Advocates Protest Suit In Philly Halting Step Toward Lowering Wage Gap

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A law prohibiting Philadelphia employers from asking a job applicant's wage history would have taken effect, Tuesday, if not for a suit against it by the Chamber of Commerce, and advocates used the occasion to protest the Chamber's action.

Renee is pretty sure her salary history is costing her a couple of thousand dollars a year.

Her boss asked for it when he hired her as a line chef. She'd never made more than $25 an hour; he offered her $13. But when she started, she found out two men in the identical job got $14 an hour.

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"And I can't really complain since he's already paying me more than I was making," she said.

It's the kind of built in bias the law was meant to overcome, to help close the wage gap, which councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown says is a process that's moving kind of slowly.

"When I came to city council, women were making 77 cents to $1 (for men). 15 years later, women are making 79 cents to $1. If we continue at that pace, my 21-year-old daughter will be 75 before women are making a dollar to a dollar," she said.

The Chamber declined comment.