The Equal Pay Act Prohibits Unequal Pay for Equal Work
Written on February 27, 2009 by admin
Filed Under: Labor Law
According to the Equal Pay Act accurately targets gender based pay differences. The Equal Pay Act prohibits diff pay for essentially according work. An employer accordingly cannot pay macho and changeable advisers abnormally for accomplishing essentially according work.
To prove a abuse of the Equal Pay Act, an agent accept to prove that ;
- he or she performs essentially according plan as a affiliate of the adverse sex, or
- the employer bargain or did not access the pay of an employee, at atomic in part, because of his or her sex.
Substantially equal work
Work is “equal” beneath the Equal Pay Act if jobs crave equal skill, effort and responsibility and are performed beneath agnate alive conditions. 29 U.S.C. § 206(b)(1). The jobs beneath allegory do not accept to be identical, but that accept to be essentially equal.
Much of the action involving Equal Pay Act claims centers on how agnate the college paying job is to the lower paying job. If the affinity of the jobs is in dispute, the absolute achievement appropriate by the job, and not the job titles or classifications, controls whether the jobs are essentially equal.
Equal accomplishment includes factors such as the experience, training, apprenticeship and adeptness all-important to accomplish the job. According accomplishment refers to the kinds of concrete and brainy action appropriate to do the jobs. Managing the sales of the aforementioned or agnate artefact through differing sales channels may absorb according effort. In one case, “hardline” and “softline” breadth admiral in altered departments performed according work. In accession case, the actuality that macho and changeable sales managers handled altered kinds of commodity with altered methods of banal bushing did not cede their jobs unequal.
Equal responsibility is primarily anxious with the amount of accountability appropriate in the achievement of the job. The According Pay Act puts the accent on the accent of the job action to the actuality of the position. Area macho and changeable sales admiral are both amenable for sales through their corresponding sales channels and both accept accumulation centermost accountability, they may accept according responsibility.
Finally, “similar alive conditions” for an Equal Pay Act affirmation depends on:
- the concrete ambience of the work; and
- the abundance and severity of acknowledgment to concrete hazards.
Corning Glass Works v. Brennan, 417 U.S. 188 (1974). The Corning Court captivated that:
The aspect of alive altitude encompasses two subfactors, “surroundings” and hazards”. “Surroundings” measures the elements, such as baneful chemicals or fumes, consistently encountered by a worker, their intensity, and their frequency. “Hazards” takes into annual the concrete hazards consistently encountered, their abundance and the severity of abrasion they can cause.
417 U.S. at 202. If the employer or, bigger yet, the macho and changeable advisers themselves adapt job descriptions, their appraisal of the hazards and concrete requirements of the job can accommodate acute affirmation of the affinity of alive conditions.
Employer defenses to Equal Pay Act Claims
An employee who proves that her employer pays her macho associate added for accomplishing essentially according plan has not necessarily won her case. The employer will win if the employer can prove that the diff pay was fabricated because of
- a advantage system;
- a arete system;
- a arrangement which measures balance by abundance or superior of production; or
- a cogwheel based on any added agency added than sex.
An employer about consistently claims that it paid one gender added than accession based on a agency added than sex. One of the added accepted justifications offered by administration for pay that is not according is “market rate.” A bazaar amount aegis argues that the employer assassin the macho and changeable at bazaar rates, such that differences would aftereffect from what the macho and changeable agent had been able to acquire in their above-mentioned jobs.
A bazaar amount aegis will not consistently work. The lower paid agent ability appearance that the employer did not absolutely accept to pay the added agent a bazaar amount by, for example, assuming that the college paid agent had not becoming as abundant afore his accepted employment. In addition, the lower paid agent can prove that her lower pay was the aftereffect of gender pay differences in her above-mentioned employment.
The Equal Pay Act is accessible to males as able-bodied as females. That is, if a macho proves that an employer pays females added for accomplishing essentially equal work, after justification, the macho agent can balance for an according pay act violation. In addition, an employer who is paying a allowance amount cogwheel in abuse of the equal pay act may not, in adjustment to accomplish pay equal, abate the allowance amount of any employee.
Pay based on gender :
The Equal Pay Act is in fact allotment of the federal minimum allowance and overtime law. In accession to the according pay act, accompaniment and federal law aswell prohibit bigotry based on sex. This includes diff pay for analogously anchored males and females that is unequal, at atomic in part, because of the employee’s gender.
A abuse of the Equal Pay Act appropriately automatically violates federal and accompaniment anti-discrimination laws. In addition, the anti-discrimination laws aswell administer area jobs are not necessarily “equal” beneath the Equal Pay Act but are agnate abundant to achieve that pay aberration axis from gender distinctions.
Evidence of sex based allowance differentials includes sex absolute jobs, management’s singling out of the changeable administrator for acrid criticism while getting annoyed with commensurable achievement of macho managers.
Tags: Equal Pay Act ,Equal Work ,Unequal Pay
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