I don't care what so-and-so said.
The problem is that this is bad for women. This law, will harm women.
Women already are paid fairly. Any time that you calculate out comparative women to men, the pay is comparable too.
The problem is, women tend to not do the same types of jobs. The number of women that become top level engineers, and scientists, is low. The number that become social workers, and teachers, is high. Well shockingly, social workers and teachers are not paid as much as those in the hard sciences.
Another problem is that women tend to be less flexible and more family oriented. If you have two people a men and a women at a company doing the same job for 5 years, but the women ends up pregnant 3 times, taking off a year each time.... which is going to be paid more? The man who has worked consistently for 5 years, or the women that has only been there 2 years out of the 5? Obviously the guy.
Further, women like to be with their family, and if the kid is sick, they want to stay home with the kid. I have to leave early, my kid... blaw blaw blaw.
Well guess what... if you have a guy that is willing to stay over, and never skips out early, and then a women doing all that... who get's paid more? The guy!
In fact, we just had this happen at our company, just this year. We had a this girl, very qualified girl. She put out her resume, and landed a job with big company, making big money. More than DOUBLE her salary at our company ($35K to $80K). She left. 11 months later, we get this call from her, she wants to come back. She came back, taking the more than 50% pay cut.
Why? Her job was 'stressful'. It required her to meet deadlines. She didn't like that. Her job required her to put in 50 hours a week, and work every week day. She didn't like that. At our company she worked Monday through Thursday, and only put in 35 hours a week, and if she had to do something, she could do it, and come in when she wanted.
She said to us, she wanted to spend more time with her family, and not work so much. So she traded really good pay, for flexibility and family time.
This is why women are paid less on average, than men. A man would have likely done the other job, and collected the fat check.
(BTW.... you hourly people on the left bitching about being paid less, that right there was reality. The people who make the big bucks, are the people who work their butts off. 50 to 60 hours a week is normal in the real world. This 40 hours a week crap, you'll never earn much doing that)
So back to the point....
Say that the government forced an 'equal pay' rule, and our company had to pay the same wages to a women, who refused to work 50 hours, refused to show up on times every day (gotta take billy to school), was taking years off for pregnancy, and skipping out early (billy got sick, and I have to get him).... and they have to pay the same as the guy who works 50 hours, works every day, willing to stay late, willing to come in early.
What do you think companies are going to do? They are going to not hire the women, and only hire the men. If you can't pay the worker doing less, a lower wage, regardless of their job, then you simply won't hire the worker who is getting pregnant, not working as many hours, and leaving to go pick up billy.
This law, will harm women. It won't help them. I promise you.