Oregon is going to start taking wage inequity seriously in 2019.
The Oregon Equal Pay Act will go into full effect on January 1. The law, which passed in 2017, has two components: it prohibits employers from asking potential employees about their salary history during the application process; and it states that employers must give employees equal pay for equal work.
The part of the law that makes it illegal to ask potential employees about past wages already went into effect this year; though after Jan 1, people will be able to report employers who don’t comply with it to the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industry (BOLI).
And the law’s main selling point—that employers have to pay workers who do the same job equally, and that those in protected classes can report violations to BOLI—also goes into effect in 2019.
Pay discrimination based on gender, race, color, national origin, disability, age, religion, and other protected classes is already illegal in Oregon—but it is currently up to the people filing complaints to prove that it was their employer’s intent to discriminate. The Equal Pay Act removes that barrier.
“What this has done has remove intent,” said Christine Lewis, BOLI’s communications director.
In 2019, an employee will just have to prove that someone doing the same job as them is being paid differently.
But some exemptions still remain. Under the new law, factors like experience, training, and productivity all count as merit-based reasoning for paying employee more than another—but they need to be documented in a way that is “demonstrated and consistent,” Lewis said.
“The system needs to be understood by everybody,” Lewis added, giving an annual review process as an example. “What wouldn’t be acceptable would just be a manager picking their favorite person and giving them a bump without any system in place for that.”
The Oregon Senate made history by unanimously passing this law back in 2017. At the time, many senators from both sides of the aisle said they were happy to be passing a law that would ensure equal pay for women, people of color, and other minorities. While Oregon’s wage gap is shrinking, Oregon women still make 82 cents for every dollar a white man makes, and that discrepancy is exacerbated by race.
Part of the reason for a gender-based pay gap is what Lewis called “historically gendered” job titles, which the Equal Pay Act aims to rectify.
“For instance, housekeepers and janitors do a lot of the same work,” she said. “If you have somebody who’s a janitor and somebody who’s a housekeeper and their work is 99.9 percent the same, are they getting paid differently because they’re in gendered jobs? So it’s stripping away the job title and preconceived notions, and really looking at, what’s the essence of the work and what’s the essence of the worker?”
BOLI recognizes some employers may need time to equalize employees’ pay in the new year. Under the law, employers cannot reduce an employee’s wages to make up for the gap; instead, they will have to give other workers raises.
Lewis said that employers who have questions about the law can contact BOLI’s technical assistance department. It’s kept completely separate from BOLI’s worker complaints department, so people can feel safe to ask questions about compliance without repercussions.
