A job listing with pay ranging from $50,000 to $180,000? Not in good faith, says NYC commission

The city alleges the businesses ignored the requirement to include salary ranges in job ads or posted such wide salary bands that they didn’t qualify as “good faith” estimates.

New York City’s Commission on Human Rights initiated complaints against nearly three dozen employers and third-party job posting sites including ZipRecruiter, Morgan & Morgan P.A., and Mazars USA LLP from October through December 2023, according to a commission webpage.

The city’s job ad transparency law, like those passed in six states including California, New York, and Washington, aim to combat racial and gender wage gaps by arming workers with more information when searching for positions and negotiating their salaries. The New York City complaints provide hints at the direction state and local agencies are headed with enforcement of the law.

The city human rights commission’s Dec. 4 complaint against Tesla Inc. noted at least four listings for New York City jobs without a pay range in June 2023, and four more that included ranges “not made in good faith,” such as an ad for a field service technician making anywhere between $22 and $58 per hour. Tesla also faced a citation but no financial penalty under Colorado’s pay transparency law in 2021.

The commission alleged that News Corp.—which owns The Wall Street Journal and other media outlets—posted at least four jobs in July 2023 with pay ranges that violated the law. Those included an education reporter job paying anywhere from $50,000 to $180,000 annually and a video journalist position paying $40,000 to $160,000, according to the complaint dated Dec. 4.

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“What really stood out to me were the violations for posting ranges that the commission determined were not made in good faith,” said…