Equal Pay Act
The Equal Pay Act amended the Fair Labor Standards Act (1938) with the intent to end the disparity in wages between men and women. The amendment argued that sex discrimination depressed wages and living standards for employees, hindered full employment, caused labor disputes that in turn affected commerce, and violated free and fair competition. The crucial part of the amendment: “No employer having employees subject to any provisions of this section shall discriminate, within any establishment in which such employees are employed, between employees on the basis of sex by paying wages to employees in such establishment at a rate less than the rate at which he pays wages to employees of the opposite sex in such establishment for equal work on jobs[,] the performance of which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions, except where such payment is made pursuant to (i) a seniority system; (ii) a merit system; (iii) a system which measures earnings by quantity or quality of production; or (iv) a differential based on any other factor other than sex…”
Commentary
Cry Wolf Quotes
[T]he inevitable effect of this legislation will be to create an artificial barrier on job opportunities for women. There will be a strong compulsion on employers to divide their jobs into women’s jobs and men’s jobs and to never hire a person of the opposite sex in those jobs just so they will not have the Department of Labor looking over their shoulders.
…these bills grant extensive powers to the Secretary of Labor which permit of arbitrary application. For in proceeding under the law, the conclusion of the Secretary of Labor could not be upset by the courts, even if a company could prove that the jobs were not comparable, as long as the Secretary could show any substantial evidence that they were comparable.
There is little difference between men and women as regards their satisfactory performance in industry. Sound employment and personnel practices are applicable to both men and women are applicable to both men and women and no emphasis should be placed on any distinction between them as workers.
[W]e feel that in a free competitive economy, the task of equal pay to women workers is properly within the province of collective bargaining and not of police action by the government.
