Employment: payment of wages.

Senator Limón, with Assembly Member Kalra as a coauthor, puts forward a measure that ties pay transparency directly to wage equity by redefining how employers disclose pay and by clarifying the defenses available when pay disparities arise. The opening emphasis is on expanding access to pay information, tightening recordkeeping, and broadening the mechanisms for enforcing pay-related rights across both private and public employers.

The proposal would change how pay scales are defined and shared. A pay scale is now a good-faith estimate of the salary or hourly range a position is expected to pay upon hire. Employers would be required to provide the pay scale to applicants on reasonable request and to current employees for their roles; employers with 15 or more workers must include the pay scale in job postings, and those who use third parties to post openings must ensure the pay scale accompanies the posting. Employers would also retain wage and wage-rate histories for each employee for the duration of employment plus three years after separation, with Labor Commissioner access for inspections. The complaint and enforcement framework would allow a one-year window for filing complaints with the Labor Commissioner, who could impose civil penalties per violation and may waive penalties for first violations if postings have been updated accordingly. Penalties would be deposited into a dedicated enforcement fund, and a rebuttable presumption would favor the employee if an employer fails to keep required records. The section applies to all employers, including state and local governments and the Legislature, and public-record exemptions would still preserve certain salary-history disclosures.

In the realm of pay equity, the bill extends prohibitions on wage differences to apply to pay disparities based on sex and, separately, race or ethnicity. For each prohibited disparity, employers may rely on a limited set of defenses—seniority, merit, production-based measures, or a bona fide factor such as education, training, or experience that is job-related and necessary for business purposes. These defenses must be applied reasonably and account for the entire wage differential; prior salary cannot justify disparities, though decisions made based on current employee salaries may be defended if accounted for by the enumerated factors. Remedies include wages, interest, and liquidated damages, with enforcement by the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement and the option for civil actions by employees or the department, including costs. Records of wages, wage rates, and other employment terms must be kept for three years, and retaliation protections remain in place, including a rebuttable presumption in favor of the employee within 90 days of protected activity. The accrual of a wage-disparity claim is defined around three events—when the unlawful decision is adopted, when an employee becomes subject to it, or when it is applied in practice—and the bill allows a three-year filing window with up to six years of relief, while preserving continuing-violation and discovery-rule notions.

Taken together, the changes would strengthen pay-transparency requirements, broaden the definitional scope of “wages,” and formalize the timeframes and triggers for wage-disparity claims. The bill preserves existing remedies and adds explicit enforcement tools, including penalties and a dedicated enforcement fund, while expanding coverage to public employers and the Legislature. The authors contend these provisions aim to bolster transparency, enable enforcement, and address wage disparities through a structured framework of permissible defenses, recordkeeping obligations, and clear accrual rules. The measure would demand considerable administrative capacity from employers, recruiters, and enforcement agencies, and would require regulatory guidance to clarify concepts such as “good-faith” pay scales, “reasonable request” triggers, and how the bona fide-factor defenses are demonstrated in practice.