Gender and Pay Equity - Page 17 of 24

Philadelphia Wage Equity Ordinance On Hold … For Now

Earlier this year, Philadelphia became the first city to pass a law prohibiting employers from inquiring about a job applicant’s wage history and restricting their ability to consider wage history in setting new employee compensation. The pay equity ordinance was enacted to halt the perpetuation of gender discrimination in compensation practices.

As has been widely reported, the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce filed a lawsuit on April 6, 2017 to challenge the ordinance, which was scheduled to go into effect on May 23, 2017. The Chamber also filed a motion for a preliminary injunction, asking the Court to enjoin the enforcement of the ordinance while its lawsuit is pending, on the grounds that the ordinance violates businesses’ free speech rights under the First Amendment and is unconstitutionally vague. The City of Philadelphia’s apparent first response has been to question whether the Chamber of Commerce even has standing to bring a lawsuit challenging the ordinance.

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Recruiting and “Off-Limits” Questions about Salary History – What Employers Need to Know

By October of 2017, NYC employers – and their recruiting agencies – will no longer be allowed to ask about an applicant’s salary and benefits history during the interview process due to a recent amendment to the NYC Human Rights Law. This law follows Executive Orders signed in November 2016 by Mayor de Blasio, and in January 2017 by Governor Cuomo, banning questions about salary history for NYC and NY state public-sector applicants prior to a conditional offer of employment. In addition, private employers in Philadelphia as of May 2017, and Massachusetts as of July 1, 2018, will also be banned from asking applicants about their compensation history. These laws are intended to help break the perpetuation of salary inequities by prohibiting reliance on prior, possibly inequitable compensation levels, as a means to set salaries and other compensation for incoming employees. Public Advocate Letitia James co-sponsored the NYC bill after a study conducted by her office found that women in New York earn $5.8 billion less in wages than men every year, or 87 cents for every dollar that men make, and the wage discrepancies were worse for minority females.

What does the NYC law prohibit?

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Get Ready to Comply: All Signs Point to Enforcement of the Enhanced EEO-1 Form and Reporting Obligations

For approximately fifty years, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) has collected workforce data about race, gender, ethnicity and job category from all businesses with 100 or more employees, using the EEO-1 report. In an effort to combat pay discrimination, last year the EEOC announced that it finalized regulations expanding the information collected in the annual EEO-1 report to include pay data.

The revised EEO-1 form requires employers to collect aggregate W-2 earnings and report the number of employees in each of the twelve pay bands (spanning from $19,239 and under to $208,000 and over) for the ten EEO-1 job categories (Executive/Senior Level Officials and Managers; First/Mid Level Officials and Managers; Professionals; Technicians; Sales Workers; Administrative Support Workers; Craft Workers; Operatives; Laborers and Helpers; Service Workers) and classified by race, sex and ethnicity. The revised EEO-1 form has been largely criticized by employers claiming that the collection of W-2 earnings, without any context to explain legitimate non-discriminatory reasons for pay disparities (e.g., education, training, experience, tenure, merit, etc.) will unnecessarily open the door to increased scrutiny and investigations. To make matters worse, the EEOC has not been very forthcoming about how the information would be analyzed and used, other than as a “screening tool” to identify pay discrimination.

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Paid Sick Leave Law in Morristown, New Jersey Became Effective on January 11, 2017

This Ordinance, which was passed in September 2016, requires employers in Morristown, New Jersey to provide a certain amount of paid sick time per year depending on the size of the employer. Generally, employees who work more than 80 hours a year in Morristown will be covered under this Ordinance. The Morristown Ordinance is the 13th local paid sick leave ordinance enacted within New Jersey, following similar ordinances in the towns and cities of Bloomfield, East Orange, Elizabeth, Irvington, Jersey City, Montclair, Newark, New Brunswick, Passaic, Paterson, Plainfield, and Trenton.

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Laboring Under New Laws

*Originally published by CalCPA in the January/February 2017 issue of California CPA — the original article can be found here.

Few things in this world can be certain, except that the California Legislature will expand regulation of employers each year and the sun will come up tomorrow. In an apparent pendulum swing, 569 bills introduced in 2016 mention “employer,” compared to 224 in 2015 and 574 in 2014. Most of those bills did not pass, and of the ones that did, most were not signed into law by Gov. Brown. Essential elements of selected bills that became law affecting private employers, effective Jan. 1, 2017, unless otherwise mentioned and organized by Senate and Assembly bill number, follow.

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Here’s What that New Philadelphia ‘Pay History’ Law Means for Your Business

David Woolf wrote an article for the Philadelphia Business Journal titled, “Here’s what that new Philadelphia ‘pay history’ law means for your business.” Philadelphia will likely become the first city in the nation to ban employers and employment agencies from asking job applicants for their salary history or requiring disclosure of such information. The Philadelphia City Council unanimously approved the bill on December 8; if enacted as expected, the new law will go into effect 120 days after the Mayor signs it. David discusses what this new bill means for local businesses.

Dave notes that the ordinance would also make it unlawful for an employer to base their compensation offer on an applicant’s prior salary unless the applicant knowingly and willingly discloses their salary history to the employer. The new law is meant to lessen the wage gap earnings between white males and women and minorities, but has been met with some controversy. The Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce has openly opposed the bill, stating that the legislation “goes too far in dictating how employers can interact with potential hires.”

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