Pay transparency law goes into effect

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10)--New York employers with four people or more must now include a pay range in job postings, promotions, and transfers

"It can either be a yearly salary or it could be an hourly pay," explained Roberta Reardon, New York State's Labor Commissioner. "You cannot include tips in the money amount. You can say $18 plus tips. You can say $18 plus tips that might average a certain amount, but you can’t say $25 an hour, meaning you’ve added the expected tips into the hourly wage."

Employers must also state if the position is commission based.

"It’s a great way to even the playing field, not just for women, people from underserved communities, people who are new to a job," said Reardon. "It gives you a lot of information and it gives workers a certain amount of heft, which is important."

The Business Council of New York State, however, has some concerns.

"We don’t know if it addresses the issues the advocates are hoping it addresses, and that is tremaining pay equity issues, and pay disparities between age, race, and sex in the workplace," said Frank Kerbein, Director of Center for Human Resources at the Business Council of New York State.

Kerbein worries it will increase the cost of doing business in New York.

"What it does do is put another layer of administrative burden on employers in New York State," said Kerbein. "It makes the subject to legal action from any person who claims to be agreived if they didn’t follow the law as it was written. I think it exposes some liability to small employers who may not be aware of the law or the intricacies of the law."

Businesses can be fined $3,000 for not fulfilling their obligations as an employer.

Reardon said the state will be doing a media campaign to get information out to businesses.

For more on this law, you can head to: https://dol.ny.gov/pay-transparency