Legislature(2001 - 2002)
04/12/2001 08:14 AM House STA
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
SB 65 - PAY EQUITY FOR STATE EMPLOYEES Number 2457 CHAIR COGHILL announced that the next order of business before the committee would be CS FOR SENATE BILL NO. 65(FIN), "An Act requiring a study regarding equal pay for equal work of certain state employees." SENATOR DAVE DONLEY came forward to testify as sponsor of SB 65. He explained that SB 65 calls for the state to perform a pay equity study to determine if its current classification of state employees is in any way in violation of existing state or federal law regarding equal pay for equal work. He noted that almost every year, there are news stories reporting that the annual study by the Department of Administration shows that women who work for state government are paid less than men. "But what we don't know is why," he said, "and we don't know if there is some improper reason why women are being paid less than men on the average with state government." He said there are many other reasons why, as an average, women might justifiably be paid less than men, "but we will never know whether the reason is an improper reason unless we actually do a pay equity study." Such studies already have been done by 24 other states and the District of Columbia. Alaska's Department of Administration believes that its classification system is a good one and that there is no discrimination based on gender, he said. SENATOR DONLEY said SB 65 calls for a $50,000 study that would be performed by a contractor through the Department of Administration to specifically examine whether there is any discrimination going on that would be in violation of existing requirements of equal pay for equal work. He noted that he is trying to be very clear about equal pay for equal work because there is terminology used in this area that can get very confusing. He called attention to an analysis of terminology in committee packets and said there are three phrases commonly used. There is "equal pay for same work," which is actually what he is trying to say, he said. There is "comparable work," which refers to a theory of overall equivalent value to society, which is more complicated but has been studied by some other states. There is "equal pay for equal work," and that principle requires equal compensation for jobs that require substantially the same skills, effort, and responsibility. That is actually what Alaska law and federal law requires. He emphasized that the proposed study would not be a comparable work study, but an equal pay for equal work study [which would encompass equal pay for same work] to make sure that Alaska is complying with federal law. SENATOR DONLEY said he thinks it is the right thing to do. "We have a perception that we may have a problem," he said. "The Department of Administration is confident we don't have a problem, but ... the only way to let the public know for sure that we're not improperly discriminating against women in state employment is to perform this study." Number 2251 CHAIR COGHILL said based on his observation around the legislative halls, "it seems like some of us men may be in trouble." Number 2240 REPRESENTATIVE STEVENS observed that the [written] description of SB 65 mentions litigation, and he wondered if there had been litigation against the state. SENATOR DONLEY said there had been a case alleging that nurses in state employment were being discriminated against unfairly. The facts of the case were that most of the nurses were women, and that the state had another job called "physicians' assistant" in which most of the employees were men. The physicians' assistants were paid more than nurses, but they were doing virtually identical work, he said. The Human Rights [or Equal Rights] Commission found in favor of the nurses. The case was appealed to the courts and the Supreme Court of the state ruled in favor of the state, saying that they found distinguishing elements that justified differing pay rates. Number 2168 SENATOR DONLEY noted that the decision had been controversial, and found it interesting that in the approximately eight years since then, the number of women physicians assistants has increased and the pay of nurses has been raised so that it is more comparable. He said the Department of Administration found "that nurses had a pretty good argument." SENATOR DONLEY said that is the only lawsuit in Alaska state employment of which he knows; however, the issue has been "very problematic" elsewhere. He described two types of states, those which have "just refused to do anything and their classification systems weren't probably as a good as ours and they got sued and it cost them a lot of money." He directed attention to an example in the packets comparing Minnesota to Washington State. In the latter, there was a suit that the state lost and "it cost the state a lot of money," he said. Other states have done pay equity studies and moved in a progressive way to solving the problems they identified, and it's