June 08, 2021

Manchin Votes For Paycheck Fairness Act

Washington, DC – Today, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) released the following statement on his vote for the Paycheck Fairness Act. The Paycheck Fairness Act would remove obstacles that currently allow employers to discriminate against their employees, specifically their female employees, by paying them on average 18 cents less per hour than their male colleagues. The bill also prohibits employers from retaliating against employees who discuss their wages with their colleagues, limiting their ability to determine pay disparities within staff.

“Every American deserves to have a good-paying job with a livable wage in order to provide for their family and contribute to their community, and being a woman shouldn’t impact being able to make ends meet. The first vote I took in the Senate was for paycheck fairness, and it is far past time for these inequalities to be addressed. As an original cosponsor of this bill I am disappointed that the Senate was unable to pass this much needed legislation, but I will continue the fight for equal pay across the United States,” said Senator Manchin.

The Paycheck Fairness Act would:

·   Require employers to prove that pay disparities exist for legitimate, job-related reasons. In doing so, it ensures that employers who try to justify paying a man more than a woman for the same job must show the disparity is not sex-based, but job-related and necessary.

·   Ban retaliation against workers who discuss their wages.

·   Remove obstacles in the Equal Pay Act to facilitate a wronged worker’s participation in class action lawsuits that challenge systemic pay discrimination.

·   Improve tools for enforcing the Equal Pay Act. To help the Department of Labor (DOL) better uncover wage discrimination, it will speed up the collection of wage data from federal contractors, direct the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to conduct a survey of available wage information and create a system of wage data collection, and instruct DOL to conduct studies and review available research and data to provide information on how to identify, correct, and eliminate illegal wage disparities.

·   Provide assistance to all businesses to help them with their equal pay practices, recognize excellence in pay practices by businesses, and empower women and girls by creating a negotiation skills training program.

·   Prohibit employers from seeking the salary history of prospective employees.