Employment Law
Los Angeles Equal Pay Act Attorneys
Representing Your Right to Fair Pay
While there are different federal and state laws throughout our country designed to protect the wages of different employees, California leads the way in protecting employees from discriminatory wages through the Fair Pay Act in 2016 (also known as the Equal Pay Act). Following this law, California has now become one of the states with the highest enforcement of equity for employees’ pay.
Section 1197.5 of the California Labor Code is the main statute requiring parity and equality for pay between employees of different genders or different ethnicities. It has been a strong tool in moving towards true equality of wages and blocking disparity of pay for subjective and often discriminatory justifications. In particular, employers are banned from giving lower wages to one gender or ethnicity when both perform substantially similar work under similar working conditions. If your employer is not adhering to this law, our Los Angeles Equal Pay Act lawyers will passionately defend your right to be paid an equal wage.
Contact us now at (213) 465-4802 so you can rely on our zealous Los Angeles Equal Pay Act lawyers at King & Siegel LLP for detailed answers to your questions.
Understanding the California Equal Pay Act
Since 2018, the California Legislature has made a number of changes to the Equal Pay Act to strengthen it and afford additional rights to employees. There were two primary changes made to offer further protection for employees who were suffering from continued violations of their rights to equal pay. The first alteration was created to reduce the number of hurdles an employee needed to get across simply to prove their rights had been infringed upon.
For example, in the past, a female employee would have needed to prove that she had the exact same role and work as a male colleague, but now she could only need to show her work was “substantially similar.” This was a critical step because employers had been giving women fake job titles that were inconsistent with the realities of their jobs to justify the fact that they were not being paid equally.
Now, the only way that an employer can pay different pay to employees of different gender or ethnicity is if the higher-paid employee has:
- An otherwise non-discriminatory seniority-based pay system;
- An otherwise non-discriminatory merit-based pay system;
- An otherwise non-discriminatory production quantity or quality-based pay system;
- A bonafide otherwise non-discriminatory factor that is consistent with business necessity, such as education, training, or experience.
Removal of Pay Secrecy
A second primary distinction that marked progression from the original Equal Pay Act was the fact that companies were required to exhibit much more honesty and transparency at the workplace when it came to payments different employees were receiving. In the past, employers could penalize their workers for discussing or asking about their wages. Now, employees are expressly free to discuss their wages and any retaliation is prohibited. After all, denying employees the right to talk about their wages meant that workers, particularly women, would not know they were being maltreated through wage discrimination.
Combatting Employer Retaliation
When people have exposed terrible equal pay violations made by immoral and corrupt employers or even entire businesses, these upright citizens should never be punished for their honesty but should be able to speak openly without fear of retaliation. Our Los Angeles Equal Pay Act attorneys are here to be sure that you not only get your fair salary or wages but that your employer will not dare to retaliate against you for getting true justice.
Our experienced legal team also handles other types of employment law cases, including cases surrounding:
- Discrimination,
- Sexual Harassment,
- Medical & Disability Leave,
- Stock Disputes,
- Wrongful Termination,
- Whistleblowers,
- Wage & Hour Violations, and
- Workplace Retaliation.
If you have been wronged in the workplace, call King & Siegel, LLP now for a free consultation! We offer a free 30-minute case evaluation and work on a contingency basis, which means you don’t pay us unless you win.