cost a lot less, he said. He emphasized that Alaska's Department of Administration is confident about its classification system and that he hopes the study will put to rest the idea that there is discrimination in the state system. Number 2050 CHAIR COGHILL noted that the annual reports come from the Department of Labor, and he wondered if those reports addressed the area of pay equity. SENATOR DONLEY said they talk about the difference between what men and women on average are making working for the state. CHAIR COGHILL asked, "Just a general rule? SENATOR DONLEY replied, "Yes, just on the average, the gender difference." He called attention to a one-page enclosure on the gender gap in the packet. CHAIR COGHILL asked if the proposed study would look at the gender gap in different categories. SENATOR DONLEY explained that the study would identify those job classes that are dominated by one gender or the other, as those are the suspect classes. It also would look for job classes that are doing much the same type of work and compare the job descriptions with what employees actually are doing to see if there is any discrimination based on gender. Number 1931 REPRESENTATIVE CRAWFORD said when his wife was working as a nurse in a hospital operating room in Louisiana, one of the things they talked about was that the male nurses who came through the operating room seemed to be on the "fast track." Only about one in ten of the nurses was male, and most of them stayed just a short time before being promoted to an administrative job. That seemed to him to be a way of discriminating as well. He wondered if this study would address that sort of thing. SENATOR DONLEY said it is unlikely that this study would catch that kind of a problem, as that was a different area of the law. He said he thought that in a situation like the one Representative Crawford described, there would be a strong possibility of a case for the Equal Rights Commission based on discrimination in promotion. Number 1807 REPRESENTATIVE JAMES observed that many times, there are more women or more men in a particular job because more people of that gender apply for those jobs, and that doesn't mean that there is discrimination. SENATOR DONLEY said that is correct. "But let's say there was a female dominated class called Secretary One, and then there was a male-dominated class called Secretary Two. And we take a look at it and we find that the Secretary Twos are doing the same job as the Secretary Ones, then you've got a case for gender discrimination." CHAIR COGHILL noted for the record that at this point, the administration is saying that does not happen, yet there is a public perception that it does. He thought what Senator Donley was addressing was the public perception. SENATOR DONLEY said that is correct. CHAIR COGHILL asked if the study would be more of a blind study than self-examination. SENATOR DONLEY said yes, if he correctly understood Chair Coghill's terminology. CHAIR COGHILL clarified that he meant a study by a disinterested party. SENATOR DONLEY said yes. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES asked if while the study was comparing employees' jobs are and the pay that they get, will it also look at the qualifications required for the job. She has encountered requirements, such as education, for particular jobs that were not really required for the work being done. SENATOR DONLEY said she was absolutely correct. What the law requires is equal pay for equal work, and if there is some illusory hurdle before a person gets into a particular job, that's not right. It's what you're doing while you're there that is significant. That is part of what this study could examine. CHAIR COGHILL asked if there was anyone else to testify on SB 65. There being no response, he closed public testimony. Number 1538 REPRESENTATIVE FATE REPRESENTATIVE moved to report SB 65 out of committee with individual recommendations and the accompanying fiscal note. REPRESENTATIVE HAYES objected to offer a possible amendment. He said he would like to confer with the bill's sponsor. CHAIR COGHILL declared a brief at-ease at 9:35 a.m. The meeting was called back to order at 9:37 a.m. He noted that a proposed amendment had been passed out to committee members by Representative Hayes. Number 1487 REPRESENTATIVE HAYES moved Amendment 1. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES objected for purposes of discussion. REPRESENTATIVE HAYES said he had received a memo from one of the cosponsors of SB 65 who wanted to add some language if the sponsor was amenable to it. He explained the amendment as follows: Page 1, line 8, after "sexes", Insert "races" Page 1, line 8, Delete "female" Insert "worker" Page 1, line 9, after "paid to", Delete "male" Insert "another" Page 2, line 4, after "gender", Insert "or race" Page 2, line 9, after "gender", Insert "or race" Page 2, line 10, after "gender", Insert "or race" Number 1402 CHAIR COGHILL said the amendment seemed to him to significantly change SB 65. