America's Small Business Tax Relief Act of 2015

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. AYOTTE. Mr. President, I rise because it is Equal Pay Day, and I would like to talk about the importance of finally ending gender-based discrimination in wages. It is unfortunate that in the year 2016, this is still an issue we need to address in this country, but it is.

I had the privilege of serving as our State's first female attorney general. I think it is the right thing to do and the obvious thing to do, and under our laws this already exists--that equal pay for equal work should be the standard. All of us should be judged in the workplace by our experience, our qualifications, and our capability of doing our job and nothing else.

Women face many challenges in balancing work and family life. I know that firsthand, being the working mom of two young kids. On top of those challenges, no woman, whether she is a mother or not, should ever face gender-based pay discrimination in the workplace. Today, more than half of New Hampshire's women serve as the primary or coearner in their household. That just underscores the serious need to address this problem.

Men and women should receive equal pay for equal work. It is that simple. Your salary should be based on how you do your job. Because of that, I introduced the Gender Advancement in Pay Act, or GAP Act, along with Senators Capito, Portman, Burr, and Heller, and I thank my cosponsors for supporting this effort.

What we did is we built on a highly successful bipartisan pay equity law that was signed into law in my home State of New Hampshire in 2014. The GAP Act makes it clear that employers must pay men and women equal wages for equal work, without reducing the ability of employers to provide merit pay and reward merit, which all of us want. Having been the first woman attorney general, I want to give women the opportunity to outperform their male counterparts as well because I know we can.

Today, there is a patchwork of laws that govern equal pay and an employee's ability to discuss their pay without fear of retaliation, and differing court opinions have led to a situation where some employees receive protections not available to others simply based on where they live. As such, the GAP Act is a sensible approach to updating, clarifying, and strengthening these laws.

For 20 years the Paycheck Fairness Act has been around in the Congress. It has never passed. One of the reasons, I think, was described very well in 2010 by the Boston Globe. It said that the Paycheck Fairness Act, as a whole, was too broad a solution to a complex, nuanced problem, but that a narrower bill that would stiffen some penalties and ban retaliation would be helpful. That is exactly what the GAP Act is--a bill that stiffens penalties, bans retaliation, and clarifies the law so that we can ensure we have equal pay for equal work.

In short, my bill updates the Equal Pay Act's ``factor other than sex'' clause. Currently, employers can explain away pay differentials by pointing to a number of factors. One of those was ambiguously written to be a ``factor other than sex.'' Our bill closes this loophole and clarifies that any factor other than sex must be a business-related factor, such as education, training, or experience. It makes sense; doesn't it? Why would you allow a defense of a ``factor other than sex'' that has nothing to do with your job? To me, that seems to be inviting discrimination. That is why we should clarify the law to make clear that it has to be a factor related to your job--such as education, training, or experience. This would clarify the law for employees and protect the rights of employees, and, also, employers would clearly have this provision defined.

The GAP Act also creates a penalty for willful violations. This is actually one step further than New Hampshire's bipartisan pay equity law. So it would put teeth into it, and I think that is important. Employers that knowingly act with the intent to discriminate should have to pay a penalty. What we do with the funds from this penalty is to take the funds and, rather than putting them back in the General Treasury, we are going to study the wage gap issue, make sure we have the best research on what is causing it and what is happening, and find more ways to expand opportunities for women in the workforce with better paying jobs.

The GAP Act would also promote salary transparency. According to the Institute for Women's Policy Research, about half of workers were discouraged or outright prohibited from discussing their pay with coworkers. When employees are allowed to discuss their pay, they are more likely to uncover incidents of discrimination. Yet, if I am not allowed to discuss my pay and I find a coworker who is the same situated as me yet making more money--a male counterpart--and I am not allowed to raise this because I can't discuss pay comparisons, then how am I going to raise a claim of discrimination? So we need to make it more transparent. We need to ensure that employees are allowed to discuss their pay. This will make it more likely to uncover incidents of gender-based pay discrimination.

So our bill prohibits retaliation against employees who discuss their pay, and tells employers they can't institute secret pay policies and they can't ask an employee to bargain away their right to be able to talk about their pay if they choose to.

Importantly, after getting feedback from stakeholders in our States, we made sure that provision is strong. The cosponsors of this bill reintroduced an updated version of this bill this week to ensure that there are stronger provisions for salary transparency and to make it clear that employers cannot sidestep provisions that ban retaliation against employees who discuss their pay. It prohibits pay secrecy policies that could encourage this kind of behavior.

On Equal Pay Day, today, it is very important that we all work together to do anything we can to end the gender wage gap. One of the things we should do is to stop the political posturing. Let's stop using this incredibly important issue as a political football, because legislation like the Paycheck Fairness Act has been around 20 years.

I am glad to introduce the GAP Act, because I believe this is a commonsense piece of legislation that gets at the issue by clarifying our laws in a way that benefits employees. It makes sure it is clear that if you willfully violate our laws, you are going to have to pay a penalty. We are going to take that money, and we are going to put it back into research to further help us address the pay gap. We are also going to make clear for plaintiffs that, if you want to file an EEOC claim and you also want to file an equal pay claim, we will make sure you can do both, and your rights will be protected to do both by staying the statute of limitations while the EEOC claim is going forward. This will help plaintiffs not have to litigate in two forums. This will also allow the EEOC to do their job and, if they find discrimination, to be used in an equal pay act claim. This is another important step for plaintiffs and also to clarify that those who are victims of discrimination are able to bring their rights forward.

On Equal Pay Day today, I hope we can stop making this a partisan issue and start actually passing legislation that will make a difference. In 2014 New Hampshire passed an important law. I was glad New Hampshire did that. I was glad that I could introduce what New Hampshire did here in the Senate on a bipartisan basis and build on that to introduce the GAP Act with some of my colleagues.

I hope today, on Equal Pay Day, we will take up legislation like the GAP Act and address gender-based pay discrimination. We are in 2016. I have an 11-year-old daughter. I don't want to be discussing this 20 years from now. I would like us to work on this in a serious, bipartisan manner, to address this, and to end gender-based pay discrimination once and for all, because equal pay for equal work just makes sense. It is the right thing to do, and it should be how our laws work.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source