Legislation Tackles Pay Equity
It sounds like a legal word problem. If women who work in a school’s cafeteria are on their feet all day, lifting 50-pound bags of potatoes and working with hot ovens, while men at the same school’s custodial department are on their feet all day, lifting 50-pound boxes of detergent and working with harsh chemicals, is it okay to pay the janitors significantly more?
According to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, under current law the answer is yes. But some state legislators are out to change that. They say that regardless of whether they’re traditionally held by men or women, jobs that require comparable skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions ought to command the same pay.
To others, though, the proposed change would create an unfair burden on employers.
Family Wage
State Rep. Anne Gobi, D-Spencer, said she signed onto the bill because she’s worried about the fortunes of working women and their families.
“Of course there’s a lot of women who are the sole breadwinners of their families,” she said.
The notion of equal pay for comparable work is not a new one. A 1945 Massachusetts law requiring equal pay for women includes the concept. But supporters of the new bill say because “comparable work” was never defined, the language was unenforceable.
In 1996, the Supreme Judicial Court struck down a $1 million award to cafeteria workers in Everett, arguing that they weren’t treated illegally because the “substantive job content” of cafeteria work is different from what janitors do.
Since then, supporters of equal pay have worked to add a definition of comparable work to state law. This year, the Commission on the Status of Women made the bill a central issue for its legislative agenda. And according to Marisa DeFranco, a Peabody lawyer who serves on the commission, this March was the first time the bill has been voted out of the committee where it started. It’s now in the Senate Ways & Means Committee.
Joseph T. Bartulis Jr., head of labor and employment law practice area at Worcester’s Fletcher, Tilton & Whipple law firm, said it makes sense to let each employer decide what jobs are most valuable to it, as they can under current law.
“You could say that having a jovial, friendly, gregarious receptionist is more valuable than someone who brings the mail around,” he said, adding that a different company might make the opposite decision. “It’s a judgment call, because what is important to one employer may not be important to the other.”
To DeFranco, though, the legal change could be good for companies that might have trouble determining a fair way to set pay.
“It helps you to define what the job is, what are the responsibilities,” she said. “Then you have a very neutral way of defining wages and salaries.”
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