Only one state— Massachusetts— prohibits employers from asking job applicants for their current salaries or salary histories (California and New York will soon join). Philadelphia recently enacted a similar law.
Women are more inclined than men to take the first offer put out by an employer (68% of women, and 52% of men, do not negotiate). This factor contributes to pay discrimination against women as a group.
If your group asks for less and gets less—in this case, women— and if next employers ask for salary history, the gender gap remains in place. Currently, women earn about 79% of men. It’s moved up from 76% in the early 1980s. One study estimates that the gender gap will disappear by 2085.
Now comes a major ruling from Philadelphia, where a federal judge dealt a temporary setback to a lawsuit challenging the law.
The challenger is the Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia.
Essentially, the court told the business group that it cannot make abstract arguments about harm or injury to member corporations. Instead, it must produce at least one employer who alleges that the law will harm the firm—and explain what the injury is.
What would that look like? Here are some tongue-in-cheek answers.
May it please the Court, my client has increased its profits and remained competitive by offering women less money than we will pay going forward under this law.
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Your Honor, my client objects to the principle that it can be sued in a court of law.
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Our corporation asserts the natural and fundamental right to maintain the inequality of women. This natural right has existed since the dawn of civilization.
The case is Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia v. City of Philadelphia, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, No. 17-cv-1548.
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