CLEVELAND — As of Oct. 28, businesses looking to hire in Cleveland must disclose their pay rates after a pay transparency law passed in April.
RELATED: New Cleveland law requires companies to post pay scale for job openings
The new law serves two purposes:
- Employers in the city are required to include salary ranges in all job postings
- They can't ask job candidates about their pay history.
Secretary of the Fair Employment Wage Board Kate Warren spoke to News 5 about how the new law could help new employees.
"Data shows that this kind of pay transparency helps reduce gender and racial pay gaps that often persist," said Warren. "So, by being transparent with that, it actually can save employers time and money in the hiring process by just attracting applicants who want to work for the, the pay range that's being posted."
The goal is to make sure applicants aren't underpaid for a position.
"Think of, you know, women or people of color who are job seeking, who maybe already were making less than their counterparts, and then they go to job seek and they're asked to tell their current salary, and then their next job just provides them a little bump over that,which means people can get stuck in a place where they're not making a fair wage," Warren said.
If you are applying for a job and think the employer is violating the new transparency law, you can file a complaint with the Fair Employment Wage Board within 180 days.
Employers that don't comply with the law could face civil fines up to $5,000.
