If it remains true that California is the nation's test kitchen for new policy ideas, then employers around the country should look out.

Gov. Jerry Brown (D) plans to soon sign into law a new measure that would force employers facing gender wage discrimination claims to provide clear proof that men and women doing "substantially similar" work are paid differently for legitimate reasons, such as seniority or merit. That's a lot broader than California's existing law, which requires equal pay for those doing the exact same job.

And, there is something else: The new law extends actual protections to workers in the event that their employer should try to stop them or retaliate against them for doing something pretty essential in the fight against gender pay discrimination: asking a co-worker what they earn.

Basically, workers with similar responsibilities and work performance are supposed to be paid the same way. And women who suspect they are being underpaid won't have to rely on those rare but fortuitous occasions where they happen upon a colleagues' pay stub left behind in an old desk drawer or overhear a stray conversation in the break room.

See more at:

Washington Post