PaySlipBanSA

unfair employers

Herbert Smith Freehills unlawful recruitment

International law firm Herbert Smith Freehills violates human rights in South Africa. Herbert Smith Freehills places fake recruitment adverts and is not upfront about pay.

Pay Secrecy in Job Adverts is Unfair Practice

Law firm Herbert Smith Freehills should know better.

The right to fair labour practice is enshrined in the Constitution and nothing can dominate this right – or at least, nothing is supposed to! When employers practice pay secrecy, it’s to gain more power over applicants during wage negotiations. Herbert Smith Freehills took it further by placing a fake and exploitative advert in an extremely vulnerable sector – youth.

Pay secrecy is about Power not Equality

Pay secrecy during recruitment generally does not support equity and the principle of treating all individuals equally and without bias. This is because pay secrecy can contribute to wage discrimination and other forms of unequal treatment in the workplace. Without transparency about pay, it is difficult for individuals to know if they are being offered a fair wage for their work, and it can allow for discriminatory practices to go unchecked. Additionally, pay secrecy can create an atmosphere of mistrust and resentment in the workplace, as employees may suspect that their colleagues are being paid differently for the same work without any good reason. Overall, pay secrecy during the recruitment process is generally seen as a negative practice that can have harmful consequences for both individual workers and for the health of the organization as a whole, and it does not support equity or fairness in the workplace.

Job advert pay transparency supports equity by providing potential candidates with clear and accurate information about what they can expect to earn in a particular role. This can help individuals to make informed decisions about whether or not to apply for a job, and can prevent misunderstandings or disappointment later on in the recruitment process. Additionally, pay transparency can help to reduce the potential for wage discrimination and other unfair practices, as it allows candidates to see if they are being offered a fair wage for their work. Pay transparency can also create a sense of fairness and trust in the workplace, and can support employees in negotiating for competitive and fair compensation. Overall, pay transparency in job adverts is generally seen as a positive and fair practice that can benefit both employers and employees, and can support equity in the workplace.

Unemployed Youth Tax Bait

International law firm Herbert Smith Freehills placed a learnership advert, a ‘fantastic opportunity they said!  A  learnership in the legal sector is very unusual as these interventions typically target marginalized youth and the unemployed to absorb them in economic sectors where there are skills shortages or barriers to entry. It’s well known in South Africa that Black women are faced with mean challenges when trying to penetrate the white-male-dominated legal sector but to do so under the guise of a learnership is questionable considering the shortage of women in the industry. When a firm uses the term ‘learnership’ it immediately implies they will gain BEE points and tax breaks that can be worth millions. Is that what HSF was hoping for? Why didn’t they embark on a process of discovery they should be familiar with and check the processes to be followed? Their lack of process is concerning.

Not only was the learnership advertised not real, but the HSF Legal was not transparent about pay. Their target market, university graduates who are typically young and impressionable, are vulnerable to various market factors such as pay and location. They need to know if they can afford to apply and accept a position, particularly one defined at the developmental level of a ‘learnership.’ Transport prices increase throughout the year, applicants need to know if they will be able to afford to keep up with increases. HSF appears to expect intelligent young legal novices to make a decision about applying in an irrational manner. They must be willing to invest their time in applying and then invest time and money in an interview if called without knowing if they can afford to accept an offer from the firm.

Herbert Smith Freehills refuses to account for their conduct and apologise to South Africa. Our society needs law firms to offer Black women jobs that will accelerate their position in the legal sector and not treat them as temporary Tax Bait, a learnership doesn’t indicate a permanent position. Below is the advert they published and which we should accept as a reflection of who they are and what they value…obviously equality and transparency are not on their list.

Herbert Smith Freehills Responds

Businesses prefer to discuss offline so as to minimise public participation. When PaySlipBan did attend meetings, employers such as Allon Raiz were never willing to speak publicly about the damages of pay secrecy even though they had platforms to do so. This shows that PaySlipBanSA must develop a solution to encourage employer commitment to Constitutionalism. Herbert smith Freehills has the money to do things correctly from the get-go, so why don’t they?

Job Advert Pay Transparency

Many employers trivialize worker rights during the process of recruitment and claim powers they are not legally entitled. Employers and recruiters downplay the meaning of job advert pay secrecy in order to protect the powers secrecy gives them. Some recruiters have argued that secrecy is in the applicant’s favour as it reflects that there is no cap and that the wages agreed upon will be based on their skills. This neoliberal approach, survival of the fittest, is nothing but bullshit to confuse those naive enough to believe a lack of upfront information is an innocent norm.

Herbert Smith Freehills obstructs the fair flow of wage information to job applicants which is potentially discriminatory thereby signalling an unfair pathway to employment at a firm.

