HOW EQUAL PAY ACT CAN STOP SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN WORKPLACE

 

A federal law, the Equal Pay Act (EPA), requires employers to pay people alike for doing exactly the exact same job — equal pay for equivalent work.

Even though the Equal Pay Act protects both men and women from gender discrimination in pay rates, it had been passed to help reevaluate the wage disparity experienced by women employees, and in practice, this legislation has always been applied to situations in which women are paid less than men for doing similar tasks.

Who’s Covered?

Virtually all employees are covered by the Equal Pay Act, which governs the behavior of local, state, and national authorities and most private companies.

Making a Claim

To successfully raise a claim under the Equal Pay Act, you have to talk to a sexual harassment lawyer and show that you along with a worker of the other sex are:

Working in precisely the exact same location
Doing equivalent work, and but if the company can demonstrate that the wage disparity has a valid basis — for instance, the higher earner has more seniority or longer expertise — that the claim is going to be defeated.

Determining Equal Work

Jobs don’t need to be indistinguishable for courts to consider them equivalent.  If two workers are in fact doing exactly the identical job, it does regardless of whether their names or job descriptions disagree.  What counts is that the responsibilities that the employees actually work.  Generally, courts have ruled that two tasks are equivalent for the purposes of the Equal Pay Act when both demand equal levels of ability, effort, and responsibility and are performed under identical problems.

There’s a good deal of room for translation, naturally, but the rule of thumb is that small differences in the ability, effort, or obligation required don’t create two tasks unequally.  The largest problems arise in which two occupations are essentially the same, but one carries a couple of additional duties.  It’s completely legal for a company to pay additional for the additional responsibilities, but some judges have looked askance at offices where the higher-paying tasks with additional duties are always reserved for employees of one sex.

The EPA requires that companies pay employees in precisely the exact same pace, however, it doesn’t need that workers get the exact same total quantity of reimbursement.  If a single employee earns more than the other due to greater earnings — for instance since the higher-paid worker has made more earnings — that doesn’t violate the EPA.

The EPA requires greater than the equivalent salary.  If workers do equivalent work, they’re also eligible for equivalent benefits, including equivalent health and life insurance policy, retirement plans or pensions, pre-marital health or health care savings account, and use of business equipment.  The EPA also applies to types of compensation aside from wages, such as vacation time, gain sharing and bonuses.

  Additionally, Title VII broadly prohibits other types of discrimination, such as that based on race, color, faith, and national origin.

EXAMPLE

Suzanne functions as a reservations agent for the airline.  Approximately half of the additional bookings agents in her office are guys, who are generally paid $1 per hour over Suzanne and other female representatives.  What’s more, the business has created a dress code for feminine booking agents, but not to the male brokers.

If Suzanne decides to file a discrimination complaint against her employer, then the EPA would use the cover difference between men and women.  Title VII would apply to the pay gap and also the fact that just the female workers in her office have been held into a dress code.

In instances where both Title VII and the EPA employ, with the EPA Provides some potential Benefits, including:

Unlike Title VII, the EPA does not need evidence that the company acted intentionally when discriminating.  That may make an EPA case simpler to acquire in court.

But, using Title VII has its advantages — chief among them which it is possible to win more cash.  Under Title VII, it is possible to ask the jury or judge not just for the salary you lost, but also for compensation for your pain and discomfort (compensatory damages).  The EPA will not offer you those compensatory damages, but in some instances, it’s possible to ask for double the number of salaries you lost as a punishment from the employer.

If you’re thinking about a lawsuit under the EPA, Title VII, or possibly, then you should probably talk about the possible benefits and pitfalls of every law with a sexual harassment attorney before filing your situation.

To learn more about equal pay and sex discrimination, contact your regional area office of the EEOC (contact information available at http://www.eeoc.gov) along with your state fair employment practices agency.