{"id":203,"date":"2015-10-07T15:48:19","date_gmt":"2015-10-07T15:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zamzowlaw.com\/articles\/?p=203"},"modified":"2015-10-07T15:48:19","modified_gmt":"2015-10-07T15:48:19","slug":"california-michigan-attorneys-on-the-2015-fair-pay-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zamzowfabian.com\/articles\/california-michigan-attorneys-on-the-2015-fair-pay-act\/","title":{"rendered":"California: Michigan attorneys on the 2015 Fair Pay Act"},"content":{"rendered":"

I. California<\/strong>
\nOn Tuesday, October 6, 2015, California’s Governor Jerry Brown signed the Fair Pay Act into law, taking effect January 1, 2016. The Fair Pay Act amends California Labor Code (“CLC<\/strong>“) section\u00a01197.5, and closes, what proponents have called, a loop-hole in the 66 year-old California Equal Pay Act.<\/p>\n

Under\u00a0the umbrella that sex-based differences are not grounds for disparate pay:\u00a0This law will negatively affect businesses that (i) do not provide gender equal pay for substantially similar work, and (ii) cannot show\u00a0the disparate pay is reasonable<\/em> and<\/strong>\u00a0based on either (a) length of employment (seniority) or (b) worker quality (merit, quantity\/quality of product, education, training, experience). Employers must\u00a0maintain records for 3-years of\u00a0“wages and wage rates, job classifications, and other terms and conditions of employment of the persons employed by the employer”.<\/p>\n

Framed in many media outlets\u00a0as a progressive-leftist<\/em> versus conservative-right<\/em> issue, from our Michigan lawyer perspective this\u00a0stop-gap\u00a0law is following the intent and trends of the California legislature. California’s legislature intended to engage and eliminate disparate wages in prior legislation, but it appears as though the true intent was bypassed. This new piece of legislation seems to do a more effective\u00a0job in executing its original intent. The legislature follows the democratic-majority of California’s people, with mindful respect of the\u00a0democratic-minority.<\/p>\n

II. Michigan<\/strong>
\nMichigan, like many other states, allow disparate wage claims to be made against employers for civil rights violations of certain protected persons. Alternatively, the\u00a0Equal Pay Act amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act,\u00a0prohibits an employer from compensating an employee of one sex\u00a0at a rate that is below what\u00a0it pays another employee of the opposite sex \u201cfor equal work on jobs the performance of which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions<\/em>.\u201d (29 USC 206)<\/p>\n

III. National Conclusion<\/strong>
\nIn light of this California amendment, debates\u00a0we see in Michigan, and rhetoric in Washington, race, gender, and objective\u00a0equal pay legislation is coming. Generally, though not always, legislation\u00a0is passed\u00a0to address an issue the democratic-majority believes is a problem. In present day America, all other factors being the same, nearly every\u00a0person who is not a white-man earns less per dollar.<\/p>\n

We are advising employers to get out in front\u00a0of these laws, keep fair documents and records, define job duties, properly categorize employees, form a pay scale, create an objectively neutral merit system, and where all other things are the same pay the same. The dollars saved through\u00a0paying any employee less, for a substantially similar job, is not worth the risk of losing lawsuit, the harm to public image, and certainly not worth the cost of paying a lawyer to defend frivolous allegations of perceived discrimination. Avoiding this today, could\u00a0save millions\u00a0in the future.<\/p>\n

At the writing of this article, Zamzow PLLC does not employ California attorneys, interpretation of this California law is through the lens of licensed Michigan lawyers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I. California On Tuesday, October 6, 2015, California’s Governor Jerry Brown signed the Fair Pay Act into law, taking effect January 1, 2016. The Fair Pay Act amends California Labor Code (“CLC“) section\u00a01197.5, and closes, what proponents have called, a loop-hole in the 66 year-old California Equal Pay Act. Under\u00a0the umbrella that sex-based differences are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-larticles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zamzowfabian.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zamzowfabian.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zamzowfabian.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zamzowfabian.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zamzowfabian.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zamzowfabian.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zamzowfabian.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zamzowfabian.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zamzowfabian.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}