NJBIA Statement on Equal Pay Legislation Signed by Governor Murphy

NJBIA President & CEO Michele N. Siekerka issued the following statement today regarding Governor Murphy’s signing of Equal Pay legislation (S-104).

“NJBIA has always supported the core intent of the legislation in addressing pay discrimination and seeking to ensure that employees of public contractors are equitably paid.

“However, we maintained a great concern with the originally proposed unlimited lookback period for the recovery of wages because it extended beyond legal precedent found in the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination and the federal Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009.

“We appreciate the changes made by the bill’s sponsor incorporating less onerous reporting requirements for public contractors and capping the lookback period to six years, rather than the decades originally sought. However, the reasons why pay equity exists in some instances are very complex and are void of discriminatory reasons. As such, we must be mindful of aggressive legal efforts to capitalize on the six-year lookback period, without merit, which will come at great expense to unsuspecting businesses.

“NJBIA offers businesses possibly impacted by such legal action several resources to help them, including our member legal hotline and future programs addressing this new legislation.”