On the afternoon of June 5th, there will be a U.S. Senate cloture vote on the motion to proceed to the so-called “Paycheck Fairness Act” (S.3220). SBE Council has joined a coalition of business allies in opposing the legislation. The following are some of their reasons:
As The Washington Post editorial board stated in 2009, adding the Paycheck Fairness Act to these existing laws “risks tilting the scales too far against employers and would remove, rather than restore, a sense of balance.” In 2010, the Boston Globe wrote “the measure as a whole is too broad” and the Chicago Tribune described the bill as “grossly intrusive.”
The legislation is all about political posturing in an election year, and will destroy jobs. There is nothing fair about imposing government command-and-control policies on small businesses. This backward and socialistic legislation takes away the business owner’s flexibility to reward their workforce based upon merit, experience, local labor market conditions and the firm’s ability to compensate based upon profitability, according to SBEC.