equal pay act

Lawsuits under the Revised Equal Pay Act are Out of the Gate Quickly

Well, that didn’t take long.

On the first business day that amendments to the Massachusetts Equal Pay Act were in effect, the first lawsuit was filed in Boston, according to published reports. It was brought by a female flutist in the Boston Symphony Orchestra who claims she was paid less than a male oboist, who also is part of the BSO’s woodwind section. According to the suit, the plaintiff has suffered wage discrimination for years because her work playing flute is comparable to her male counterpart’s work playing oboe. Regardless how the case turns out, it stands as yet another warning to employers who have yet to consider the effects that the revised Equal Pay Act will have on their businesses.

The day that amendments to the Massachusetts Equal Pay Act went into effect, a female flutist in the Boston Symphony Orchestra brought forward a lawsuit.

The primary change to the Act, which has been around for decades, involves the comparison between male and female workers. That required showing was until now virtually impossible to make. The Equal Pay Act now makes it far easier for plaintiffs. The law as revised provides that employers may not discriminate in the payment of wages between men and women in “comparable” jobs – those that require substantially similar skill, effort and responsibility and are performed under similar conditions.

What this means is open to interpretation, leaving the courts to deal with pay discrimination claims one at a time and employers to worry about whether their practices pass muster. With steep potential damages and only a narrow set of viable excuses for unequal pay between the genders, employers need to consider avoidance options quickly. The law provides for a safe haven of sorts for companies that perform self-evaluations and make progress toward addressing illegal pay disparities before a suit is filed. While the conditions under which this makes sense are up for debate – it may not be a useful exercise for all companies – employers who fail to consider that option and others do so at their own peril.

With the New Equal Pay Act Set to Take Effect on July 1, 2018, it’s Time for Employers to Evaluate their Wage Practices

November 28, 2017 by Jack Merrill

The effective date of the new Massachusetts Equal Pay Act is fast approaching, and employers who have not yet begun to evaluate wage disparities between men and women need to start the process. Beginning July 1, 2018, the revised law will require that employees be paid equally for work involving similar skill, effort and responsibility. Analyzing existing wage disparities and making progress to address them will help shield employers from double the amounts of wage disparities and other penalties under the Equal Pay Act.

The new Equal Pay Act revises an existing law that, due to court interpretation, has been effectively useless to address wage disparities. It mandates that all workers be paid the same for “comparable” work regardless of gender and bars companies from ordering their employees not to talk about their pay. Courts evaluating Equal Pay Act claims will ignore job titles and focus on whether jobs require “substantially similar skill, effort and responsibility” and are “performed under similar working conditions.” Penalties under the Act are substantial and include the payment of employee legal fees, but can be abated or avoided completely by self-evaluation and concrete action in advance of July 1, 2018. Implementation of the law was delayed two years from its passage in July 2016 to provide employers time to address pay disparities.

Employers who haven’t yet done so should proceed quickly to determine whether wage inequity exists. Doing this with the assistance of counsel, either in-house or from outside the company, should permit the initial findings of an Equal Pay Act audit to be kept confidential. This makes sense given the existence of a federal law on equal pay that does not shield audits in the same way the Massachusetts Equal Pay Act does. Once an initial audit is completed, employers should decide with the advice of counsel how to address the results and whether more audit work is needed. Under the Massachusetts Equal Pay Act, progress on abating unequal pay is required before the audit will be a useful defense to suit.