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Before 1963, women working full-time were paid, on average, 59 cents for each dollar earned by their male colleagues. In passing the 1963 Equal Pay Act (EPA), Congress said that unequal pay based on sex depresses living standards and prevents maximum utilization of the labor force. The EPA says that men and women in the same establishment who are performing under similar working conditions with equal skill, effort, and responsibility must get equal pay for equal work.
Gender Cannot Determine Pay
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) enforces the EPA and tries to address real-life situations in which some employers try to dodge the EPA alleging that their apparently gender-biased pay is actually based on factors other than sex.
For example, an employer is paying a male employee more than a woman doing the same job by arguing that the male is the head of a household, and, thus, requires a higher salary than the woman. The EEOC states that pay is based on the requirements of the job, not the family status of the worker.
Further, if an employer is paying one worker more than another worker of a different sex doing the same job, the employer cannot comply with the law by reducing the wages of the higher-paid sex. It has to raise the lower wage to equal the higher wage.
Unions, because of their labor power, must comply with the Act. They cannot cause or try to cause an employer to discriminate in pay on the basis of sex or demand contract terms requiring discrimination. Further, if there are unlawful terms in a contract, the union must attempt to re-negotiate them.
When Unequal is Fair
The Act states that pay must be equal, but also allows for pay differences. The law does not ban pay differences based on a bona fide systems of seniority, merit, or piecework. Temporarily reassigned workers, new workers, temporary or part-time workers, and workers under bona fide training programs can be paid differently. In fact, salary differences can be based on any business-related factor, as long as it's not the person's sex, but if any of these practices results in all or most women being paid less than men on similar jobs, the EEOC will examine the practice closely.
Am I protected?
The EPA is part of The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938. The FLSA applies to full-time and part-time workers in private employment as well as Federal, State, and local government employment. Employees who are exempt from the minimum wage provisions of FLSA are not protected by the EPA.
Enforcement
The EEOC enforces the EPA inspecting workplaces routinely or when a complaint is made. An aggrieved employee can sue for back-pay and damages. Willful violators and, interestingly, anyone who does business with them, can be fined up to $10,000 and imprisoned for later violations. From 1992 to 2001 there have been more than 80,000 charges files and more than $220 million awarded for EPA violations.
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