Publications: The Illinois Equal Pay Act of 2003

To read the original Client Update in PDF format, please click the Related Files link.

Effective January 1, 2004 all Illinois employers of four or more workers must comply with the State’s new Equal Pay Act of 2003. The Act prohibits sex-based wage discrimination. It will be enforced and administered by the Illinois Department of Labor as well as through private civil suits.

The Equal Pay Act bars employers from paying unequal wages to men and women doing the same or “substantially similar” work requiring equal skill, effort, and responsibility, under similar working conditions for the same employer in the same county, except where pay differentials are based on seniority or merit systems, or a system measuring earnings by quantity or quality of production, or by factors other than gender. Employers may not reduce employees’ wages to equalize wage disparities that violate the Act. The Act also includes anti-retaliation provisions that prohibit employers from discharging or otherwise discriminating against employees for asserting rights protected by it. The Equal Pay Act includes record-keeping requirements and mandates that covered employers post workplace notices summarizing its requirements.

Employers who violate the Equal Pay Act may be liable for aggrieved employees’ wage shortages and litigation costs, including reasonable attorney’s fees, and for civil fines of up to $2,500 per violation. In addition to authorizing private suits, the Act provides that at an employee’s request or on motion by the Director of the Department of Labor the Department may “make an assignment of the wage claim in trust for the assigning employee and may bring any legal action necessary to collect the claim . . .”