by Terri DeeIllinois News Connection
New law in 2025 says Illinois businesses with four or more employees must give equal pay for the same or substantially similar work in the same county regardless of gender or race.
CHICAGO - Some companies will have new rules to follow amid changes to the Illinois Equal Pay Act of 2003. House Bill 3129 ensures employers with four or more employees give equal pay for the same or substantially similar work in the same county regardless of gender or race. Governor JB Pritzker's recent signing of an amendment to the law mandates an employer with 15 or more workers to include pay benefits and open information in a job posting. Amy Sneirson, equal pay manager for the Illinois Department of Labor, sees the amendment as another tool as job hopefuls seek and consider employment options.
New Illinois law that takes effect in 2025 will ensure that workers are equally paid regardless of age or gender identity. The statute will also regulate advertisements and announcements for job openings.
Photo: Khachik Simonian/Unsplash
"This is pay transparency, which is what this idea is called, being adopted in states and municipalities around the country," Sneirson explained. "The efforts to boost pay transparency are because pay inequity, despite the existence of very great laws federally and in the States, have not managed to extinguish pay inequities." The amendment also requires if the applicable employer uses a third party to announce, post or publish a job posting, the employer must also inform the third party of the pay rate, who must include the pay scale in the job posting. Employers are responding to the latest mandate for job postings. Sneirson pointed out the Illinois Department of Labor has hosted two webinars since October and has another one scheduled in a few weeks for employers to ask questions. The attendance, she added, has been good. "We've had hundreds of employers attend, and they have been just wanting to gather information I think so they can be sure that they're complying with the law," Sneirson observed. "For a lot of national employers, this is not a new idea. They're already responding to pay transparency in other jurisdictions, and they just want to make sure that they're doing it right." According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, most employees in the Springfield area are in the mining, logging/construction, manufacturing, trade, transportation and utility industries.
