Skip to main content

New Laws for 2015: Fair Pay Act (CA)


Recently, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law SB 358, which bars California employers from paying women less than men when they both do "substantially similar work."  As the language of the new law reads, this Fair Pay Act is one of the tougher equal pay measures to go into effect anywhere in the country.  

Under the new law, employers are prohibited from preventing workers from discussing their own wages or the wages of co-workers if the purpose is to determine pay fairness.  In addition, the Act prevents employers from retaliating or discriminating against employees who seek out pay disparity information.  In essence, California employees are now free to talk amongst themselves and do their own research to determine whether they are receiving fair pay...without the threat of the employer taking action against them.

Interesting to note, the bill received the unanimous support of the Senate in California and only had two dissenting votes in the Assembly.  In an employee friendly state like California, this is not too surprising.  The fact that the California Chamber of Commerce jumped on board in support of the bill shows that there has been wide spread support among business oriented groups, which is something that does not always happen with a pro-employee bill like this. 

The author of the bill, Hanna-Beth Jackson of Santa Barbara, indicated this new law could be a template for other states (or even cities) to use to want to pass similar gender pay-gap bills.  Whether other states will follow suit remains to be seen...but once again, California has become one of the fore bearers on the issue and signed into law another employee friendly piece of legislation.


For additional information:  http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Jerry-Brown-signs-nation-s-toughest-gender-6554023.php

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NLRB: Discussion Among Employees About Tip Pooling is Protected Concerted Activity

  This Advice Memorandum from the National Labor Relations Board’s Associate General Counsel, Jayme Sophir, addressed whether employees which discussed and complained about tip pooling at work constituted protected concerted activity. In relevant part, an employer in New York operated a chain of steakhouses.  While tip pooling was in place at these steakhouses, some of the employees objected to it on the grounds that it was not transparent and improperly divided tips among the workers.  Employees were told not to complain or talk to each other about the tip pool and were told that doing so would endanger their jobs.  Despite the employer later attempting to provide some clarity as to how the tips were being divided, rancor still existed among some employees.  At one point, the employees were told by a general manager that some employees that had been talking about the tip pool were “cleared out” and the employer would continue to do so. In the Advice Memorandum, it was noted that emplo
Post a Comment
Read more

Happening Tomorrow: Connecticut’s Minimum Wage Increases

For those employers and employees alike in Connecticut, mark your calendars as tomorrow, the minimum wage rate increases in the state from $13/hour to $14/hour. This wage hike comes after Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont had signed Public Act 19-4 into law in 2019 which progressively raised the state’s hourly minimum wage rate every year for five years.  In fact, next year, the hourly wage rate will top out at $15/hour.  Beginning in January of 2024, the hourly wage rate will be indexed to the employment cost index. For additional information:   https://portal.ct.gov/Office-of-the-Governor/News/Press-Releases/2022/06-2022/Governor-Lamont-Reminds-Residents-That-Minimum-Wage-Is-Scheduled-To-Increase-on-Friday
Post a Comment
Read more

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

A few years ago, I remember when the “Fight for $15” movement was taking off around the country.  Lo and behold, it appears that a $15/hour minimum wage is not the stopping point, which should be no surprise.  As the below article notes, New York is aggressively moving to ramp up hourly wage rates even higher.  While all the  below articles are worth a read, I called particular attention to that one. As always, below are a couple article that caught my eye this week. Disney World Workers Reject Latest Contract Offer Late last week, it was announced that workers at Disney World had rejected the most recent contract offer from the company, calling on their employer to do better.  As Brooks Barnes at The New York Times writes, the unions that represent about 32,000 workers at Disney World reported their members resoundingly rejected the 5 year contract offer which would have seen workers receive a 10% raise and retroactive increased back pay.  While Disney’s offer would have increased pa
Post a Comment
Read more