New Law Expands Equal Pay Protections
As an observer of the employment arena, I have seen over the years numerous instances in which a woman was hired into a job, but often at a lesser rate than a male co-worker or predecessor. Labor Department statistics bear out the fact that women earn only about 70 cents for every dollar earned by a man performing a comparable job.
The recently signed Illinois Equal Pay Act is intended improve this situation by providing expanded protections. This expanded protection is accomplished by expanding the number of employers covered by the law.
The former Illinois Equal Wage Act covered employers with 6 or more employees. The Federal Equal Pay act covers employers engaged in interstate commerce. Similarly, the federal civil rights act covers employers with 15 or more employees. Now, public and private employers in Illinois with four employees or more are subject to equal pay requirements, providing protections to an estimated additional 330,000 workers in the state.
The law specifies that an employer may not discriminate between employees on the basis of sex by paying wages to an employee at a rate less that the rate at which the employer pays to another employee of the opposite sex for employees performing substantially similar work requiring equal skill, effort and responsibility and under similar working conditions.
The law recognizes and permits variations in pay that may be based on a seniority system, a merit system, a quality or productivity based earning system, or other pay systems not based on sex or that otherwise violate the Illinois Human Rights Act.
Further, the law recognizes that there may be variations in pay levels by county, thus permitting employer pay plans to consider geographic differentials to pay levels. The Illinois Equal Pay Act is enforced by the Illinois Department of Labor. Employees are protected from retaliation for exercising rights under the law. An employer may not lower the salary of an employee in order to achieve compliance with the law. Violations will be subject to investigation and may result in a civil action permitting an employee to recover any lost wages, plus interest, plus costs and reasonable attorney's fees. Further, violations may be subject to a civil penalty of up to $2500.00 per violation.
One of the best ways to prevent equal pay violations, according to human resources experts, is to establish a compensation plan. A compensation typically includes provisions for defining job responsibilities in job descriptions, establishing pay levels for comparable jobs, and administering salaries within the pay levels based on skill or performance factors permitted in the law. Such a pay plan helps an employer to obtain a fair days work for a fair days pay.
