Tuesday, April 10, is especially important this year: We can celebrate the one year anniversary of the Oregon Fair Pay Act, which was passed by our Oregon Legislature during the 2017 Legislative Session. But I’ll bet not everybody knows what it says — and I’ll bet that includes employers and employees who should be covered by this new law.
For instance, did you know that:
• an employer cannot compensate an employee less because of their sex, race, color, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, marital status, age, disability or veteran status? In other words, equal pay for equal work!
• an employer cannot ask a potential new hire about wage/salary history until after a job offer has been made that includes the amount of compensation? In other words, your pay from a previous job is none of their business!
• an employer cannot cut an employee’s pay to follow this law or retaliate against an employee for asking for equal pay? In other words, you can’t be fired for insisting your employer follows the law!
There are other provisions in the Oregon Fair Pay Act and it is critical that employers know about and follow this law. And it is critical that employees and those seeking employment know about and insist the law be followed!
Edie Orner
Albany
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No, what is “critical” is that this tyrannical “law” be repealed. This is another example of progressives passing laws that regulate everything under the sun. Whatever happened to the idea that this is a free country where responsible adults can make their own decisions without being subjected to government supervision? Why can’t people who think they are being treated unfairly just quit and get a different job where they are treated more fairly?
The very idea that unequal pay exists is completely bogus. If there were a class of people who were being underpaid, then employers in the free market would begin employing these people exclusively to gain a competitive advantage, and then this competition would begin raising the pay of this class of people toward parity. Unequal pay is a concept that is advanced by people who don’t understand freedom and free markets. Their dangerous ignorance leads to big government bureaucracies and loss of precious freedom.
And like all laws of this kind, this law harms the very people it is intended to help. How? If a person in a so-called protected class is actually less competent than average, it would be dangerous for an employer to hire this person. Either this person would have to be paid more than they are actually worth, or if they are paid less, then the employer is at risk of an Equal Pay enforcement action. How can the employer prove that his pay decision was rational and not discriminatory? His attempt to prove this might not succeed, and then he’s in serious trouble. The safest policy for the employer is to simply not hire the person in the first place. Thus, a person who really needs a job cannot get one.
It is idiotic to have bureaucrats second-guessing the pay decisions of employers, especially because the free market produces perfectly rational results without the additional cost of the regulatory state in terms of both dollars and lost freedom.
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