BOSTON — The following release was shared with WestfordCAT from the office of Rep. James Arciero for publication and distribution.
In a move to ensure fair compensation for Massachusetts employees, the Massachusetts House of Representatives in a 148-8 vote approved pay disclosure legislation and sent the proposal to the State Senate.
“This equity legislation will make sure that an employee candidate knows the salary range of the prospective position and is not offered a lower rate after being offered the job. Too many times, women and persons of color are interviewed and hired, then offered significantly lower wages than a male candidate,” noted Arciero after voting for the wage equity bill.
This new legislation would require businesses with 25 or more employees to include a projected pay range in any hiring advertisement for a specific position. Specifically, any private or public employer with over 25 workers who posts a job would need to list the annual salary or hourly wage, and do so in good faith. A provision of the bill would establish a new data-collection process designed to monitor racial and gender wage gaps within different business sectors.
“With this legislation, Massachusetts will be one step closer to ensuring equal pay for equal work,” said House Speaker Ronald J. Mariano of Quincy. “Pay transparency will not only make our workplaces more equitable, it will also make Massachusetts more competitive with other states. I’d like to thank Chairman Josh Cutler, and all my colleagues in the House, for their important work on this legislation.”
Various studies indicate that on average women earn just 81 cents on the dollar in relation to a man in the same position doing the same work. Even worse, Native Americans earn 59 cents, Black women earn 57 cents and Latinas earn only 51 cents to a dollar received by a male employee. Alarmingly, the wage gap has been widening since 2016.
The House’s Women’s Caucus selected this bill as one of five legislative priorities, fitting under their strategic priority to elevate women’s economic opportunity and to eliminate barriers. Representing 31 percent of the Legislature, the 62-member Women’s Caucus is a bipartisan and bicameral caucus which selected this bill as a priority given its historic support for wage equity.
No representatives spoke against the bill before the House’s vote.
“We all know that wage gaps still persist between different groups. We need to end this discrimination once and for all. This bill will be a meaningful move forward in achieving this worthy goal of economic equality for all,” added Arciero.
If the bill passed is signed into law, Massachusetts would become the eleventh state to mandate pay transparency by requiring employers to disclose salary ranges, according to the National Women’s Law Center. Named after the first woman to serve as U.S. Secretary of Labor and Boston native Frances Perkins, the legislation builds on Massachusetts’ Equal Pay Act which was passed by the Legislature in 2016 to bring more fairness and equality to workplaces.
The bill also requires employers with more than 100 employees to share their federal equal employment opportunity reports with the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, which would then be aggregated and published to help identify gender and racial wage gaps by industry.
“Research shows that pay range transparency in the hiring process is one of the best tools to help close historic gender and racial wage gaps because women and people of color are more likely to underestimate their earning power. The legislation also protects an employee’s right to ask for pay ranges in the workplace including when they’re offered a promotion or a job transfer. These measures ensure that employees are armed with the knowledge to make informed decisions,” said Representative Josh Cutler of Duxbury, the bill’s lead sponsor. “But it’s not just all about employees and job seekers. These measures will also help employers to build trust, promote fairness, and attract and retain top talent.”
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