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I don’t “imagine,” it’s called AB 168 and it’s been in effect since 2018.
Anyway it’s weird that you’re really digging in your heels here, but it is a good reminder of why I stopped coming to this site.
See y’all in a year when I forget again!
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I didn’t know what AB 168 was off the top of my head, so I looked it up.
(Bill Text - AB-168 Employers: salary information.)
This legislation is about salary history, not about offering different salaries based on merit and/or experience.
This bill would prohibit an employer from relying on the salary history information of an applicant for employment as a factor in determining whether to offer an applicant employment or what salary to offer an applicant. The bill also would prohibit an employer from seeking salary history information about an applicant for employment and would require an employer, upon reasonable request, to provide the pay scale for a position to an applicant for employment.
What’s relevant here is how much experience Escárcega accumulated in her four years in Phoenix. How much she was paid is irrelevant.
AB 168 modified California Labor Code section 432.3, which is about salary histories. It says nothing about experience. AB 2282, passed the next year, explicitly allows employers to set wage rates based on a “bona fide factor other than race or ethnicity, such as education, training, or experience.”
In Escárcega’s case, her ethnicity and sex were positive factors that helped differentiate her from many other critics with similar (or much greater) experience, just as they were for Soleil Ho in SF.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180AB2282
I was responding to Robert’s points.
Right, it is irrelevant, but you brought it up.
I still think this conversation is so fucking weird. I don’t know what you’re aiming for. I don’t like it here.
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To me, as someone with as much experience as a restaurant critic as Escárcega had before she was hired by the Times, I would never have expected to be paid as much as Addison. There’s only a handful of people in the business with his stature.
I’m not sure what bothers you about that. You think that since she’s Latina it’s automatically discrimination that she’s not paid the same as a white guy with at least four times as much experience, a national reputation, and a James Beard award just because he doesn’t have “senior” or “lead” in his job title?
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@robert, there was absolutely nothing in my post that you flagged and deleted that was a complaint. If anything, it was defense of how less heavy handed you’ve become w/ the moderating.
In other forums (non-food related) in which I participate, the mods move off topic posts to the correct topic or to the “off topic landfill” (that’s literally what it’s called), rather than delete. The only things that get deleted are wildly inappropriate things.
But to get back on topic…
I’m not @KatherineSpiers, but I think it’s more of what the LAT had intimated to Escárcega upon her hiring. If they said explicitly, “Escárcega, you’re being hired at an equal level to Addison,” that would be kind of stink of she clearly was not and there would’ve been no way for her to know that since I doubt she went up to Addison on their first day and said, “Bill, what is your job title and what are you being paid?”
If she bought into the public hype that the LAT was putting out and then possibly ignored a union communication recommending that all employees review their job tiles and such, well, then…
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I think this is the main point. Even if Robert is correct as too the law. How much does it matter in the court of public opinion? The food section now looks like (even more of) a hot mess with no leadership or clear direction.
The food section is going to need new leadership with a strong moral compass and a new look that says it’s not Meehans section anymore imo
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This whole topic makes me miss Jonathan Gold.
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I liked it when both SIV & JG were around. To me it felt almost like a front News section with JG writing like a columnist and SIV more just the facts / star type reviews; both completely different styles but complentary. That section was loaded with great writers besides as well.
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As an over privileged white guy, I’d have vociferously defended your position, 20 years ago. Now, not so much. In that time I met and eventually married a fabulous beautiful Chicana who spent most of her childhood growing up in historic South Central Los Angeles. Over the years, I’ve come to have a very different perspective of many things.
The LA Times paid Patricia Escarcega 1/3rd less than her colleague because they could, pure and simple. Experience is the reasoning which seems logical, but it’s not. I was surprised to find out, through his LinkedIn page, that BIll only worked at the Chronicle for a year back in 2006 (& that we went to the same college) To me, it stands out as a resume padder, which has the bonus of giving outsized credibility, which can used as a stepping stone to higher paying gigs. Which is what he did after a year. An opportunity enabled by race and gender. As far as the James Beard award goes, it’s not the most egalitarian organization. They tend to draw from the same wells and work within the same circles of chefs and critics year after year. They rarely go outside their comfort zone. Restaurant Awards Like the World’s 50 Best List Are Unfair. Let’s Fix Them - Eater
Writing, to me, is a talent, not a skill you hone. Experience is more of a track record in this case rather than a judgment of talent. See “experienced” businessman in the White House. It’s also frequently used as a way to keep the glass ceiling in place. I work in a similar field. I know many folks with long tenures who can do reasonably good work and occasionally something really neat. I know others, who are just out of college or this is their first step up to the big time, who hit it out of the park every single time. They get something about what we’re doing and are able to run with it. Writing is like that.
