Councilman Bryan Callahan introduced the local press corps and supporters to an amendment Jan. 31 that will make it illegal for employers to ask job candidates about their salary for past jobs.

He said he expects the measure, if approved by the city council, to be challenged in court by the business community.

Callahan’s amendment would modify the existing ordinance Section 145.01, of the Codified Ordinances of the City of Bethlehem, which deals with human Rrsources.

According to Callahan, the measure is prompted by his conviction that the amendment to the city’s Human Resources ordinance will tend to lessen the income disparity between men and women who do similar work.

“Women should be paid equal to men,” Callahan said.

When asked if men face the same issue of being asked past wage history, Callahan acknowledged that they do.

The amendment would make it unlawful for an employer, employment agency, or employee or agent to “inquire about a prospective employee’s wage history, require disclosure of wage history, or retaliate against a prospective employee for failing to comply with any wage history.”

It further makes it unlawful to rely on a person’s wage history to determine the wages at any stage during the employment process.

The amendment included some facts or “findings” to support the proposal. For example, “in Pennsylvania, women are paid 79 cents for every dollar a man makes, according to a United States Census Bureau 2015 report. Women of color are paid even less. African American women are paid only 68 cents to the dollar paid to a man, Latinas are paid only 56 cents to the dollar paid to men, and Asian women are paid 81 cents to the dollar paid to men.”

Further, according to the proposed amendment, “the gender wage gap has narrowed by less than one-half a penny per year in the United States since 1963, when the Congress passed the Equal Pay Act, the first law aimed at prohibiting gender-based pay discrimination, according to the National Committee on Pay Equity.”

The data cited in the amendment says that “in August of 2016, Massachusetts became the first state to enact a law prohibiting employers from seeking or requiring a prospective employee’s wage history.”

According to Callahan, no comment or opinion on the amendment was asked of the local Chamber of Commerce nor of the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation.

Allentown City Councilperson Candida Affa attended the meeting. She said she was interested in the issue.