Introduction
In recent times, there have been radical changes in the working place. As more people are getting into working sector and as the supply of labor increases, the workers become misused in their working areas. The workers have been discriminated in terms of age, sex, education background among others. To protect the workers at their work station, the America government has passed protective laws on the workers which support modern workers legislation (Marilyn 13).
Equal pay act 2009 is among the employment laws that protect the workers against employees’ discrimination.
Equal pay act 2009
Equal pay act 2009 is also called Ledbetter fair pay act which was signed to law by the president Obama to protect the American women from payment discrimination. Women were said to earn less on the salary and benefits in which they got 78 cents when men were a dollar at the same time. The act prohibits any gender discrimination against workers by the employees (Claudia 93). The Equal pay act 2009 demands that women should not be discriminated on wages for the work done and should be compensated the same as their men colleagues for an equal job content rendered in the same work place. The same time, a person of any genders is protected from discriminative pay for the same amount of work, qualification, working conditions and same work place. The Act states that the payment difference should only arise when two employees have different skills, job positions or have given different output. To ensure that the equal payment act is followed to the letter, the employers should carry out Equal Pay Review (EPR) which is an audit that shows the payment differences among the workers (Corrada 67).
Effect of the Equal pay act 2009 on the businesses
- High business operating cost. Due to the payment discrimination, the equal pay act 2009 was enacted and later around 28028 businesses were sued for gender discrimination. 942 of the legal cases were filed under the Equal pay act and number was expected to raise more because of the passage of a more restrictive Equal pay act 2009. The act therefore, has increased the legal cost used by the business in the defense of employment cases that may be filed by the workers. Likewise the business operation costs have been on increase because of legal costs thereby making some business to operate at a loss or even end the business operation (Sloan 2).
- Increased business productivity. The Equal pay act 2009 has affected some businesses positively. Businesses that are following the law by paying the workers without discrimination, have had reduced overall business costs and increased productivity. Better pay has reduced absenteeism among the workers, thereby increasing the employees’ productivity and reducing the workers turn over cost. Businesses are also reflected as competitive in the unstable labor market (Sloan 2)
- Motivation on workers. The morale of the business employees have been raised by the equal pay act 2009, thereby making the workers to be motivated in the delegation of duties. Likewise the workers retention has been created. In that case the business will gain more if it will takes care of its workforce (Maatta 274).
- Opportunities for business to innovate. Businesses are able to innovate more through the pay act. A labor force with talent creates a competitive advantage to a business and in that case, a business should look on to ways of keeping its talents. Outstanding talents enables businesses to look into project that will enable it expand. Since reward scheme takes the highest percentage of the business costs, it is good for the business to have strategy that will enable it to reward the talents and the same time get highest income out of that. In this case the business is able to innovate in projects that will enable it to compensate talents highly without payment discrimination (Maatta 276).
- Positive corporate image. Equal pay act 2009 enables a business to create a positive corporate image. Cooperate image is important to the business since it can affect its continuity and success. A corporate image helps a business to hire best employees, have potential investors and attract more customers. The best way to create a positive image is for the business to manage its crisis well for example try to avoid workers strikes. Therefore the equal payment act has enabled many businesses to pay the employees well therefore avoiding any problem that will ruin the business appearance (Bueble 87).
- Effect on workers recruitment. According to the free market supporters, equal pay act 2009 has interfered with the system of voluntary exchange on employment.. Since it is the employer not the government who gives the job to the worker, then the employer is forced to pay for low performing workers same as high performers to avoid reduction in the entire production system. This makes the employer to be prejudiced in the selection and employment of the workers. For the disadvantaged people, they will offer to be given a job with less payment as compared to other high performing workers. This might lead to more wage discrimination for the employees who are being protected by the same pay act (Sloan 3).
- Increased business earnings. The equity pay act 2009, has contributed to high number of women employment in the business sector which has lead to their increased financial stability and greatly reducing women’s retirement poverty. The women earnings have brought increased income to the businesses and the revenue to the government as income tax (Agostino& Levine 105)
- Improved Relationship between business and trade unions. Since the formation of the equal pay act 2009 business have been facing employment challenges because of the workers trade unions demanding good working conditions on its workers. Businesses operations have been affected by unions’ demands. Therefore there have been need for both business and trade unions to work hand in hand to create a good business environment and to ensure the equal pay act 2009 policies are followed (Buder 24).
Conclusion
The Equal pay act 2009 has been seen to create in most cases a positive impact to business. On the hand, workers mostly the women have benefited from the pay law since they are not discriminated from their men counterparts. Therefore the equal pay act 2009 can be said to be a boost to the labor market and to the economy in general.
Works cited
Agostino, Maria., and Levine, Helisse. Women in Public Administration: Theory and Practice.USA: Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2010.
Buder, Stanley. Capitalizing on change: a social history of American business. USA: UNC Press Books, 2009.
Bueble, Elena. Corporate social responsibility: CRS communication as an instrument to consumer relationship market. Germany: Verlag, 2009.
Claudia, Elmore. Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act – Has your company taken proactive action to ensure Equal Pay? WordPress, 2009. Web.
Corrada, Goldman. Labor law in the USA. Alphen: Kluwer law international publisher, 2011.
Maatta, Paula. Equal Pay: Just a Principle of the ILO. Norderstedt: BoD Gmbh Publisher, 2009.
Marilyn, Davidson. Transforming management: Why the Equal Pay Act is well past it is ‘sell -by’ date. Purdue U, 2009. Web.
Sloan, Alfred. “Pay equity for working families.” Work-family information for state legislators 22 (2010): 3-6.