from the article.
You know, the eleven sentance article tells me more about journalism today than it tells me about the law it refers to.
A local St Louis tv station
citing
Deutsche Welle
citing
Australian Broadcasting Corp
citing
Al Jazeera
who spoke with someone at a women's rights organization in Iceland.
But to the point of the story. Iceland certainly isn't the first country to make it illegal to pay women less for equal work.
For example, the US has the
Equal Pay Act of 1963.
Quote:
(partial)... No employer having employees subject to any provisions of this section shall discriminate, within any establishment in which such employees are employed, between employees on the basis of sex by paying wages to employees in such establishment at a rate less than the rate at which he pays wages to employees of the opposite sex in such establishment for equal work on jobs the performance of which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions, except where such payment is made pursuant to (i) a seniority system; (ii) a merit system; (iii) a system which measures earnings by quantity or quality of production; or (iv) a differential based on any other factor other than sex: Provided, That an employer who is paying a wage rate differential in violation of this subsection shall not, in order to comply with the provisions of this subsection, reduce the wage rate of any employee.
...
(c) Records
Every employer subject to any provision of this chapter or of any order issued under this chapter shall make, keep, and preserve such records of the persons employed by him and of the wages, hours, and other conditions and practices of employment maintained by him, and shall preserve such records for such periods of time, and shall make such reports therefrom to the Administrator as he shall prescribe by regulation or order as necessary or appropriate for the enforcement of the provisions of this chapter or the regulations or orders thereunder. The employer of an employee who performs substitute work described in section 207(p)(3) [section 7(p)(3)] of this title may not be required under this subsection to keep a record of the hours of the substitute work.
More importantly, and unfortunately, I suspect that this is not going to be successful, either. After all, we find that women who take time off for families rarely catch up in wage disparity. And the societal issue of women being the primary caregivers is much bigger than just employers and wages. This has been the case in the United States, and even in Scandinavia where social policies are much more family friendly.