 2021 [9 favorites]
The Digital Ocean thing is especially ironic considering their CEO lives (or at least lived, I haven’t checked up on Yancey lately) in Boulder, CO.
He also once told me he’d never take financial advice from someone with a beard ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by sleeping bear at 1:37 AM on May 22, 2021 [7 favorites]
He also once told me he’d never take financial advice from someone with a beard ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by sleeping bear at 1:37 AM on May 22, 2021 [7 favorites]
This would be a great opportunity for a huge law firm to turn itself into a clearinghouse for interfacing companies with local regulations. For each hire, you plug in your location, the prospective hire’s location, and you get an itemization of the regulations and costs involved in making the hire.I've been a manager in a variety of remote companies over the last 8 years, and in that capacity have had the luck to work with some great colleagues in HR who do try to do more than help the company avoid lawsuits. The overall gist in how we've navigated varying labor laws is you take the superset of the highest demands for all of the potential localities in a given country where you'll have employees and you apply that to everyone in that country.
Massachusetts forbids you from asking for wage history? You stop asking for wage history for any interview candidate regardless of location. California rolls out a really generous family leave policy? Offer that to all employees in the US. It just simplifies administration, and gets you out of having to change policy on a colleague if they choose to move. You already have to do some pivoting to adjust their taxes, and ADP and other payroll companies already have excellent services to allow employers to recalculate local and state tax withholding when employees move; but having to write an FMLA policy that has a bunch of subsidiary riders for different states and tracking compliance across those states is a pain in the ass. So long as different states don't have conflicting requirements that prevent you from being more generous, it usually works out to just have one policy for the company that's modeled on the heaviest requirements from each state.
In the past, if I recall correctly, it was California and Massachusetts that had the most intense employee protection laws, so it was assumed that so long as you were compliant with them, you were usually good for all of the other 48, but Colorado's definitely taken that a notch higher.
posted by bl1nk at 4:34 AM on May 22, 2021 [20 favorites]
It seems like taking various states that have balanced fairness to the employee and fairness to the employer, differently, and then cherry picking all the elements good for the employee and none of the elements good for the employer, would break that balance and be completely "unfair"* to the employer automatically.
I mean, I'm sure, bl1nk, your employers have analyzed for that and decided (1) simplicity is its own advantage, complexity costs money; and (2) unhappy employees aren't as good as happy ones and they will compare deals with each other; and (3) big corps can afford it anyway so why not treat employees well?
But I could also see some logic in "pick a state, or use the state of incorporation, and use those rules for every employee" for simplicity too, if that were legal.
* on the detail level, but as we know, the whole system is rigged for the employer overall anyway
posted by ctmf at 9:56 AM on May 22, 2021
I mean, I'm sure, bl1nk, your employers have analyzed for that and decided (1) simplicity is its own advantage, complexity costs money; and (2) unhappy employees aren't as good as happy ones and they will compare deals with each other; and (3) big corps can afford it anyway so why not treat employees well?
But I could also see some logic in "pick a state, or use the state of incorporation, and use those rules for every employee" for simplicity too, if that were legal.
* on the detail level, but as we know, the whole system is rigged for the employer overall anyway
posted by ctmf at 9:56 AM on May 22, 2021
Is there labour law anywhere, in the world not just America, that could be considered unfair to employers?
posted by Mitheral at 10:23 AM on May 22, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Mitheral at 10:23 AM on May 22, 2021 [3 favorites]
it probably does violate the IC Clause. if they can get it this SCOTUS, it'll be gone in a flash.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 10:28 AM on May 22, 2021
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 10:28 AM on May 22, 2021
From what I understand, the most annoying part to company HRs isn't the salary disclosure, prevention of asking previous salaries, or even the record keeping (which any reasonable company would be doing anyway). Those are decisions and things that the tech economy as a whole are moving toward anyway, as mentioned due to Cali and Mass.
It's the part of the law that says "if you offer a promotion, you must notify everybody able to get it at the same time". Which is an ongoing effort as opposed to the one-off hire-time rules. And most likely to be tripped over by a random manager located in another state who's not even aware of this rule.
I've seen a few of these no-colorado postings in the last week or two as I poke around some job opportunities at well known tech companies, so I looked into this just as the DigitalOcean story broke.
posted by cschneid at 11:07 AM on May 22, 2021 [4 favorites]
It's the part of the law that says "if you offer a promotion, you must notify everybody able to get it at the same time". Which is an ongoing effort as opposed to the one-off hire-time rules. And most likely to be tripped over by a random manager located in another state who's not even aware of this rule.
I've seen a few of these no-colorado postings in the last week or two as I poke around some job opportunities at well known tech companies, so I looked into this just as the DigitalOcean story broke.
posted by cschneid at 11:07 AM on May 22, 2021 [4 favorites]
From Digital Ocean: "We have been actively working on it & put a short pause on posting jobs in CO as we assessed the impact of the new law. We have employees in CO & will continue to hire in CO. We will update our job posts in the next week to comply with the new law."
posted by brainwane at 11:05 AM on May 23, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by brainwane at 11:05 AM on May 23, 2021 [1 favorite]
The biggest change in the law doesn't seem like it's the salary posting requirements, which already happens for lots of jobs...
This entirely depends on the field, and it hits women and minorities hardest, with research showing that if women negotiate, regardless of the gender of the hiring manager, they will be harshly judged for it (labeled "pushy," "aggressive" and so on), which their male counterparts never are. Moreover, most women aren't trained to negotiate (in recognition of this, I believe the city of Boston provides free training for women). These are all factors that contribute to the gendered differences in compensation.
What drives me the most nuts is employers who are coy about revealing company salary ranges, which can waste a whole lot of time during the interview process if you're not on the same page.
Long story short: I hope this law goes national.
posted by Violet Blue at 12:39 PM on May 23, 2021 [3 favorites]
This entirely depends on the field, and it hits women and minorities hardest, with research showing that if women negotiate, regardless of the gender of the hiring manager, they will be harshly judged for it (labeled "pushy," "aggressive" and so on), which their male counterparts never are. Moreover, most women aren't trained to negotiate (in recognition of this, I believe the city of Boston provides free training for women). These are all factors that contribute to the gendered differences in compensation.
What drives me the most nuts is employers who are coy about revealing company salary ranges, which can waste a whole lot of time during the interview process if you're not on the same page.
Long story short: I hope this law goes national.
posted by Violet Blue at 12:39 PM on May 23, 2021 [3 favorites]
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The biggest change in the law doesn't seem like it's the salary posting requirements, which already happens for lots of jobs, but the promotion announcement. That's the situation where it seems like if you're a company that offers remote work and one of your employees lives in Colorado you now have to completely change HR policies around promotions for employees with their job title. So it seems pretty valid to only want to hire non-Colorado employees.
I'm curious if there will be a series of carve-outs and exemptions as happened with the California independent contractor law.
posted by hermanubis at 2:04 PM on May 21, 2021 [5 favorites]