Cleveland City Council passed new legislation Monday to tackle gender and race pay inequity across the city.
The new law requires any Cleveland business with more than 15 employees to disclose pay ranges on job listings.
It also bars employers from inquiring about an employee's salary history, which council members say may prevent employees from unintentionally low-balling themselves in salary negotiations.
"This is for everybody. This is leveling the playing field," said Ward 8 Councilmember Mike Polensek.
The measure is intended to increase pay transparency and equity, particularly among low-income residents, racial minorities and women, according to council members Stephanie Howse-Jones and Charles Slife, who initially sponsored the legislation.
Howse-Jones represents Ward 7; Slife, Ward 17.
Fourteen states already have similar laws in place. Ohio is not among them, however, other peer cities like Columbus, Cincinnati and Toledo have passed pay transparency laws. In those cities, women's wages have increased after such laws, and men's wages have been unaffected, said City Council Research and Policy Analyst Brook Sabin.
"This is the kind of thing that we need to do in order to show who government is working for, and these are the kind things that we can all be proud of," said City Council President Blaine Griffin.
The city's Fair Employment Wage Board can fine violators starting at $1,000 up to $5,000, however, officials say they will make efforts to rectify noncompliance before punishing businesses.
This is the latest in Mayor Justin Bibb and City Council members' policy agenda to increase worker protections. In his first term, the Bibb administration re-established the Fair Employment Wage Board after two decades of inactivity, backed City Council legislation prohibiting the city from working with companies that have committed wage theft and established paid parental leave for city employees.
A former labor leader who attended the council committee meeting Monday where the legislation was discussed said council's support for the bill was significant.
"I have never seen a time when there's so many council members who really care about workers like we see today," said John Ryan, the former executive secretary for the local workers' group North Coast Labor Federation, which represents 80,000 people in Cuyahoga, Lake and Geauga counties.