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES asked if the "equal pay for equal work" area of the law also includes bias between races. SENATOR DONLEY replied, "Yes." REPRESENTATIVE JAMES asked what if anything the amendment would do to the fiscal note. SENATOR DONLEY responded, "We have been working with the Department of Administration for about 9 to 10 months on this bill and developing the fiscal note and the study. This is totally different than anything they've seen before. so it's very hard for me to predict what this will do to the fiscal note...." REPRESENTATIVE JAMES observed that SB 85 was a Senate bill that is now before the House. She asked if it has a referral to the House Finance Committee. SENATOR DONLEY confirmed that it does. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES asked if a representative from the administration was present, and if she could ask a question of that person. Number 1286 DAVE STEWART, Personnel Manager, Division of Personnel, Department of Administration, came forward to testify. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES began by clarifying that she has no philosophical opposition to Amendment 1. Her concern is that it is enlarging the scope of the study, and it appears to her that there would be some increase in the cost of it. She asked if the House State Affairs Standing Committee were to adopt the amendment and move SB 65 out of committee today, what would the administration do about the fiscal note by the time the bill reached the Finance Committee, to which it has a referral. She said she wanted to make sure that committee had a true picture of the financial impact. MR. STEWART replied that in that case, the administration would have to go back and adjust the fiscal note to reflect the increased scope. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES asked if he had any idea what the increase might be? MR. STEWART replied, "I sure don't." In response to her urging him to estimate, he said it would likely double. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES said that is what she would guess because, "It's a whole new scope." But as long as she is assured that the fiscal note will be revised, she has no objection to the amendment. Number 1135 REPRESENTATIVE WILSON commented that she thinks what Representative Hayes wants to do is wonderful, and should be looked at. However, he could introduce a new bill to study racial discrimination, which might be done in conjunction with the gender study proposed by SB 65. CHAIR COGHILL noted that the original testimony was that SB 65 addressed gender equity, and that the amendment changes the scope tremendously. REPRESENTATIVE HAYES said he understood what Representative Wilson was proposing, and explained that he was simply passing on an amendment a co-sponsor had requested. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES wondered in a study on equal pay for equal work, "What trumps the decision, race or gender?" MR. STEWART answered, "Both." SENATOR DONLEY said the original bill was designed just to study gender. "The trick is, you look for suspect classes to start, so a gender study looks for classes dominated by a particular gender, and a racial study looks for classes dominated by a particular race," he said. Each study goes on to make sure that in those classes, the group being studied is not being discriminated against. Looking at both means adding another variable, he explained. REPRESENTATIVE WILSON said she had changed her mind and now thinks that the amendment really expands the intent of SB 65, and she thinks racial bias should be examined in a separate study rather than in a combined study, but that she will yield to the sponsor of the legislation. SENATOR DONLEY said he felt like he was stuck in a difficult spot "because Mr. Stewart's been wonderful to work with; the administration has really been helpful on this, and we've worked together for eight months now ... and it took a major effort on their part to identify just how they thought they might do this study and to give us a fiscal note on the subject, and there's a lot of thought and we did a lot of research on the Internet and with other states of how they've done studies and what private contractors were available out there to do a study, but all that research was based on gender...." MR. STEWART added, "None of our inquiries included race or any other factor." SENATOR DONLEY said he felt confident about the numbers in the current fiscal note, but he did not know what he would say to the Finance Committee if there were another fiscal note. At the same time, he said, he really did not oppose doing this. "It's just that it could inject a lot of uncertainty," he said. He noted that he did not know how the Senate would react. Number 0754 REPRESENTATIVE CRAWFORD said he supported the idea behind the amendment, and with the study on gender set up, he wondered if it might be less expensive to "piggyback" a race study [rather than to conduct a separate study on race]. SENATOR DONLEY deferred to the