Pay Equity Bill Creates Political Inequity: “Bad Bill of the Week”
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Immorally Creates Political Inequity
Fewer women could end-up being hired
#Unfair2Employers
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Providence, RI— Progressive-extremists are back with more anti-jobs legislation based on a myth: once again demanding, without sufficient evidence, that Rhode Island employers should face harsh new penalties for their falsely presumed discriminatory and bigoted compensatory practices.
The so-called “Fair Employment Practices” legislation, in seeking to address a problem that does not exist, actually creates a political inequality that is #Unfair2Employers. As it was in 2018, the legislation has again been named the Bad Bill of the Week by the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity, which has long advocated against unnecessarily worsening the already hostile business climate in the Ocean State.
The two divisive bills – H5659 (to be heard Wednesday) and S0509 – would lead to unfair legal peril for job-producers by creating vague new mandates for how employers should determine wages for workers. The legislation, which pits employee vs employer, seeks to achieve “income equality” by immorally creating a political inequality that favors politically-correct constituencies at the expense of honest and hard-working businesses owners.
The proposed language blurs the current law’s clear definition of equal pay for “equal work” on the “same operations” … to a much more vague concept of equal pay for “comparable work” under “similar working conditions” … likely spurring frivolous lawsuits by employees against their companies. The legislation also defines multiple new politically-correct classes of potential victims, gives them new legal space to sue, and describes a raft of severe new penalties potentially to be imposed on companies.
However, the legislation fails to meet three critical tests that should be considered before passing any new regulation:
1) Documented evidence that Rhode Island employers are systematically and unfairly underpaying female and minority workers.
2) Evidence that existing laws are inadequate to prosecute a potential rogue employer.
3) Provide a cost-benefit analysis. (in 2018, one major association projected a $14 million cost on its companies for preemptive compliance )
“Businesses are at the tipping point, with more jobs are at stake, if our state imposes more burdens and legal peril on the private sector. This progressive vision of equal outcomes for everyone could actually backfire, as businesses may end up hiring fewer women to avoid legal action,” said Mike Stenhouse, the Center’s CEO. “Incredibly, this legislation assumes the guilt of hard-working employers in our state; it is a dream-come-true for law-suit minded lawyers, but will be a nightmare for the business community.”
Opponents of the legislation can easily send an email to their elected officials by clicking here.
The Center’s post also includes video commentary from Stenhouse as well as a link to a Prager U. video that discusses U.S. Department of Labor data, which debunks the 77 cents on the dollar gender-wage-gap myth.
Other Bad Bills: An interactive table of other progressive bad bill candidates, as well as posts and video commentary on previously tabbed “progressive bad bills of the week” can be found at RIFreedom.org/Bills2019.
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