A new attempt to bridge the pay gap between male and female employees has been signed into California law. On Oct. 6, Governor Jerry Brown signed the California Fair Pay Act, which prevents employers from discriminating against a particular sex in terms of wages. It prohibits employers from paying any of its employees at wage rates less than those paid to employees of the opposite sex when both parties are doing “substantially similar” work. It also requires employers to demonstrate that any wage differential is based on seniority, a merit system, or a factor other than sex.
In California, women are paid on average 84 cents for every dollar a man makes, which is higher than the national average. But goal is to diminish the gap until women and men are paid equally.
This law modifies the California Equal Pay Act of 1949 by making the language more explicit. The new language is meant to make employees aware that they can ask what their colleagues are making without retaliation from employers.
History and economics teacher Heather Sadlon says, “What I understand about this law is that it doesn’t require companies to necessarily answer questions, but it means that as a person working for a company, you can’t have it held against you for asking about salary information and what the ranges are that people are making.”
This law can help create an environment where businesses and employees are more aware of any inequality they are practicing. Sadlon says, “Companies will at least be cognizant of it in a way that they weren’t before. The fact that people will be asking questions forces them to review their practices.”
Senior and Girl Up club member Allegra Aguiar says, “I think this will be beneficial so people, specifically women, will be more informed about what their rights truly are when they are asking for pay raises or comparing their salaries to their coworkers.”
This law attempts to combat the long history of discrimination against women in the workplace. Psychology and economics teacher Carlo Corti says, “When you do the same job and you do the same work for less pay, after a while that becomes internalized, it’s either something you fight against and try to get rid of, or you start accepting it. And if women start accepting it, then they’re accepting a position that is inferior in society, which they shouldn’t.”
Corti sees the wage gap between genders as part of the influence of perceived gender roles. He says, “[Our society] teach young girls to cooperate with each other [and] young boys to compete with each other … I think there is some balance between being competitive and being cooperative, but our traditional gender roles in this country definitely split along those lines, and I think they strongly contributed to pay gaps where women are more reluctant to walk into a boss’s office [to ask for a raise].”
Although this is considered a huge step in the right direction for many people, there are also some concerns. Sadlon says, “I am definitely for more information, but I can definitely see it could be sort of strange. Like does it violate my rights to have people around me know exactly what I make, in terms of privacy?”
Corti adds,“In the way that it’s getting rid of pay disparity that’s unfair, it’s a really good law. As a way of just knowing what other people make, I think that could be problematic.”
An additional issue may be psychological. Corti explains, “Our happiness is usually not based on how we perceive ourselves, it’s how we perceive ourselves in comparison to other people … [So] if I’m totally happy with the salary I’m getting and if I then find out that there’s this other person who I feel that I do a better job than … and I find out that they’re getting paid more than me, I will automatically not be happy with what I’m making [any more].”
He adds, “That might be right, that might be the fair thing. Maybe I should be paid more, maybe that other person should be paid less, but I could see it just internally for people causing some conflict that may not otherwise exist.”
Despite these concerns about privacy, Sadlon says, “The whole goal of the law was to force companies to just justify pay. It’s not that everybody has to be paid exactly the same, but if people are being paid differently then there has to be a reason that is not based on gender or race or whatever it is. There has to be a legitimate work-related reason in why you’re making more.”
