BarbriSFCourseDetails

Course Details

This CLE course will guide employment counsel through the national patchwork of pay equity statutes and discuss recent trends in state equal pay laws, including a detailed analysis of the language and responsibilities of these laws.

Faculty

Description

All states now have a pay equity statute after the last holdout, Mississippi, enacted legislation in 2022. Further, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has stepped up enforcement and oversight to ensure compliance with the laws.

Employers are increasingly using confidential pay audits to examine their payrolls and pay practices for illegal wage disparities between genders, races, and groups of protected employees. Pay audits are an excellent tool if performed correctly; without them, employers risk failing to detect potential pay differences that may correlate to factors like gender, race, or ethnicity.

Pay equity laws generally bar employers from paying workers differently for comparable or substantially similar work absent a legal justification for that disparity, but what amounts to "substantially similar" work is difficult to define.

Listen as our distinguished panel discusses state equal pay laws and how employers and their counsel can spot potential pay equity issues by conducting a pay audit. Additionally, our speakers will analyze strategies for employers to achieve and maintain compliance with equal pay laws after identifying a potential pay equity issue.

Outline

  1. Definition of the pay gap and how it differs from pay equity
  2. The state of state laws
  3. Conducting privileged pay audits
  4. Best practices for employers and counsel to address potential pay equity issues between employees

Benefits

The panel will review these and other hot topic issues:

  • What are the variations in state pay equity laws?
  • What groups are protected by pay equity laws?
  • How can employers determine whether their hiring and pay setting practices are lawful?
  • What steps can employers take to address potential pay equity issues?