[ars]

You know how capitalism ensures prices are correct by a process of negotiation, and supply and demand? This is exactly that, in labor form. This process of negotiation, over many many many people, is what determines wages.

If you block that process "companies can't negotiate with you, they have to give you a rate and that's it", you will cause a lot of unintended consequences for the labor market.

Be very very careful making such changes.

[LordDragonfang]

>If you block that process "companies can't negotiate with you, they have to give you a rate and that's it", you will cause a lot of unintended consequences for the labor market.

What you are describing is the current status quo for the supermajority of workers, except it's the workers who can't negotiate. The company simply gives them a number and they have to accept it. Allowing the companies to hide the number behind the sunk costs of the interview process only tips the scales further in businesses' favor.

This law brings salary negotiation closer to actual supply and demand, not further.

[ssklash]

Uh, what? In what other commercial exchange is the value to be paid hidden from one of the parties? I can't think of one. It helps companies to hide it, it's why they do it. If they thought for a second it would be in their interest to disclose it, instead of bragging about "competitive wages", they would.

[domador]

In this case, companies will need to "negotiate" with each other, by outbidding each other for top (or at least in-demand) talent. That will set the rates, instead of the current system of imperfect information that works mostly against employees. Let management be the one that worries about offering attractive salaries, rather than the much-less-powerful job seekers.

Some extra laws might be required, such as forbidding and heavily fining companies that are shown to be acting like a cartel when setting salaries. At the very least, if salary offers are public, salary fixing conspiracies (of the type several Silicon Valley companies were fined for) will be much harder to pull off again.

[treyfitty]

How do you figure? They quote a price for labor, and if we don’t like it, they can’t buy labor. If I don’t like the price of a sandwich, I don’t pay for it.

[dragonwriter]

> You know how capitalism ensures prices are correct by a process of negotiation, and supply and demand?

This is true if and only if one defines adopts as the definition of “correct” something like “at whatever levels the particular variant of capitalism in question sets”.