The Most Wonderful Time of the Year (California Style)

We all know the Staples commercial depicting parental glee as they send their children back to school after a (long) summer break. One wonders whether lawmakers -- the Sacramento variety -- experience the same delight once they finish their work crafting and polishing new regulations for California employers. Once again a new crop of complex and sometimes mystifying laws are on the horizon, and one of those laws we may need to harvest is a proposed California law requiring pay scales to be included in job advertisements. I spent a few minutes chatting with Richard Ehisen from the State Net Capitol Journal for their most recent podcast regarding the proposed amendment and what California employers should expect if this amendment becomes law.  Employers (of 15 more more) would be obligated provide employees with the pay scale for jobs they currently hold, and will have to publicize pay scales for all positions in job postings.  The "pay scale" is currently defined in the proposal as the salary or hourly wage range that the employer "reasonably expects to pay" for a position. The law leaves quite a bit unstated, such as whether this law reaches outside of California, what components of compensation are included in "salary" and how often (if at all) job positions need to be updated to account for market conditions. The New York City Council passed a similar law this year, and almost immediately delayed its effectiveness given the lack of regulatory clarity.  As I noted in the podcast, regulation leads to ... more regulation. Is that cause to celebrate? Perhaps for lawmakers, but less so for small employers who often lack the resources to comply with these regulations. Stay tuned for more on this topic as this regulatory drama unfolds.