Equality between men and women has been declared in France a “great national cause” of Emmanuel Macron’s Presidency in the wake of the #MeToo movement.
In March 2018, the French government unveiled an action plan for gender equality in the workplace consisting of ten measures aiming at reducing the gender pay gap and five measures to fight sexual and gender based violence. READ MORE
Last week, California enacted new legislation updating the prohibition on employers inquiring into the salary history of their applicants and the requirement that employers respond to applicants’ requests for the pay scale for positions. This law, enacting Assembly Bill No. 2282, clarifies key provisions in Labor Code section 432.2 regarding employers’ obligations, which were left undefined in the bill that added Section 432.3 to the Labor Code last year. READ MORE
When we last checked in on AB 1209, the Gender Pay Gap Transparency Act, the proposed legislation was making its way through the California Senate. After making a few key amendments, the Senate passed the bill on September 7, 2017. The California Assembly approved the amendments on September 11, 2017, and now the fate of AB 1209 lies in the hands Governor Jerry Brown. READ MORE
As California employers adjust to recent amendments to the state’s Equal Pay Act, additional changes are looming. As we reported here, last year, California adopted the Fair Pay Act, which provides new pay equity provisions related to employees of the opposite sex. Those amendments took effect on January 1, 2016. Now, California lawmakers are setting their sights on pay disparities based on race and ethnicity. On February 16, 2016, California Senator Isadore Hall III (D-South Bay) introduced Senate Bill 1063, known as the Wage Equality Act of 2016 (“SB 1063”), which seeks to expand pay equity requirements beyond sex to include race and ethnicity.
In August 2014, the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contractor Programs (“OFCCP”) proposed that federal contractors report compensation information on an Equal Pay report. Amid significant contractor comments that OFCCP coordinate with the EEOC to amend the Employer Information Report (“EEO-1”), EEOC did so on January 29, 2016. The EEOC intends to ask the Office of Management and Budget to approve additional data collection that would require most employers to submit aggregate data on pay ranges and hours worked. The EEOC believes that the additional data “will assist [EEOC and OFCCP] in identifying possible pay discrimination and assist employers in promoting equal pay in their workplaces.” However, questions remain whether this data would yield any meaningful analysis of actual pay differences that would assist either agency in uncovering pay discrimination.
With Governor Jerry Brown’s signature, California officially amended its equal pay legislation through the California Fair Pay Act (the Act) to include more employee-friendly provisions. The Act, which now creates the nation’s strongest equal pay protections, seeks to close the pay gap in California. The Act may serve as a model for legislation in other states and supporters are even hopeful the Act’s passage may finally push Congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, which has been introduced in Congress every year since 1994 and upon which California’s legislation was based.
