Kamala Harris wants to fine companies that pay women lesser than men

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2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris proposed her plan to ask companies to get an 'Equal Pay' certification or get fined. This is Harris' plan to try and end gender pay gap in US. There are several corporations in US that pay women less than men. As per her plan, companies will need to disclose pay policies while applying for the 'Equal Pay' certification. Companies that fail to achieve certification would be fined 1 per cent of their profits for every 1 per cent wage gap they allow to persist for work of equal value.

Women in general earned 80 per cent of what men earned as of 2017. According to the US Census Bureau, minority and coloured women earned even lesser. At a college rally in Los Angeles on Sunday, Harris decried the pay gap between men and women. "This has got to end," she said, to audience cheers. Harris said her plan would incentivize corporations to close the pay gap, because "There will be penalties if they don't."

Under Harris' proposition, not only would companies with more than 100 employees need to submit payment policies to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and would also have to prove that existing pay gaps were not based on gender but merit, performance or seniority. In addition, they would have to commit to policies barring mandatory arbitration pacts for job disputes and questions about salary history during hiring.

Harris' campaign said 28 million U.S. workers would be covered by such executive action. Harris has acknowledged that implementing such a legislation would prove to be difficult, especially is Democrats did not maintain control of the House of Representatives. But, she also added that would use the president's executive authority to force companies competing for federal contracts worth $500,000 or more to obtain the certification.