CalChamber’s Recommendation on Pending Legislation on the Governor’s Desk
SB 63:
The California Chamber of Commerce is urging members to ask the Governor to veto a job killer bill mandating that small businesses provide a new protected leave of absence. Last week, the Legislature sent
SB 63 (Jackson; D-Santa Barbara)
to Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr.
The CalChamber and a coalition of business groups and local chambers of commerce have been
opposing SB 63
because it unduly burdens and increases costs of small employers with as few as 20 employees by requiring 12 weeks of protected employee leave for child bonding. It also exposes employers to the threat of costly litigation.
The recent amendments do not limit the bill’s cost or employers’ exposure to litigation. The Governor vetoed a similar, but narrower, proposal just last year.
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AB 1209:
Legislation making it easier for plaintiffs’ lawyers to file pay equity lawsuits passed the Legislature last week and now awaits action by the Governor.
AB 1209 (Gonzalez Fletcher; D-San Diego
)
seeks to publicly shame employers for wage disparities that do not violate the law. Throughout the legislative session, it has been
opposed
as a job killer by the California Chamber of Commerce and a coalition of employer associations and local chambers of commerce.
In 2015, the CalChamber and California Legislative Women’s Caucus celebrated compromise legislation that modernized the state’s equal pay law and was touted as the strongest such law in the nation.
The current law makes plain that the standard for equal wages is “substantially similar work,” not just the job title or description. It also carefully allocates the litigation burdens between the employee and employer.
Ideally, an employee must prove he/she is performing substantially similar work and is receiving unequal wages. The burden then shifts to the employer to establish a legitimate factor—such as education, experience, seniority, merit or geography—for the wage disparity. An employer that cannot show a legitimate reason for the wage gap has violated the law.
AB 1209 requires many private employers and nonprofits to collect data on salaries of all well-paid white collar employees. The statistics for each job title or classification must be analyzed and recategorized according to whether the job duties are substantially similar. Businesses would deliver the data to the Secretary of State to be posted on a publicly accessible website.
Legitimate reasons for pay differentials would not be highlighted in the database. The CalChamber is urging members to
contact the Governor
and ask him to
veto AB 1209
.
