It makes no sense to equate location with immutable characteristics like race or gender. People can move to a new city.
> There ought to be a movement to outlaw this practice.
State and municipal minimum wage laws would be neutered by such a law.
It was not always the case though. Good luck convincing people with moral arguments when it goes against their financial interests. Even cutting away the PR bs would be a major win.
https://elsajohansson.wordpress.com/2017/09/13/what-does-a-w...
Insofar as local CoL correlates with race and potentially other protected characteristics (religion seems likely, for instance), there's a pretty good “disparate impact” argument that it would be presumptively illegal if challenged under US federal anti-discrimination law.
Do you mean that you're able to compete because your location(hence, your salary) makes you a better value than someone who lives in an expensive region? That makes sense to me. Perhaps my viewpoint wasn't very thought out.
> As someone who works remotely from a low COL area, please do not outlaw this practice.
I have neither the power nor the desire. :)
Exactly.
I would because it's discriminating someone by their identity and not necessarily their merits. By your reasoning, does is it only rude for Christian employers to discriminate against Muslims, for example? Someone can declare themselves to be of a religion they don't actually believe, but that doesn't mean that we should accept a society that fractures itself based on arbitrary lines of identity. Would you want to live in a society where you have a public race, a public religion, and a public gender while being intimidated to hiding your private identity for the sake of employment or so much as eating at a restaurant? (assuming one could change those things at will)
Perhaps there shouldn't be specific protected classes, but I do not agree that the mutability of a person's traits should open them up to systematic discrimination.
Being a Rick and Morty fan or dressing unfashionably are generally not considered valid identities by most people, although I'm sure many who have such interests would say those things represent their identity.
Anyway, I'm sorry for dragging race issues into a thread about GitLab. xD
If it's wrong(and illegal) to pay people differently based on their race or gender, I can't see how it should be alright to pay people differently based on their cost of living. There ought to be a movement to outlaw this practice.
EDIT: Before you reply, note that I no longer think my argument is good.