Since their largest workforce is in Washington state, it's probably just less risky to make this their overall US policy. Making a different policy for HQ vs everywhere else could easily lead to mistakes and accidentally breaking the law.
> It can't be that hard to follow this law in specific places.
Directly from the article:
"Pay experts have long predicted companies would not want to mess with different practices in different states. Doing so not only complicates hiring practices for human resources departments, ..."
There is probably a lot more nuance and qualifications of when it's necessary to disclose and from a company that employs more than 150k employees (according to a quick google) there's probably even more complexity and chaos.
> It can't be that hard to follow this law in specific places
The problem is that 'specific places' very dynamic, and is hard to pin down when it comes to employment. A candidate/employee may move to/from jurisdictions where this is a requirement, and job postings may or may not be shown across different jurisdictions.
Does Microsoft want to invest time wrangling in court concerning a Colorado resident not seeing the pay range when they are using a VPN? Or when a candidate becomes a Colorado resident some time between the phone-screen and the first interview? Should Microsoft recruiters stop using external job-boards, and instead wait for a salary geo-fencing feature to be implemented in their internal jobs tool? What is the case law for out-of-staters who will be moving into a state with such a law for employment? How about remote candidate in Texas, working for a team based in Washington - and the reverse? There are dozens of edge cases, and for a company the size of Microsoft, can easily result in hundreds to thousands of infractions per year - the juice may not be worth the squeeze.
There will be an army of lawyers
trying to monetize any errors by companies, since the WA bill 5761 allows a job applicant to sue for potential lost wages plus interest. Microsoft is just getting ahead of the lawsuit curve.
I think you'd be surprised. Though the problem isn't that it's hard to follow in the general case, but that things could potentially slip through the cracks.
Corporations are risk averse, they don't want to have to deal with potentially getting sued if a job opening starts out in one area and then moves to another one where suddenly the way the opening is described is illegal.
It's just easier to do it the same everywhere if the advantage they're giving up is small.
This article [1] seems to state pretty clearly that the law applies to all job posting by a company in Washington state. Any sources saying it's only about jobs open to Washington residents?
> sources saying it's only about jobs open to Washington residents?
Washington state can't regulate how Microsoft hires people in Texas.
Microsoft Corp. isn't even a Washington legal entity. (EDIT: Never mind, I stand corrected [1]. In any case, the broader point stands. Delaware doesn't get to regulate how its entities hire outside Delaware. This is well-settled employment/interstate commerce law.)
Legally, a company is subject to state laws of their state of incorporation (usually Delaware, for various reasons) _and_ their state of 'domicile', usually where they are headquartered. They are also subject to state laws in states where they operate.
So yes, in this situation, even if MS were incorporated in Delaware, Washington state could pass laws that bind how the company acts anywhere in the world.
Washington also isn't the only state passing this style of law. Putting up the systems and processes to comply with this law only for Washington-based positions would probably not be worth it.
> even if MS were incorporated in Delaware, Washington state could pass laws that bind how the company acts anywhere in the world
This is not true [1]. It's especially untrue with respect to employment, a domain in which federal statute has a lot to say about who can regulate whom.
You are misreading this. The Dormant Commerce Clause is relevant when talking about applying laws unequally for the purpose of protecting in-state commercial entities. For instance, if companies based out of state were subject to salary disclosure laws, but Washington based companies were not.
In this case, Dormant Commerce does not apply since the salary disclosure laws apply to any company operating in the state, regardless of where they're headquartered or incorporated. It applies equally to all.
That's specific to state protectionism though. The law applies equally to jobs posted inside and outside the state so the Dormant Commerce Clause is not relevant.
I pretty sure if you headquartered your marijuana company in a state where it's illegal you'd run into problems, even if you didn't grow or sell it in that state.
"Conspiracy to commit drug trafficking" would probably fit the bill. I think they could just call in the feds because from the state and federal perspective you are running a drug empire from that office.
