Public Employee Press: PEP Talk
NYC law requires salary range in job postings
By MIKE LEE
In a major victory for women entering the workforce, the New York City Council passed a bill late last year requiring employers, including independent contractors, with four or more employees to disclose both minimum and maximum salary information when posting job openings.
The new law, which goes into effect later this year, declares it an “unlawful discriminatory practice” for employers in the city to post any job opening without listing the full salary range for a position, including job postings for internal promotions and job transfers. The law bases the salary range on what the employer believes the salary range will be at the time. Temporary staffing firms are exempt from the legislation.
The law is a giant step for women entering and currently in the city’s workforce who often have suffered job discrimination and salary inequities because of the failure by employers to identify the salary range in past job postings.
The law also authorizes the NYC Commission on Human Rights to impose civil penalties for violations and allows individuals to recover financial damages in court if employers violate the terms of the law.
DC 37 has been in the forefront of the fight against job discrimination and unequal pay for women in the city’s workforce for years, and lobbied for the effort that will address the disparities in income between women and men currently working in the city.
Thanks in part to DC 37’s efforts to call attention to and help alleviate this situation, last August the New York City Council released a report entitled “Pay Equity in New York” that documented the pay disparities among the city’s public workforce. It exposed the differences between what Black women and white men earn working in the same position.
“This new law will move us closer to resolving the grave injustice in how workers citywide are compensated,” said DC 37 Executive Director Henry Garrido. “Though this law is a major step forward to ensure pay equity, we will remain diligent in our efforts to press ahead for real gender equality in New York City’s workforce.”
