ABSTRACT
Safety professionals should be aware that the Equal Pay Act was an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act and became law in 1963.* In general, the Equal Pay Act makes it unlawful for any company or organization to discriminate in the area of wage rates between male and female employees on the basis of their sex while the employees are doing jobs that require equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under the same or similar working conditions, unless the wage differential is justiŸed by one of the exceptions identiŸed in the Equal Pay Act.† More speciŸcally, the EEOC identiŸes that “the Equal Pay Act requires that men and women in the same workplace be given equal pay for equal work. The jobs need not be identical, but they must be substantially equal. Job content (not job titles) determines whether jobs are substantially equal. All forms of pay are covered by this law, including salary, overtime pay, bonuses, stock options, proŸt sharing and bonus plans, life insurance, vacation and holiday pay, cleaning or gasoline allowances, hotel accommodations, reimbursement for travel expenses, and beneŸts. If
there is an inequality in wages between men and women, employers may not reduce the wages of either sex to equalize their pay.”*
Safety professionals should be aware that since the Reorganization Plan No 1 took place in 1978, the EEOC became responsible for the administration and enforcement of the Equal Pay Act (formally with the U.S. Department of Labor). In general, safety professionals should be aware that most of the companies and organization that are sufŸciently large enough to employ safety professionals have the requisite number of employees to be covered under the Equal Pay Act.