Nah, state level would have no jurisdiction over the criminal action and feds arent caring right now, but focusing on the state level you can also just form a branch
So you go online and fill out an LLC for another state, and just say you are licensing your brand name to that LLC in another state that is doing all the sales in that state
> Microsoft was incorporated in the state of Washington on June 25, 1981; reincorporated in the state of Delaware on September 19, 1986; and reincorporated in the state of Washington on September 22, 1993.
Just to take this a bit farther... if Washington state can regulate Washington incorporated entities, can it regulate them to act in a way that would violate laws in other states?
California passes a law, and because doing business in California is good for the bottom line they will comply with the law, and in so doing set a new defacto national standard. But, if this burden becomes too onerous, the business can simply not do business with California or move out of California. But, California is such a large market it's quite a high burden to reach.
This isn't epwr's claim. His claim is that Washington has written and passed a law that binds Microsoft's operations outside Washington state, which I'm pretty sure would violate the commerce clause.
> His claim is that Washington has written and passed a law that binds Microsoft's operations outside Washington state, which I'm pretty sure would violate the commerce clause.
The commerce clause does not prevent states from having laws which impact interstate commerce unless:
(1) They are preempted by federal exercise of commerce clause powers (though that's really a supremacy clause issue), or
(2) they discriminate against or excessively burden interstate commerce (the dormant commerce clause doctrine).
California does regulate private individuals that lived in California in the past. It also does regulate private individuals with residence in California and working in a different state. Just saying.
If you do that only for jobs in Washington state it is only a question of time until the first discrimibation law suites are filed. Plus it is easy good press.
> you do that only for jobs in Washington state it is only a question of time until the first discrimibation law suites are filed
Discriminating based on an employee's state of residence is totally fine. Californians get different disclosures and rights compared with say Nevadans. Nevadans can't sue for those benefits; they're not entitled to them.
Nit to pick: States can and do regulate interstate commerce all the time. California once banned the import of foie gras into the state, and IIRC are planning a law banning the import of foreign oil. Some states ban the import of firearms they don't wish to exist.
Whether they should be allowed to engage in the regulation of interstate commerce for activities that occur entirely extra-state is probably more along what you intended, but even that you could probably find allowed or as-yet-indeterminate exceptions to.
> States can and do regulate interstate commerce all the time. California once banned the import of foie gras into the state, and IIRC are planning a law banning the import of foreign oil.
This is fine. Sacramento can regulate what's coming into California. It cannot set food labeling requirements for Michigan.
> California once banned the import of foie gras into the state
No, it banned sale of foie gras entirely (it did not single out importation), and even so the ban, to the extent that it prohibited individual consumers from buying it for import from out-of-state vendors, was struck down by a federal trial court in 2020 as a violation of the dormant commerce clause, a decision this year upheld by the Ninth Circuit, so it's probably not a law you want to point to as an example of the state being free to regulate interstate commerce.
> and IIRC are planning a law banning the import of foreign oil.
Even if it was true that someone in California was planning on trying to pass such a law, it would be an even more clear, bright-line dormant commerce clause violation than the foie gras law.
They can even regulate interstate commerce in ways that discriminate between in and out of state companies (IE something that seems a very clear commerce clause violation), though this is historically limited mostly to alcohol shipment :)
Honestly, though, the current SC seems much more likely to strike that all down than they have in the past, and give much brighter lines.
Washington has actually successfully enforced some of its worker protection rules on a national scale in the past. As a condition of having the harsh penalties for their in-state violations dropped, they got fast food companies to agree to drop non-compete agreements from all franchise agreements nationwide[1]
Whether it happens as a direct consequence of the word of the law feels less relevant than the fact they made it happen in practice via a settlement.
> and then the law would get struck down because, as said, washington state isn't allowed to regulate interstate commerce.
It isn't allowed to discriminate against or unduly burden interstate commerce; it can generally regulate the behavior of Washington persons (including corporations) in interstate commerce where such regulation does not discriminate against such commerce (which is clearly the case where the rule is identical to that for in-state commerce of the same type.)
The exception would be if the federal government preempted the kind of regulation Washington sought to make by exercise of federal commerce powers.
