Discussed yesterday:<p><i>Pay Transparency: European Commission proposes measures</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30429182" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30429182</a> - Feb 2022 (44 comments)<p>IIRC, this is a proposal. If so, then the submitted title is inaccurate. Please don't replace titles with misleading ones—that's the opposite of what the guidelines call for:<p>"<i>Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.</i>"
The meat is page 5 under "The changes the proposal would bring". Highlights:<p>* Job-seekers would have a right to
information about the pay range of posts they apply for<p>* Employers would be prohibited from asking about an applicant's pay history<p>* 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.<p>* 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.<p>* 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.
Ontario, Canada had this but it was repealed. :(<p>* <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/doug-ford-ontario-job-salary-pay-transparency-law-1.4879510" rel="nofollow">https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/doug-ford-ontario-job...</a><p>Federally regulated industries in Canada have to do it:<p>* <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/news/2020/11/backgrounder-new-pay-transparency-measures-in-federally-regulated-workplaces.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/news/...</a>
My admittedly limited understanding of the gender pay gap is that it is based on gender differences in interests (eg. career-wise), differences in willingness to work long hours (especially with age), and differences in temperament, ie. women on the whole having lower assertiveness and thus being less likely to ask for higher salaries and raises.<p>The "equal work" part takes care of the first two points, ie. the type of work and the amount performed, but it leaves out the negotiation aspect. To emphasize the importance of negotiation: several friends of mine told me their bosses said they could have started with nearly <i>double</i> their starting salaries if they had negotiated better, so this aspect makes a huge difference, at least in engineering.<p>My understanding of the proposed legislation is that the higher (average) salaries, fought for and won by the men, will be given to the women for free (by companies who will be forced to make such information public and fear it will make them look bad). Not saying that's either good or bad, just interesting. Someone please correct me if I'm misunderstanding.
Where does contracting fit into all of this? If you leave the formal structure of employment and don't fit into the set job titles of a company (or within, but as a contractor and so a different pay band), then can you effectively work around this?<p>If so, then will those currently getting paid more move into contracting? They'd probably end up with more pay (even than they get now) if they did, so will we see a decrease in the statistical pay gap within categories based on formal job titles, but an increase in the real world pay gap between those that are actually earning more and less under the current system?<p>So, it looks better on paper, but - if you care about the difference in pay - it gets worse in reality.<p>Do we see this kind of thing already in the public sector in any countries? They often have public pay bands, but, as I understand things[1], in many places contractors, consultants, and such like can make better money by working outside of this system. So, transparent and formally equal, but actually less equal.<p>I wonder, if we'll one day read about this in the economist. How there is a growing real pay gap, and how it differs from the formal pay gap. How legislators are trying to respond, but businesses and contractors are fighting back.<p>[1] based mostly on anecdote and hearsay, rather than real knowledge, so please correct me!<p>Edited for styling.
Is there anything in this mandate that prevents corporations from listing unreasonably large ranges?<p>For the sake of this example, let's say FAANG is looking for a software engineer and the range for the job listing is: <i>68k - 600k</i>. Would this be allowed?<p>I ask because Denver, Colorado has identical mandated restrictions for job listings, and employers are skirting regulations by offering ridiculously broad ranges, putting everyone back at square one.
Is there anything in this text that would prevent a company from posting offers with very large ranges?<p>"this position salary can be from €35k to 75k€ depending on multiple factors"<p>Such ranges would render it pointless
@dang, i would suggest to change the editorialized title.<p>Its not a fait accompli, its a draft under discussion.<p>E.g.
Proposed EU directive on pay
transparency andbetter access to justice for victims of pay discrimination.
Related "Pay Transparency: European Commission proposes measures" <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30429182" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30429182</a> It's still a proposal not a mandate or requirement yet.
I never started a conversation with a client or an employer, about work without clear idea how much I will get in return. Usually after taxes on a hourly rate measurement. If a company is not giving this information before the interview is not worth any attention at all. Period.
I think these proposals go a long way towards closing the asymmetrical advantage that employers have when it comes to salary negotiations and generally creates a much better functioning labour marketplace as a result.
