Editorial: Finally, there’s action on pay equity

More than a half-century after the federal Equal Pay Act outlawed wage discrimination based on gender, women in this country continue to be underpaid.

From hotel maids to Hollywood moguls, a woman’s work is just about never compensated at parity with a man’s, partly because of loopholes that have evolved to block women from effectively forcing the issue.

For more than five years, a bill known as the Paycheck Fairness Act has been pending in Congress to fix that. Unfortunately, the usual partisan gridlock has stood in the way.

So May 26, the California Senate took matters into its own hands, approving a bill that would strengthen legal remedies for victims of gender-based pay discrimination.

For this, senators deserve thanks and congratulations. If it clears the Assembly and is signed into law, Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson’s Senate Bill 358 will give California the toughest pay-equity protections in the United States.

“Because of the wage gap, our state and families are missing out on $33.6 billion dollars a year, “ Jackson said. “That money could be flowing into families’ pocketbooks, into our businesses and our economy.”

The truth is, a fix this obvious should have come long ago. The California Fair Pay Act is just a slightly tougher state version of the federal paycheck fairness law that Congress can’t seem to make happen.

It fixes technicalities that have prevented women from challenging pay inequities, for example, at chains with multiple job sites, such as supermarkets, and at workplaces where men and women were doing essentially the same work under different job titles — as janitors and maids, for instance.

It also makes it crystal clear that employers can’t retaliate against workers for sharing salary information. And it requires employers to prove that wage differences are due to legitimate business necessity, such as superior education or experience, and not gender-driven.

In a sign of how overdue the change is, the Senate approved the measure on a bipartisan and near-unanimous vote, with only one Democrat not casting a vote. The California Chamber of Commerce has endorsed the bill, partly because gray areas in existing law are confusing and costly for employers.

“We agree with Senator Jackson that employees who are similarly situated should receive the same rate of pay for performing substantially similar job duties, ” said Jennifer Barrera, policy advocate with the California Chamber of Commerce.

The Assembly should get on the bandwagon, as should the governor. Women support millions of families. As Jackson, a Santa Barbara Democrat, pointed out on the Senate floor, we are long past the days when bored housewives worked for pin money.

We applaud the Senate’s bipartisan vote, even as Congress fiddles, but, honestly, what took us so long?

This story was originally published May 31, 2015 at 10:00 AM with the headline "Editorial: Finally, there’s action on pay equity."