I
118THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION H. R. 1600
To amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to prohibit certain practices
by employers relating to restrictions on discussion of employees’ and
prospective employees’ salary and benefit history, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MARCH14, 2023
Ms. N
ORTONintroduced the following bill; which was referred to the
Committee on Education and the Workforce
A BILL
To amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to prohibit
certain practices by employers relating to restrictions
on discussion of employees’ and prospective employees’
salary and benefit history, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Pay Equity for All 4
Act of 2023’’. 5
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SEC. 2. PROHIBITIONS RELATING TO PROSPECTIVE EM-1
PLOYEES’ SALARY AND BENEFIT HISTORY. 2
(a) I
NGENERAL.—The Fair Labor Standards Act of 3
1938 (29 U.S.C. 201 et seq.) is amended by inserting 4
after section 7 the following new section: 5
‘‘SEC. 8. REQUIREMENTS AND PROHIBITIONS RELATING TO 6
WAGE, SALARY, AND BENEFIT HISTORY. 7
‘‘(a) I
NGENERAL.—It shall be an unlawful practice 8
for an employer to— 9
‘‘(1) rely on the wage history of a prospective 10
employee in considering the prospective employee for 11
employment, including requiring that a prospective 12
employee’s prior wages satisfy minimum or max-13
imum criteria as a condition of being considered for 14
employment; 15
‘‘(2) rely on the wage history of a prospective 16
employee in determining the wages for such prospec-17
tive employee, except that an employer may rely on 18
wage history if it is voluntarily provided by a pro-19
spective employee, after the employer makes an offer 20
of employment with an offer of compensation to the 21
prospective employee, to support a wage higher than 22
the wage offered by the employer; 23
‘‘(3) seek from a prospective employee or any 24
current or former employer the wage history of the 25
prospective employee, except that an employer may 26
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seek to confirm prior wage information only after an 1
offer of employment with compensation has been 2
made to the prospective employee and the prospec-3
tive employee responds to the offer by providing 4
prior wage information to support a wage higher 5
than that offered by the employer; or 6
‘‘(4) discharge or in any other manner retaliate 7
against any employee or prospective employee be-8
cause the employee or prospective employee— 9
‘‘(A) opposed any act or practice made un-10
lawful by this section; or 11
‘‘(B) took an action for which discrimina-12
tion is forbidden under section 15(a)(3). 13
‘‘(b) D
EFINITION.—In this section, the term ‘wage 14
history’ means the wages paid to the prospective employee 15
by the prospective employee’s current employer or previous 16
employer.’’. 17
(b) P
ENALTIES.—Section 16 of such Act (29 U.S.C. 18
216) is amended by adding at the end the following new 19
subsection: 20
‘‘(f)(1) Any person who violates the provisions of sec-21
tion 8 shall— 22
‘‘(A) be subject to a civil penalty of $5,000 for 23
a first offense, increased by an additional $1,000 for 24
each subsequent offense, not to exceed $10,000; and 25
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‘‘(B) be liable to each employee or prospective 1
employee who was the subject of the violation for 2
special damages not to exceed $10,000 plus attor-3
neys’ fees, and shall be subject to such injunctive re-4
lief as may be appropriate. 5
‘‘(2) An action to recover the liability described in 6
paragraph (1)(B) may be maintained against any em-7
ployer (including a public agency) in any Federal or State 8
court of competent jurisdiction by any one or more em-9
ployees or prospective employees for and on behalf of— 10
‘‘(A) the employees or prospective employees; 11
and 12
‘‘(B) other employees or prospective employees 13
similarly situated.’’. 14
Æ
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