Page 26 - BusinessWest September 2, 2024

Salary Transparency
A New Posting Requirement for Massachusetts Employers
BY MICHAEL MCANDREW, ESQ.
In an effort to increase transparency and equity in wage payment, the Massachu- setts Legislature passed, and Gov. Maura Healey signed into law on July 31, H. 4890, “An Act Relative to Salary Range Transparency.”
The act is an extension of employee protections provided in the 2018 Massa- chusetts Equal Pay Act, a statute that made it unlawful for employers to discrimi- nate on the basis of gender in the payment of wages and to prohibit employers from preventing, discouraging, or reprimanding employees who share wage infor- mation. Under the new act, covered employers no longer can keep secret from their employees and prospective employees pay information for positions within their company. The act has wide-ranging reporting and disclosure requirements of salary ranges.
The act’s provisions are twofold. First, it requires that employers disclose pay-range information to current and prospective employees. The act applies to ‘covered employers,’ which are defined as “any employer, public or private, that employs 25 or more employees within the Commonwealth.”
Under the act, an employer must disclose the pay range for positions listed in job postings, disclose the pay range for positions offered to current employees as promotions or transfers, and disclose pay-range information to current employees upon request. The act prohibits employers from discharging or retaliating against employees for exercising their rights under the act.
Employers will be required to start complying with these provisions on Oct. 29, 2025. The attorney general is required to conduct, within six months of the act’s passage, a public-awareness campaign regarding the requirements of the act.
Second, the act sets forth a system whereby employers are required to submit annual wage-data reports to the state secretary. The exact type and timing of the report that must be filed with the secretary depends on the size and type of the employer.
For private employers that employ 100 or more employees in the Common-
“Under the new act, covered employers no longer can keep secret from their employees and prospective employees pay information for positions within their company. The act has wide-ranging reporting and disclosure requirements of salary ranges.”
wealth at any time during the prior calendar year that are subject to federal filing requirements of EEO-1 data reports, the employers must submit a copy of the EEO-1 data report to the secretary annually by Feb. 1. Massachusetts employers that are required to file EEO-1 data reports will be required to make their first report under the act by Feb. 1, 2025. Other types of employers, such as public employers, face different filing deadlines and requirements under the act.
Next Steps
After employers submit copies of their EEO data reports, the secretary has until April 1 to report this information to the Executive Office of Labor and Work- force Development. The Executive Office is
then required to aggregate the information it
receives from the secretary and post it on its
website. It is important to know that, while
Salary
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