Representative Wong supports passage of salary transparency legislation

Bill requires most employers to disclose pay ranges on job postings

State Representative Donald Wong (R-Saugus) recently backed legislation requiring most private and public employers, including government entities, to disclose the salary range for job postings in an effort to help close the gender and racial wage gap. House Bill 4890, An Act relative to salary range transparency, was enacted by the House and Senate on July 24, 2024, and on July 31, Governor Maura Healey signed it. It is now Chapter 141 of the Acts of 2024. The final bill represents a compromise reached by a six-member conference committee whose members worked to reconcile the differences between two earlier versions of the bill that passed the House and Senate last fall.

Representative Wong said the new law requires companies with 25 or more employees to disclose pay ranges for jobs to new applicants, as well as for existing employees who are up for a promotion or a job transfer. Employers must also provide the salary range information if an employee requests it. In addition, the law requires companies with 100 or more employees that are subject to the federal filing requirements of a wage data report to now submit copies of this data to the Secretary of State’s office so it can be forwarded to the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development (EOLWD). EOLWD will use this information to publish aggregated data to help the state track gender and racial disparities within various business sectors. Representative Wong noted that several other states have already passed similar pay disclosure laws, including California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island.

According to Representative Wong, the Attorney General will oversee the enforcement of penalties against any business that fails to comply with the salary range disclosure requirement and will also be required to conduct a public awareness campaign to educate businesses about the new requirements. The new law provides for a written warning for a first offense, a fine of up to $500 for a second offense and a fine not to exceed $1,000 for a third offense. Subsequent offenses will be subject to expanded civil penalties of up to $25,000 for each violation.

Salary transparency has been a legislative priority of the Massachusetts Caucus of Women Legislators (MCWL), which says the law will help to elevate economic opportunity and eliminate barriers for women in the workforce. The MCWL is co-chaired by Senator Joan Lovely (D-Salem) and Representative Hannah Kane (R-Shrewsbury), who also served on the conference committee.

Representative Wong said the new law will help to correct a shortcoming in the state’s 2016 pay equity law, which requires men and women to receive equal pay for comparable work. Although the 2016 law prohibits employers from inquiring about a job applicant’s salary history, it does not prevent companies from asking about a prospective hire’s salary expectations without having to disclose how much the position actually pays.

The new law also updates the state’s pension anti-spiking law to prevent wage adjustments from triggering the anti-spiking provision. Representative Wong said the new language ensures that the pension anti-spiking law is not triggered from a bona fide increase in salary related to the pay equity law or from an employer’s systemic or scheduled wage adjustments. The bill also clarifies that a person’s post-retirement earnings capacity shall be determined based on their highest salary, either for the position they retired from or upon which their pension allowance was based.

The salary transparency bill drew support from a wide range of business and advocacy organizations: the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, Wage Equity Now, the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts, the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Amplify Latinx, various state and national women’s groups, the AFL-CIO, the Boston Teachers Union, and many other social justice-oriented organizations.