Governor Brown is in that final flurry of signing and rejecting bills sent to him at the end of the legislative session. Two of those bills that we have been following involved pay equity issues. The Governor approved one, and vetoed the other.

The Governor signed into law AB 168, which bars employers from asking job applicants about their previous salary. The stated goal of the legislation is to narrow the gender gap by preventing employers from basing offers on prior salary and thus, presumably, perpetuating historical discrimination. This will also remove the perceived gap in negotiating power between an employer and an employee who must disclose her (or his) prior salary.

The Governor used the veto pen on AB 1209 that would have required large employers (500 or more employees) to report “gender wage differentials” to the Secretary of State for publication. The legislation seemed to presume that a comparison of “mean wages” and “median wages” between men and women would result in a “differential.” This legislation would have been a powerful weapon in the hands of plaintiffs’ lawyers who are bringing cases under the California Fair Pay Act where employers bear the burden of proving that a “differential” is not the result of gender discrimination. The Governor expressed this very concern, explaining that ambiguities in the bill “could be exploited to encourage more litigation than pay equity.”

We will continue tracking and reporting on new legislation.