Bill Text: NY S06342 | 2015-2016 | General Assembly | Introduced

---

Bill Title: Prohibits employers from seeking salary history from prospective employees; establishes a public awareness campaign.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 6-0)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2016-01-06 - REFERRED TO INVESTIGATIONS AND GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS [S06342 Detail]

Download: New_York-2015-S06342-Introduced.html

---

                STATE OF NEW YORK
        ________________________________________________________________________
                                          6342
                    IN SENATE
                                       (Prefiled)
                                     January 6, 2016
                                       ___________
        Introduced  by  Sen. HOYLMAN -- read twice and ordered printed, and when
          printed to be committed to the Committee on Investigations and Govern-
          ment Operations
        AN ACT to amend the executive law, in relation to prohibiting  employers
          from seeking salary history from prospective employees
          The  People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-
        bly, do enact as follows:
     1    Section 1. Legislative intent.  The legislature hereby finds that  New
     2  York should lead the nation in preventing wage discrimination.
     3    The  wage  gap  between  men  and  women is one of the oldest and most
     4  persistent effects of inequality between the sexes in the United States.
     5    The 1963 Equal Pay Act and the 1964 Civil Rights  Act  in  the  United
     6  States established the legal right to equal pay for equal work and equal
     7  opportunity. Yet half a century later, women are still subjected to wage
     8  gaps and paid less then men.
     9    The  concept  of  comparable worth attacks the problem of gender-based
    10  wage discrimination by mandating  that  jobs  characterized  by  similar
    11  levels of education, skill, effort, responsibilities, and working condi-
    12  tions  be compensated at similar wage levels regardless of the gender of
    13  the worker holding the job.
    14    The goal of pay equity is to raise the wages for undervalued jobs held
    15  predominantly by women.   Today, women make  only  77  cents  per  every
    16  dollar  earned  by  a  man for a comparable job, a gender wage gap of 23
    17  percent.
    18    This translates into thousands of dollars of lost wages each year  for
    19  each  female worker, money that helps them feed their families, save for
    20  a college education and afford decent and safe housing.
    21    Pay disparities affect women of all ages, races, and education levels,
    22  but are more pronounced for women  of  color.  Minority  women  make  as
    23  little as 54 cents per dollar for a comparable job held by a man.
    24    Female-dominated  jobs pay twenty to thirty percent less than male-do-
    25  minated jobs classified as comparable in worth and more than one half of
    26  all women work in jobs that are over seventy percent female.
         EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
                              [ ] is old law to be omitted.
                                                                   LBD06362-01-5