Gov. Jerry Brown signs AB168: bans employers from asking about salary history | Hacker News Reader

Gov. Jerry Brown signs AB168: bans employers from asking about salary history

ocregister.com

They don’t need to ask. Equifax is already tracking that for employers. :-/

"The law also requires employers to provide applicants, upon request, with a salary range for the jobs they seek."

Now that's going to create one hell of a mess. Someone didn't think that through.

Could you elaborate?

Having not read the specific wording of the law I am curious, couldn't an employer just fulfill their legal obligation by saying the salary range is 1 to 300k dollars?

No, because it has to be true. All companies have their own scales, and they would probably get sued for not accurately disclosing those. There are also exceptions, which would go outside of the range and invite scrutiny/lawsuits as soon as a minority discovers one single white/Indian male whose salary exceeds the stated target range for "senior engineer".

It's one thing for employers to voluntarily provide a good faith range, which some will, but another when they expose themselves to a gender discrimination lawsuit by being wrong.

Also, everybody is going to insist on max(range).

This law seems to create a lot of legal landmines that I don't think will be beneficial. High earners can volunteer their salary anyway.

Good step. Should also remove background checks, credit checks, and drug tests.

Why?

My father-in-law was just embezzled by his accountant. It's mostly been spent, so he will get pennies in the dollar back. (I'm not well versed in legal matters...I had no idea crime could be so profitable, even after you get caught.)

It sucks that he got screwed over, but it'll suck more if the next guy has the same experience.

There must be some kinds of questions employers can be permitted to ask to help this?

Isn't that more of a customer/vendor relationship? Do accountants lose their CPA for stuff like that?

"Accountant" is perhaps an overstatement. It was a very small business (<10 employees).

The position was combination of secretary, controller, and office manager. The person did payroll, made travel arragements, paid the rent, etc. Previously, the IT admin did some of these; he was the one to notice something was wrong.

They hire a CPA service for the complicated tax stuff.

Did his business insurance not cover the loss?

Is that common? Most small business insurance I've seen is for liability, not for damage to the company by its own employees.

I am admittedly not well versed in this.

Not sure how often people purchase it, but it's called Employee Dishonesty Coverage. Well worth it for people in key financial positions.

Interesting. Thanks.

A background check would have done nothing to warn him. If he ends up in court over it, it will be public record, and that's all you need.

Isn't checking criminal records the raison d'etre for background checks?

Effective January 1, 2018. Just in case anybody is job hunting right now.

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