What are your qualifications to be dispensing legal advice in this area, if any?
Yes, a company headquartered in california is (in many cases) still bound by california law even if the employee is located in another state. The obvious example is non-compete clauses, a california company still usually cannot enforce a non-compete even if the law permits it in the employee's state.
However, this situation is what's called a "conflict-of-law" and it basically comes down to the way the court interprets it.
Take it from the actual lawyers:
> The circumstances that present the strongest case against enforcement of such an agreement involves a noncompete agreement between a California-based employer and a California-based employee. But not all cases are that simple; whether California law applies depends upon the application of “conflict of law” rules.
> “Conflict of law” rules allow courts to determine what state’s laws apply when the laws of more than one state might apply to a dispute but would produce different results. For example, a noncompete agreement between a California-based employer and a Nevada-based employee that was signed in Nevada could be construed under Nevada or California law, depending on the circumstances. If Nevada law applies, the restrictive covenant might be enforceable against the employee. If California law applies, it will not be enforceable.
> Because of these issues, parties often include choice-of-law provisions telling a court to apply a particular state’s law rather than determine what state’s substantive laws apply under a conflict-of-law analysis. In most cases a court will readily accept a choice-of-law provision and apply it as the parties intended. But that’s not necessarily so in the case of a noncompete agreement.
> Like other common law doctrines, conflict-of-law rules vary from state to state. Most states will not enforce a choice-of-law provision that would violate the public policy of a state with a “materially greater interest” in the dispute or where the parties do not have a “substantial relationship” with the chosen state. In other words, a California employer cannot get around California’s prohibition against employee restrictive covenants by requiring his California employee to sign an agreement that includes a Nevada choice-of-law clause.
So yes, employment law in state X usually does bind a company headquartered in state X even if the employee is working in a completely different state. Doesn't matter where you live, you are employed by an entity in state X.
(or rather, it does matter, you still have to pay taxes in state Y and state Y also gets to pass rules of its own governing work in that state... practically speaking what you get is the union of the two sets of rules, you get the combination of both. In the event of a full-on "state X requires A, state Y forbids it"... then the lawyers get paid.)
It's probably a move just to make it easier on themselves.
They want to streamline the job posting portion of HR. They don't want to have to worry about whether or not they have to post the salary range, so they just do what the most demanding law they deal with requires.
Now they only really have to deal with areas that have laws that contradict with laws in other areas. Then you'd default to the law that benefits you the most and deal with the contradictory areas explicitly. Since you have to do the work anyway.
For example, let's pretend that California had a really stupid law that forbid salary ranges from being posted on job listings. Now Microsoft has to be careful about how and where they post jobs. And since it's beneficial for them to hide the information, they'd likely only post the salary ranges where they were required to.
But absent that, don't do work you don't have to do.
My guess is they see the writing on the wall with this one. Colorado and Washington both have laws about this now. I wouldn't be surprised to see California and New York implement something similar in the next year or two.
> I wouldn't be surprised to see California and New York implement something similar in the next year or two.
California started the trend with its “on reasonable request” pay range disclosure law, and has an proactive disclosure bill that has passed the Senate and is pending in the Assembly this session (DB 1162). But even without a proactive disclosure law, voluntary proactive disclosure reduces the request load for on-reequest disclosure, and consistency is cheaper to implement internally.
Everything I’ve seen so far is just salary. Which is kind of a huge loophole for tech companies where 20-60% of compensation is often in the form of stock and bonuses.
>disclose in each posting for each job opening the wage scale or salary range, and a general description of all of the benefits and other compensation to be offered to the hired applicant.
What is general description? Is that how many RSUs? Does it require showing what metal level health insurance is offered and specific the employer paid proportion?
Doubt it, assuming the law is similar to Colorado’s. A Colorado job listing for a FAANG that eventually offered approximately $270k in total compensation was roughly worded like this:
“Colorado residents: Pay for this job starts at at $100,000/year commensurate with experience, plus additional compensation through bonuses, restricted stock units and a comprehensive benefit plan.”