Equal-pay bill gets strong backing in Mass. House
More than half of Massachusetts House members have signed on as co-sponsors to a bill that would update the state's equal pay act, requiring employers to post the minimum pay for a job when advertising open positions.
Sen. Patricia Jehlen is the bill's lead sponsor in the Senate and she said the data clearly shows a significant gap between men and women's pay.
"We have reams and reams of data. We have binders of data," said Jehlen, who said the bill would "get us part of the way."
According to a bill summary provided by the Women's Bar Association of Massachusetts, the legislation would prohibit employers from disciplining employees for discussing their own wages or those of co-workers, and it "clarifies" what constitutes comparable work, saying the comparability can "be based solely on comparable skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions."
Current law prohibits an employer paying a person of the opposite sex less "for work of like or comparable character or work on like or comparable operations," except in cases of seniority.
"Legislation like this is recognition that even though we've had equal pay on the books it isn't working," Attorney General Maura Healey told the News Service. "But we need to do more than just legislation."
Healey said women in Massachusetts earn about 82 percent of what men make.
The bill would also allow for attorneys' fees to be awarded if a plaintiff wins a lawsuit under the equal pay act.
The bill has been co-sponsored by a majority of the 158-member House, according to the House lead sponsor. The list of supporters includes Rep. Patricia Haddad, a top deputy to Speaker Robert DeLeo who served as House Speaker pro tempore last session.
"We're up to 84 House members," Rep. Jay Livingstone told the Women's Bar Association on Wednesday. Two seats are vacant after Gov. Charlie Baker appointed members of the House to his administration. Later in the morning Wednesday, Livingstone told the News Service the number of House co-sponsors reached 86.
Falling on the heels of this year's increase in the minimum wage and a new earned sick-time requirement, the equal pay bill could cause some concern among employers, who would be prohibited from using "salary history in hiring," according to the bill summary.
Equal pay first became law in Massachusetts during the end of World War II, on July 10, 1945.
"I hope 70 years from now we're not still talking about this. I hope seven years from now we're not still talking about this," Healey said. Healey told the bar association more than half of families depend on a woman's earnings and one in five children live in a family that relies on food stamps.
Speakers at the breakfast event in the State House reiterated the disparity between earnings by men and women.
"Women make less money, period," said Treasurer Deborah Goldberg, who emphasized pay equity upon taking the office.
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