180 Days

Getting a new job? You have 180 days to determine if your new employer is discriminating against you in the figuring of your salary. So says the highest court in the land. If it goes on for more than 180 days, you are only entitled to recover for 180 days worth of remuneration.

What kind of crap is that?

People on the radio today were saying how it isn't fair to hold an employer responsible for a decision they made more than 180 days prior and that asking people to be able to remember why they made a decision over that much time is an unfair burden.

How about the unfair burden they placed on their employee by systematically underfunding?

I don't think I have ever worked anywhere under a circumstance where I knew what the people around me were making. In the few instances where it did happen it was by mistake. People don't get around and whip out paystubs to measure all that often. That would be bad form. We all know that they pay what they have to pay and that we're all hired under differing circumstances. Now the court is telling us that we have to figure out what everyone around us is making within a matter of weeks if we want to recover 100%.

This is most definitely crap.

If the government really does mean for an employer to be able to abjure all responsibility for their decisions on compensation then one of two things would need to happen. Either everyone's pay must be public record and accessible to all new hires upon their start date (not prior for negotiation, just after to be sure of no discrimination), or there needs to be some kind of independent watchdog compensation relief board to monitor all new agreements.

Both of those seem like crap ideas as well (there may be no bad ideas, but apparently there are crap ideas).

How about a business has to be responsible for a decision they make. Period. If they decide to discriminate against a class of employees then they should be held to account - for as long as the behavior continues, not for 180 days.

With a 180 day horizon all the incentives point the wrong way. Its in the businesses best interest to keep things secret for six months, and after that there is absolutely no compelling reason for them to stop behaving illegally. That would seem to be an important distinction here. We're not talking about something that's bad form, we're talking about something that's illegal.

What'd they say on Baretta? Don't do the crime if you can't do the time, no, no don't do it.

Apparently this is something that has been shuffled back to the Congress to solve. The wording of the law is outdated or sloppy and the court had little leeway as the legislation was crafted. I guess that's alright, as long as that kind of non-interference directive is applied to all their decisions. What do you think the odd are of that?

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go break into some offices to do some salary comparisons. The longer I let it go, the more money I am pouring down the drain. So says the Supreme Court anyway.