House committee advances legislation on equal pay

HB 1506 raises floor, but doesn’t block cities from pursuing own efforts

OLYMPIA (Jan. 10, 2018) — House Democratic lawmakers are moving quickly this year to advance legislation to address equal pay. The 2018 legislative session began Monday morning, the House Labor and Workplace Standards Committee held a public hearing on the bill Monday afternoon, and on Tuesday it passed out of committee.

The Equal Pay Opportunity Act (HB 1506), originally sponsored by Rep. Tana Senn (D-Mercer Is.) and amended for 2018 by Rep. Beth Doglio (D-Olympia), would update the state’s Equal Pay Act for the first time since 1943 by prohibiting pay secrecy policies, promoting equitable access to career advancement opportunities, allowing discussion of wages, and prohibiting retaliation for asking for equal pay. The underlying bill passed on a bipartisan 61-36 vote last year, but was blocked from a vote in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Since then, advocates for labor, business, and women’s interests have been working to address some of the concerns previously expressed by the bill’s opponents. The substitute bill proposed by Doglio includes many of those compromises, but importantly, raises the floor on equal pay while continuing to allow cities to address the issue in other innovative ways as they choose.

TAKE A STAND — Click here to send a message to your Representatives and Senator urging them to make passing equal pay legislation (HB 1506/SB 5140) a priority. The Senate will take up its version of the legislation, SB 5140 sponsored by Sen. Annette Cleveland (D-Vancouver), will be heard today in the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee.

“This legislation has been a long time coming, and it’s good that Washington state is finally moving forward,” Lynne Dodson, Secretary Treasurer of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO, testified at Monday’s hearing. “We cannot be complacent, however — this bill will not end unequal pay for women in our state. Local jurisdictions, including those that suffer from the most gender pay inequality, must be able to surpass the floor that this legislation provides, and come up with policy solutions that fit their regions.” (Read Dodson’s full testimony.)

Following is a fact sheet on the issue by Marilyn Watkins, Policy Director for the Economic Opportunity Institute, with links to the source information at EOI’s website:

The Washington State Legislature has the chance in the winter 2018 session to pass an updated equal pay bill. In each of the past three years, the state’s House has passed an equal pay bill with bipartisan majorities, but those bills have died in committee in the Senate.[1] With Senate committees under new leadership, the fourth effort could be more successful.

Despite existing state and federal equal pay laws, women are still paid less than men in almost every occupation, and workers of color are paid less than White workers. Washington first prohibited discrimination in pay based on gender in 1943, and Congress passed the Equal Pay Act in 1963.[2]

Women in the state who worked full-time year-round in 2016 made on average 76.5% of men’s earnings.[3] The Institute for Women’s Policy Research estimates that at the current rate of progress, Washington’s gender wage gap will not close until 2070.[4]

Most states have passed stronger equal pay laws than Washington. At least 40 prohibit retaliation against employees for taking legal action, 35 make employers liable for damages, 18 protect employees’ rights to discuss wages, and 4 prohibit employers from requiring job applicants to provide salary history.[5]

A complicated, enduring problem

At the middle of the earnings spectrum, White men in Washington made $62,037 in 2016, compared to $47,216 for White women. The typical Latina woman was paid less than half a White man’s earnings. Median earnings for Asian men and women are higher than for other groups, but the full wage range includes both very high wages in the tech sector and very low wages in personal services, accommodations and other low wage occupations.[6]

Occupation explains only a portion of the wage gap. Women hold only 21% of computer jobs in the state (with median earnings of $100,702 for men and $79,212 for women) and 18% of architecture and engineering jobs (with median earnings of $91,231 for men and $73,013 for women). On the other hand, women hold 78% of personal care and service jobs (where the median annual wage is $17,082) and 72% of office and administrative support jobs (where the median wage is $31,884).[7]

Even after accounting for occupation, education, experience, time out for family care, and other such factors, scholars have consistently found that the wage gap cannot be explained without the influence of discrimination and cultural assumptions.[8] Often, women are paid less when they are hired and receive lower raises, even when they ask for them. Multiple studies have found that individual managers frequently make job assignments and promotion decisions that favor men due to cultural assumptions about gender and race.[9]

Courts have set a high bar for bringing and winning discrimination cases. Private sector companies often prohibit employees from discussing pay, so people do not know if they are getting paid less.[10]

It’s time to update Washington State Equal Pay Law

Recent advances in Washington will help reduce the gender wage gap, including the new pregnancy accommodation law that took effect in July 2017, the paid family and medical leave program that will begin in 2020, and the voter-approved initiative that raises the state minimum wage and institutes paid sick and safe leave statewide in January 2017.[11]

Proposed House Bill 1506 will take an additional step forward by:

• Prohibiting companies from imposing pay secrecy policies;
• Requiring bona fide business-related reasons such as education, experience, or productivity, for differences in pay and access to job opportunities;
• And allowing the state to investigate and rule on unfair pay practices, in addition to the right for workers to sue in court and recover damages and costs for discrimination.