CALIFORNIA Governor Jerry Brown made a landmark decision toward closing the longstanding wage gap between men and women by signing one of the toughest pay equity laws in the nation on Tuesday, Oct. 6,
The California Fair Pay Act, first introduced and authored by Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara), was the response to a report by the US Census Bureau and Equal Rights Advocates, which found that women in California working full time made an average of 84 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2013.
“The inequities that have plagued our state and have burdened women forever are slowly being resolved with this kind of bill,” Brown said at a ceremony at the Rosie the Riveter National Historical Park in Richmond, California.
The measure will also give employees more grounds for challenging perceived discrimination and injustice, the Los Angeles Times reported. It prohibits employees from facing retaliation for discussing their pay rates, and allows them to challenge pay disparities at work.
“Today is a momentous day for California, and it is long overdue. Equal pay isn’t just the right thing for women, it’s the right thing for our economy and for California,” said Sen. Jackson at the event. “Courts have interpreted current law to mean that male and female workers must hold exactly the same jobs to require equal pay…Now they’re going to have to value the work equally.”
Gov. Brown’s office also said in a statement that the bill was “among the strongest in the nation,” receiving bipartisan support, according to Reuters.
“[This measure] is a very important milestone,” he said, adding it will help California in “reaching toward greater equity.”
Employers sued by workers would have to show that wage differences are “due to factors other than sex,” such as merit or seniority; that they are job-related and reasonable; and that they are not due to discrimination.
Workers who believe they have been discriminated against said Tuesday that the new law would help bolster future labor cases. Employers will now be “accountable to pay women fairly,” said Aileen Rizo, a math consultant for the Fresno County Office of Education, who is suing the agency for allegedly paying her male colleague $12,000 more a year for the same work.
The California Chamber of Commerce initially opposed the bill, but last week the business group said it ultimately changed its mind because “the legislation created a fair balance for workers and employers.”
Republican lawmakers and national women’s rights leaders said the legislation was “a model for other states and for Congress,” where similar efforts have been stalled by Republican opposition.
Businesses said they expected more lawsuits once the new rules take effect on January 1.
Equal Rights Advocates pointed out that wage disparities were particularly stark for Latina and African-American women.
Women of color and mothers “continue to lose precious income to a pervasive, gender-based wage gap,” said Jennifer Reisch, legal director of Equal Rights Advocates.
It is also said that about 1.75 homes in California are headed by women, and the wage gap between the sexes costs families in the state roughly $39 billion in a year.
“The win here is undeniable. We think of 2015 as the year of fair pay,” said Equal Rights Advocates Executive Director Noreen Farrell.
The bill was also part of a package of reforms that has been pushed by California’s Legislative Women’s Caucus, which also aimed to make workplace scheduling more accommodating to families, and to increase federal aid to infants and children. The bills have not yet passed.
The Obama administration has also made gender pay discrimination a priority in its agenda. In 2009, the White House signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and took some executive actions on the issue last year.
California already has laws that ban employers from paying women less than men for the same jobs. The new California Fair Pay Act will broaden this prohibition, by saying bosses cannot pay their employees less than those of the opposite sex for “substantially similar work,” even if their titles are different or they have different job sites.
The new law is the strongest in the US, according to the National Partnership for Women & Families, a Washington-based nonprofit advocacy group focused on fairness in the workplace.
Commented Hollywood actress Patricia Arquette, who publically called for gender wage equality in her Academy Awards acceptance speech, “This [law] is a critical step toward ensuring that women in California are seen and valued as equals.”
