Posted: | June 4, 2018 04:16 PM |
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From: | Senator Judith L. Schwank |
To: | All Senate members |
Subject: | Pay history restrictions |
As part of the effort to close long-standing pay gaps and to achieve workforce pay equity without regard to gender, I will soon introduce legislation generally restricting employers from demanding job applicants' prior wage histories, from using them to set workers' wages, and from prohibiting workers from discussing their own and co-workers' pay. Pay history requests are generally considered to reinforce pay disparities by allowing it to shadow workers from job to job. My bill would allow employers to request pay history only in order to offer a higher pay after making a job offer at a lower pay rate.Women currently are paid only 80 cents to the dollar earned by men for equal work nationally. Pennsylvania ranks 29th in the county for pay equity, according to a survey by the American Association of University Women, at 79 cents on the dollar. My bill would prohibit retaliation against workers for reporting or refusing to comply with violations of this law; presume that adverse actions against an employee within 90 days of such refusals or reports are retaliatory; and authorize compensatory damages, attorneys fees and costs, and back-pay based on the maximum wage or salary paid to another employee for equal work for violations. The Attorney General would be empowered to enforce the law on behalf of individual and multiple employees. Similar legislation has been enacted in California, Massachusetts and Oregon, and is currently being considered in other states, including New York. I hope you will support the effort to not only recognize the equal value of work without regard to the worker's gender, but especially to uplift the many families, and many female-headed households whose livelihoods and welfare depend on the pay earned by women. |
Introduced as SB1201