Is giving a 10% pay increase to 71 State employees truly showing a sign of “meaning business” in the gender pay gap when that 10% equals little – PB/TK
California Senate gives 10 percent raises to 71 employees to close gender pay gap -BY ALEXEI KOSEFF – Sacramento Bee
Capping a yearlong assessment of pay equity among its ranks, the California Senate late last year gave 10 percent raises to 71 employees to shrink a lingering gap between what male and female employees earn.
The raises, which total about $602,000 annually, followed the passage of a 2015 law expanding California’s equal-pay protections and a Sacramento Bee investigation that found persistent gender inequities on the Capitol payroll.
Though the new law did not apply to the Legislature, Dan Reeves, chief of staff to Senate leader Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, said the Senate wanted to “show other businesses” that they could pay men and women equally for similar work and still “be successful.”
“It’s important for the Legislature to lead by example,” he said.
Senate Bill 385, by Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, was signed in October 2015, expanding California law to require that women be paid the same as their male colleagues for doing “substantially similar,” and not just the same, work. It also created new protections for workers to compare wages and put the burden on employers who are sued to prove they were paying a female worker less for “legitimate reasons,” such as seniority or merit.
Shortly after the bill’s introduction, The Bee analyzed legislative payrolls and found that women who work for the Senate made 94 cents and women who work for the Assembly 92 cents for every dollar earned by men.
Continue to sacbee.com article: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article132318444.html