administration. MR. STEWART said it probably would be less expensive to combine the two studies rather than to conduct two separate ones. However, he thought it would be a little more difficult to study equal pay for equal work in relation to race, He noted that there was almost 40 years of history of state and federal legislation related to race, and not so much related to gender. In addition, the gender gap report from the Department of Labor provides some specific targets with respect to gender-related pay issues, and there is not a comparable starting point for issues of race. He said he thought combining the two would mean redesigning the whole study, although he was not reluctant to do so. Number 0502 REPRESENTATIVE STEVENS said that regarding a study on equal pay for equal work in relation to race, "If we're not doing that, we should be doing it." He understood Senator Donley's discomfort with the idea of changing his bill to include that, but said he thought the amendment was a valid one and that he would vote for it. CHAIR COGHILL asked if accommodations made for Alaska Natives as part of efforts to improve the economy in rural Alaska would affect this type of study. SENATOR DONLEY said it could. State regulations allow for a local hire preference in rural capital projects, rural jobs, and other situations like that, he said. There's also the state's affirmative action program that permits hiring outside the strict merit system based on affirmative action goals. He said that was one of the complicating factors in studying racial equity, "because there are times when you intentionally override a racial balance ... Unlike overriding a pay balance; it's a different issue." CHAIR COGHILL said that was his concern, running into quite an array of variables because of affirmative action and local hire, SENATOR DONLEY said a racial study will be challenging because of the large indigenous population and its geographic distribution. He noted that certain job classes found in more remote areas are likely to be dominated by indigenous folks because that's where they tend to live. MR. STEWART added that there are some job classes that exist solely in rural areas. CHAIR COGHILL wondered how a study would address a situation like that in Barrow, where there are many corporate employers, including the Native corporation structure and the city structure, and also an unusually large Filipino population. Number 0193 SENATOR DONLEY said he thought it would be a good idea to do a study to make sure that in state employment, there is no discrimination based on either race or gender. "But I'm going to need help on this [the House] side because I'm still going to have to go to your Finance Committee and explain why it's going to cost more and I'd need the help of the administration to craft the study...." CHAIR COGHILL asked, "Could we come back and ask the administration to give us not just a fiscal note ... [but also] a scope of what this would do, because it certainly changes the scope?" He thought it might be advisable to have that information before moving HB 65. SENATOR DONLEY suggested that there are going to be two more opportunities, in the Finance Committee and also of the floor of the House, to address the issue [of a race discrimination study]. He expressed willingness to work with the legislators who are interested and with the administration to try to get that information together before HB 65 comes up for a hearing in the Finance Committee "so we could talk about it intelligently...." TAPE 01-39, SIDE A CHAIR COGHILL said he would rather "send it up clean" and with a scope that is well defined and easily quantified in terms of cost. SENATOR DONLEY said he thought there might be members of the public who would like to testify on the idea of a race discrimination study. Number 1049 REPRESENTATIVE FATE noted that eight months of work had gone into HB 65. He expressed concern about whether changing its scope would mean the study wouldn't start until the next legislative session. He asked Senator Donley what he expected as a timeline. SENATOR DONLEY responded, "I wanted to give the administration time to put together and do it right, so we've got a pretty liberal time frame in the bill, so I don't think the time factor is a problem...." CHAIR COGHILL suggested moving things along. He asked if the amendment was maintained. REPRESENTATIVE HAYES said yes. Number 0133 REPRESENTATIVE FATE called for the question on the amendment. A roll call vote was taken. Representatives Crawford, Hayes, Stevens, and Wilson voted for Amendment 1. Representatives Fate and Coghill voted against Amendment 1. Representative James was absent. Therefore, Amendment 1 was adopted. Number 0215 REPRESENTATIVE HAYES moved to report CSSB 65(FIN) as amended out of the House State Affairs Standing Committee with individual recommendations and the accompanying $50,000 fiscal note "which will probably change." There being no objection, HCS CSSB 65(STA) was moved from committee.
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