Many posts here talk about value-to-employer, but I have only ever seen wages driven by best-alternative-to-negotiated-agreement [0]. I find the discrepancy odd.<p><a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/best-alternative-to-a-negotiated-agreement-batna.asp" rel="nofollow">https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/best-alternative-to-a-n...</a>
Not every employee in role X is as good as every other employee in role X. The better ones deserve higher pay, which creates an incentive for the others to up their game so that they, too, can earn more.<p>Why try harder if it's run like romper room?
Heavily editorialized title - for "EU to..." to be accurate it would have to be much further along the legislative process. This is at a draft report stage, not even voted on in committee yet.
Money quote:
"... more than two-thirds of them have said they are in favour of the
publication of average wages by job type and gender at their company (64 %)."<p>Since when are 64% more than two-thirs?
I find myself at the other end of the equal pay problem - I am equally payed with equally titled but not equally working coworkers. The entire management chain has clearly different expectations from me: I get most if not all of the difficult tasks and my coworkers rely daily on my guidance.<p>In this quarter discussion with my manager I've been told I can not get a pay raise as it would create a discrepancy with my coworker salaries. As an current EU and formal communist republic citizen I find this worrying to say the least. The only option I have is to work less and browse youtube more. As that brings back communist memories I started looking for another job.<p>So I guess my question is how do they plan to measure the work part of "equal pay for equal work"?
In this proposal, I dislike the very heavy and singular emphasis on gender. In my country, the Netherlands, when accounting for hours worked and the field people work in, the gap is about 5%. Some theorize part of this remaining small gap is men more aggressively negotiating, but I'm unsure. In any case it's pretty much a solved problem.<p>Even more if you consider the trend. girls/women dominate in higher education and the breadwinner model is soon to be flipped. Add to that the fact that in some fields, women are now favored to balance the headcount in terms of diversity.<p>Sometimes in extreme ways even. The university of Eindhoven has stopped considering men altogether in their hiring of professors. Imagine being an absolute guru in your field, fully qualified and wanting to passionately teach at this very high level. But you can't...because you have a penis.<p>None of this is to say that no work remains in this area, but I openly wonder if legislation is proportional to the issue at hand, if there's even an issue in the first place. The legislation seems distrustful of businesses, assuming there's some secret plot against women progressing.<p>I frankly find this type of regulation insulting and degrading to women and minorities. It creates this image that society is strongly working against you at every level, which is vastly overstating things. It also constantly signals to you that you're a helpless creature with no agency, you require special help with every interaction in society, as you can definitely not make it on your own.<p>It must feel terrible to constantly be reminded of the fact that just your gender defines you. You're not a talented female programmer that is creative and a great communicator. No, you're a woman. A special case. It must feel even worse to constantly have to wonder where you've been "helped" in your career and if you're just a diversity token. Did you get that raise based on performance or because it looks good on the Excel sheet sent to the EU?<p>We're even at risk of making nuclear objects out of women. Businesses and male colleagues being scared of them. For example, a recent study showed that female founders do not get useful critical feedback from VCs whilst male founders get harsh but useful feedback.<p>I guess the VCs are scared. Is this what we want in the work place, male-female interactions not based on good intent but based on fear and mistrust? Imagine being a woman and having a bad week. At the end of the week your male manager says: "best week ever, proud of you". Would you at all feel taken serious?
Each EU country is perfectly capable of intruducing such laws if they feel like it. I don't see the benefit of the EU forcing this regulation on the whole bloc.
You know its a crap proposal when heroic bragging about equal pay for everyone ends up being about the gender gap only. Age, religion, nationality and the classic: "I don't like you" not included.
These laws don’t have the effect people think they will in tech given that “salary” is often a small part of someone’s overall compensation.<p>A role might say it has a $150,000 “salary” but if someone has say $300,000 in RSUs on top of that then they’re really making $450,000 with a $150,000 “salary”.<p>Eg in the US employers must publish the “salary” for certain visa applicants, but those numbers are often only a small fraction of total comp because they exclude equity-based compensation. Given that different companies give different cash/equity mix in their comp plans this leads to a lot of misleading data points about the pay of various companies. One company many look like it it’s more (because it does in cash salary) but actually the total pay relative to others is much less (eg because they give out less stock).