Bill’s focus tends to be high end dining. As you well know, that does not make a well rounded critic for LA because it’s missing out on the wide swath of multitudes of other types of restaurants in LA. Also, in assessing Patricia’s experience, you’re missing one essential thing. She’s a native Southern Californian, and that counts for a hell of a lot. I know I married one. I’ve been here 18 years and I’m still learning.
That said, I read and appreciate Patricia more than Bill since she writes what I’m interested in. At the end of the day that is what important. How well will the writer connect with and engage with the audience. She does that very well.
The unfortunate part of this whole situation is since the LA Times has refused to reconcile the two salaries, it might likely end up in court, where the jury most likely consist of older white guys who believe “experience” trumps all other factors. In that scenario, she’ll loose and the glass ceiling will still be firmly in place.
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great points and well said! i look at the current crop of new food writers such as Tejal Rao and Soleil Ho and they had cooking backgrounds before diving into writing…like you said, they just have it. As does Escarcega.
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I doubt many readers of the LA Times food section follow the internal politics, but to those who do, it couldn’t look much worse after the Meehan debacle.
No competent manager would have led Escárcega to believe that she was getting paid as much as Addison, but the food section might have been pretty chaotic at the time, four months after Jonathan Gold died. Meehan wasn’t promoted to editor until February 2019, so I guess the hiring manager was Kimi Yoshino, who might not have had much management experience. This story confirms that Escárcega was a food writer, not a critic, at the Arizona Republic.
" Patricia Escárcega, formerly the food critic "
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All I want is LA Times to fix this shit. I’m a long time subscriber and they are my paper of record. I do not want to switch to the New York Times.
Get your shit together LA Times and pay Patricia, and let’s not drag Bill into this, it’s not his fault.
This is all just so infuriating.
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If the Times’ statement about the agreement with the Guild is true, they’re unlikely to end up in court. Escárcega had a chance to challenge her classification and failed to do so.
So far I don’t see that the Guild has issued a statement in support of her claim, though it’s only been a few days.
They paid Addison 50% more because they had to. He was Eater’s national critic. You don’t get someone to leave a plum gig like that by offering them a salary cut and a much smaller expense account.
Not true at all. He covers most of those, but the majority of the reviews he’s written are of inexpensive places. Overall he’s reviewed the same kind of broad range as Jonathan Gold. He cast a similar wide net when he was Eater’s national critic.
Escárcega is a food writer at the Arizona Republic and was the restaurant reviewer at the Phoenix New Times, an alt weekly, for three years
If you have no talent, you’ll never become a great writer, but it takes time to master your craft. And there’s a lot more to journalism and criticism than just writing.
I’ve been making a good living as a writer for 30 years. Experience leading to greater expertise and competence means I can command higher pay and better benefits than someone who’s been doing it for just a few years.
SF was arguably the top food city in the country at that time and the Chronicle funded the food section lavishly, so it was a step up from his starting gig in Atlanta. I read everything he wrote, he did a great job, much better than his boss, Michael Bauer. Who wasn’t going anywhere, so Addison’s ambition meant he had to leave to get a higher-level position.
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/In-search-of-the-transcendent-taqueria-Our-2488955.php
The Guild’s contract flatly contradicts the notion that experienced employees should not be paid more:
Some quick highlights on what we’ve won: … Extensive wage scales for minimum pay, locking in step raises that extend to 21 years of industry experience.
But that’s sort of the point that people here are arguing, right? That the LAT is a sh*tshow and that the managers are not competent? Your position appears to be predicated on giving the LAT the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps the institution is not deserving of that, at the current time…
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