Everybody is entitled to fair labour practice but who makes the rules?

Advertisements containing company benefits, list salary description and advertise more than one position received a larger applicant pool than advertisements lacking these contents.

Kaplan, Aamodt and Wilk : 1991

Calls for secrecy banning in the UK

Young Women’s Trust chief executive Dr Carole Easton OBE said secrecy must be banned:

“We have to break the cycle that traps women in low pay.

Women often start work on a lower salary than men, move to a new job and are paid based on their previous wage, as opposed to what they or the role are worth – so they continue to be paid less.

Ending this practice is crucial to ending the gender pay gap.
“Our research shows that women are more likely to disregard jobs if they feel their skills don’t match up to them, compared to men who often apply anyway.
Including salary details in job adverts would help women to see that jobs are in fact at their level and give them an idea of where they should be negotiating from to progress their pay.”

www.hrreview.co.uk/hr-news/strategy-news/ban-salary-secrecy-says-report/112016

Lawyers know Employer Power is called ‘Monopsony’

Workers have the right to pursue the best-paying and most suitable job for them. When workers want to work for better money than what they currently earn, it’s their right to do so and it’s rational. Changing jobs for the same or less money may not be worth the effort. Employers want workers to be dependent on employment in order to survive economically and to have status in society. When an employer tries to control worker wages, they place their power and profit interests ahead of the worker’s right to pursue competitive, not unfairly limited and price-fixed wages.

An employer is not entitled to apply wage discrimination even if it is a rational business decision and results in improving profits. Saving on wages is an increase in profitability in any organisation. Paying women and Black people low wages because the statistics show they work for less, is rational but wrong. If a woman or Black person can be coerced into accepting an unfair wage because the recruitment system is set up to do so, then the system is discriminatory and shows market failure. Any profit gained at workers’ expense is unfair labour practice.

The Competition Act states that workers, owners and consumers have equal rights in the economy and that their interests must be balanced. Employers are overreaching when they claim secrecy and payslip sharing in labour markets is fair yet it’s openly happening.

Unfair Information Advantages

Withholding information about pay is an abuse of power. Pay secrecy during recruitment serves employers not job applicants.

Income inequality patterns are dominated by racist and sexist outcomes suggesting firms use payslips to perpetuate unjust pay. This is why jobs must be priced, not people. Spying on rival firm reward systems to price-fix pay and poach employees. When job applicants apply for jobs without knowing how much they will be paid, they become vulnerable to race and gender-based wage discrimination.

Fake Professionalism at HSF

Lernerships are registered with the Department of Labour and result in the awarding of an occupational qualification. Learnerships are predominantly at NQF levels 3, 4 and 5

A law learnership is somewhat of an oddity and attracted our attention immediately.

Herbert Smith Freehills ignorant of local laws

A foreign firm, they no doubt heard how black graduates can be suckered when forced to enter the labour market via a learnership, even if qualified. But HSF apparently failed to research our local regulations and even failed to get an understanding of the definition of ‘learnerships.’

When confronted, HSF swiftly removed the advert and ignored the demand for a public apology. Their website claims they are human rights experts, but no doubt this expertise is compromised in favour of human-busting neo-liberalism.

Herbert Smith Freehills has a dim view of pay transparency, even when targeting a ‘development’ market. Clearly, they lack informed policy and conviction.

When a recruiter and job applicant negotiate wages, the person with the most information about pay has the advantage. If one party involved in a negotiation has more information than the other, lawyers and economists refer to the difference as information asymmetry.

False Legal Learnership Advertised

HSF claimed to be advertising a Law Learnership yet they had no accredited provider number neither did the advert state the specific qualification candidates would acquire as a result of the experience.

They never provided the information, it appears they were trying to dupe the public into believing it was an authentic development intervention.

Learnerships can be poverty traps for gullible new market entrants. Pay is dangerously low, while expectations are extremely high.

If you’re a black youth, you’ll struggle to enter the professional labour force directly, even if qualified. You’ll likely be channelled into learnerships so firms can gain BEE points, tax rebates and cheap labour.

Lawyers Practicing Information Asymmetry

HSF often adopts information asymmetry when recruiting. Clearly, they never read South Africa’s Constitution, as a result, they didn’t see the bits about fair labour practice and dignity. It would be interesting to know why they placed a (fake) learnership advert. It would also be interesting to know why they weren’t transparent about pay, given how important money is.

Forward emails requesting pay history and pay expectation information from job advertisers who are secretive about pay during recruitment.

Screenshot job adverts that are vague about pay or that don’t even mention it and send to friend@payslipbansa.co.za.

Author

leonie hall

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