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Happening Today: The House Rules Committee to Hold Hearing to Prep Paycheck Fairness Act For Floor Consideration

 

At 1 PM EST today, the House Rules Committee is set to hold a hearing to prep The Paycheck Fairness Act (HR 7) for floor consideration later this week.

For those unfamiliar with HR 7, this legislation would add procedural protections to the Equal Pay Act and Fair Labor Standards Act in an effort to address the gender pay gap.  The legislation has several noteworthy parts:  1) it would punish employers that retaliate against workers that share wage information; 2) put the burden on employers to establish a non discriminatory reason for why a worker is paid less; 3) allow workers to sue employers for punitive damages for wage discrimination; and 4) start a program to train women on how to better negotiate their wage rates.

This legislation has been introduced in Congress many times over the years.  While a recent iteration in 2019 managed to pass the House, it did not advance through the Senate.  (Most other attempts to pass this legislation have previously stalled out in Committee.)  What makes this try different?  For starters, Democrats have majority control of both the House and Senate.  With President Joe Biden appearing to be receptive to efforts to eliminate the gender pay gap, this is likely as good of a chance as any for HR 7 to become law.


For a link to today’s hearing:  https://rules.house.gov/

For a copy of HR 7:  https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-117hr7rh/pdf/BILLS-117hr7rh.pdf

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