Are Your Wages Equal for Men and Women?

Queens & New York City Employment Defense Attorneys

Situations arise where an employee leaves and you must once hire or promote someone to fill their position. Based on skills, experience and the job description, employers offer a salary or wage for work being done as part of a position’s duties. As an employer, it is worth your time to review whether you provide equal pay to men and women who perform the same or comparable job functions.

Recently, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) brought a lawsuit against an oil company for sex based discrimination and paying a female employee a lower salary than her male predecessor.

The details of the case are that SOCI Petroleum/Santmyer Oil Company, Inc. (SOCI) hired Lori Bowerstock to work in human resources in 2006 in Wooster, Ohio. When the current human resources manager’s employment ended in 2009, Bowerstock assumed his function and began performing his functions. The EEOC’s complaint alleges that the company allowed derogatory, sex-based comments against women in general and devalued their work performances and capabilities. SOCI paid Bowerstock less compensation than her male predecessor for doing the same work.

In this case, the EEOC alleges the company violated the Equal Pay Act of 1964 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act The EEOC first sought to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its administrative conciliation process. After failing to reach a settlement, the EEOC is now pursuing permanent injunctive relief to prevent SOCI from discriminating through unequal pay to women, to enforce equal employment opportunities for women, and to obtain lost wages, compensatory and punitive damages.

Working closely with an experienced employment litigation lawyer can help you put sound policies in place that avoid discrimination and unequal pay issues. Our attorneys at Stephen Hans & Associates have successfully defended employers’ rights in litigation and settlement negotiations for more than two decades.