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May 2010 Edition
DBSquared Feature:
Please join DBSquared on facebook for our latest news, white papers, press releases, discussions and webinars. Let DBSquared be a resource for you.The Paycheck Fairness Act has already been passed through the U.S. House, now it is lingering in the Senate. The Paycheck Fairness Act has resulted from years of legislation being passed to eliminate the gender gap. However, today women are still being paid approximately 77 cents of every dollar being paid to men. Now is the time to ensure that equal pay is given for equal work. If you do not have a structure in place that can determine comparable worth at your organization, there has never been a better time to look at such tools. When looking for a system, ensure that it can perform the following:
  1. Easy to read analyses for pay equity.
  2. An evaluation system based on job functions to rate each position assigning a point value for the work.
  3. Ensure that what you are measuring the job with are the actual functions being performed in the job and that each function is validated creating no adverse impact.
To learn more about the latest information on the Paycheck Fairness Act, please access the link below. The information was pulled from tampabay.com, and it was written by Diane Steinle.
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Wal-Mart Class Action Suit
Wal-Mart is currently facing the world's largest gender bias class action law suit in history. In an article written by Paul Elias in the Yahoo! News, it said that the case encompasses more than one million women. However, Wal-Mart is fighting back against that figure saying that less than 500,000 women are covered.

In addition to the case, Wal-Mart is also arguing the fact that the traditional rules of class action suits should not apply to them because each outlet operates as an independent business. Because the company does not have a companywide policy of discrimination, Wal-Mart's attorneys are pleading that women alleging gender bias should file individual lawsuits against the store that they worked for. If they are allowed to use this argument, this will be ground breaking for other organizations that are faced with similar cases. If they are not allowed to use this argument, organizations will need to think seriously about how they are going to measure comparable worth at all of their entities.

To read more on this case, please access the article through the link below. This information was written by Paul Elias in the Yahoo! News.
Wal-Mart to face massive class action suit  

Enactment of the Paycheck Fairness Act will remedy the deficiencies of the Equal Pay Act by updating and strengthening several of its core provisions. The Paycheck Fairness Act would:

1. Clarify the "establishment" provision.

  • This act would make it such that in order to prove wage discrimination, a wage comparison at an organization does not have to be made from the same physical place of business.

2. Tighten the "Factor Other Than Sex" defense available to employers.

  • An employer relying on "factor other than sex" will now have very narrow terms to follow as opposed to the broad definition that has been used.

3. Prohibit employer retaliation.

  • It will also prohibit retaliation against employees who inquire about employers' wage practices or disclose their own wages.

4. Update the remedies available to prevailing plaintiffs.

  • This would put gender-based wage discrimination on an equal footing with wage discrimination based on race or ethnicity, for which full compensatory and punitive damages are available.

5. Update the class action provisions of the EPA.

  • Currently, plaintiffs have to opt-in to a suit. If this act is passed, class members are automatically considered part of the class unless they choose to opt-out.

6. Strengthen the government’s oversight and enforcement mechanisms.

  • This act would reinstate the collection of gender-based data on existing surveys and setting standards for conducting systemic wage discrimination analyses by the OFCCP.
Please click this link to read the full article released by the
American Bar Association on the Paycheck Fairness Act.

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