Shearman & Sterling LLP 24 | Closing the Gender Pay Gap
Issues of pay equity are not being left to private ordering alone. Governments, at all levels, and courts are
addressing the issue, too.
GOVERNMENT ACTIONS
EEOC
On April 25, 2019, the U.S. District Court for the
District of Columbia ordered the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission to comply with an
Obama administration rule requiring the collection
of pay data, broken down by race, gender and
ethnicity. By September 30, 2019, employers with
at least 100 employees must report to the EEOC
wage information and total hours worked for all
employees by race, ethnicity and gender.
State Laws
On July 10, 2019, New York became the latest state
to strengthen its equal pay legislation, expanding
its protections from gender-based discrimination in
pay practices to discrimination against additional
protected classes, including, among other classes,
age, race, creed, sexual orientation and gender
identity or expression. In addition, on the same date,
New York became the most recent state to forbid
employers from asking prospective employees
about their salary history, or from relying on salary
history to determine wages for any individual.
Proposed Federal Legislation
In Congress, the Paycheck Fairness Act, first
introduced in 1997, was passed by the House of
Representatives in March 2019. The bill would,
among other things, prohibit employers from
using salary history as a way to set salaries for job
candidates and from retaliating against workers
who discuss their wages. In addition, it would
allow workers to sue for punitive damages for
wage discrimination.
Litigation
Prior to the start of the 2019 FIFA Women's World
Cup, the U.S. Women's World Cup team filed a
class action suit against the United States Soccer
Federation (USSF) for violations of the Equal
Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of
1964, because the USSF pays the women's team
substantially less than their male counterparts.
The case is far from the only gender pay lawsuit
working its way through the courts. In 2018 and
2019, high-profile gender pay class action lawsuits
were filed against a number of companies, including
Nike, Disney, Oracle and Google.
