# State Government Pay Equity Act _Minnesota's 1982 law requiring equitable pay between female-dominated, male-dominated and balanced classes of executive-branch jobs — its text, its authors and votes, its implementation and its current form_ | State Government Pay Equity Act | | |---|---| | Citation | Laws 1982, ch. 634 (H.F. 2005); codified at Minn. Stat. § 43A.01, subd. 3, with definitions in § 43A.02 | | Approved | March 23, 1982, Governor Al Quie (Independent-Republican) | | Chief authors | Sen. Linda Berglin (DFL) and Rep. Wayne Simoneau; House co-authors Greenfield, Rodriguez, Luknic (IR) and Pogemiller | | Votes | House, 100–13 (March 9, 1982); Senate, unanimous | | Classes | female-dominated (more than 70 percent female); male-dominated (more than 80 percent male); balanced | | Implemented | 1983–1986, by the Department of Employee Relations | | Companion | [[Local Government Pay Equity Act]] (1984) | | Parent articles | [[At Issue - Minnesota's Feminist Regime]] · [[DFL Feminists]] · [[GOP Feminists]] · [[How Minnesota Got Here]] | The **State Government Pay Equity Act** is the 1982 Minnesota law that made it state policy to set pay for executive-branch job classes so that "comparability of the value of the work" is the primary consideration, comparing classes in which most incumbents are women with classes in which most are men.[^1][^2] It was recommended by the [[Council on the Economic Status of Women]] after a 1981 task force, chief-authored by Sen. Linda Berglin, a DFL member, and Rep. Wayne Simoneau, with an Independent-Republican co-author, and approved by Governor [[Al Quie]], a Republican, on March 23, 1982.[^3][^4][^5][^6][^1] The act is instrument 12 of the ledger in [[At Issue - Minnesota's Feminist Regime]]; the officials who wrote and administered it are treated in [[DFL Feminists]], and the Republican co-author, votes and governor in [[GOP Feminists]]. The parent account of the period is [[How Minnesota Got Here]].[^7][^8] ## Text and definitions The act added to § 43A.01 a subdivision headed "Equitable compensation relationships", declaring it the policy of the state "to attempt to establish equitable compensation relationships between female-dominated, male-dominated, and balanced classes of employees in the executive branch."[^1][^9] Relationships were equitable "when the primary consideration in negotiating, establishing, recommending, and approving total compensation is comparability of the value of the work in relationship to other positions in the executive branch."[^9] It added definitions to § 43A.02. A "Female-dominated class" is one in which "more than 70 percent of the incumbents are female"; a "Balanced class" is one in which "no more than 80 percent of the incumbents are male and no more than 70 percent of the incumbents are female"; and "Comparability of the value of the work" means value measured by "the composite of the skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions normally required in the performance of the work."[^1][^10] The comparison is between job classes, and the remedy runs to the pay of a class.[^1] The procedure, in § 43A.05, required the Commissioner of Employee Relations to submit to the Legislative Commission on Employee Relations, by January 1 of each odd-numbered year, a list of the female-dominated and male-dominated classes "for which a compensation inequity exists based on comparability of the value of the work", with the appropriation needed to correct it.[^9] ## Origin and enactment **The council's work.** The Council on the Economic Status of Women held its first hearing on women in state employment at the suggestion of its chair, Representative Linda Berglin, and heard testimony that state-employed women earned 69 percent of their male counterparts' earnings.[^3] The state had adopted the Hay job-evaluation system in 1979, and news of Washington State's comparable-worth litigation "led the Council to establish a Task Force on Pay Equity in 1981."[^3] Representative Arlene Lehto, a DFL member from Duluth, served on the task force.[^11][^3] **Authors.** The bill "was introduced in 1982 by chief authors Sen. Linda Berglin and Rep. Wayne Simoneau"; the House Journal records its introduction by "Simoneau; Greenfield; Rodriguez, C.; Luknic and Pogemiller", of whom Marsha Luknic was an Independent-Republican.[^3][^5][^6] **Votes.** The House passed H.F. 2005 on March 9, 1982 with "100 yeas and 13 nays".[^12] A labor newspaper reported that it "passed the Senate unanimously"; the Senate Journal for the day was not read for this article.[^13] The office's later report states that "Legislators from both parties supported the bill" and that no testimony was offered in opposition, and the Legislative Reference Library that it had "bipartisan support in the House".[^3][^14] A cross-reference of the journal's names against the Legislative Reference Library's member records, done for this series, puts 35 Independent-Republicans among the yeas and all 13 nays among Independent-Republicans.[^12][^15] One of the nays, Representative Cal Ludeman, had carried a floor amendment on how the adjustments were to be funded, inserting the words "drawn exclusively from and shall not be in addition to" before the bill passed.[^16][^12] **Approval.** Governor Quie approved the act on March 23, 1982, the same day he approved the act making sexual harassment an unfair discriminatory practice.[^1][^17] The Legislature was then DFL in both houses.[^18] Nina Rothchild, the council's director, later recalled a time "Before there was this hardening of the party positions", when legislators could vote as they judged right.[^13] ## Implementation The Department of Employee Relations, under Commissioner Rothchild from January 1983, filed the statutory salary-equalization reports in January 1983, January 1984 and January 1985.[^9][^19][^20][^21] The office's history states that the procedure "went into effect for the first time in 1983" and that by July 1986 "Approximately 8,500 employees in 200 female-dominated job classes received pay equity increases"; "Seventy-five percent of the pay adjustments went to clerical workers and health care workers", and about 10 percent of those receiving increases were men in female-dominated classes.[^3] The office's report describes the program both as implemented over four years, from 1982 to 1986, and as "a three-year process with a total cost of 3.7 percent of payroll"; for the first biennium the Legislature appropriated $21.7 million, or "1.25 percent of payroll per year".[^3] The Library's timeline instead says "The pay equity adjustments were phased in over two years" and that "costs were less than 2% of the state's overall payroll".[^14] The office reports that maintaining pay equity in 2014 cost $150,000.[^3] ## Amendments and current text Section 43A.01 has been amended several times since 1982; subdivision 3 itself was last amended in 2025.[^2] Its current text drops the word "attempt": "It is the policy of this state to establish equitable compensation relationships between female-dominated, male-dominated, and balanced classes of employees in the executive branch", and it now compares a class with "other classifications in the executive branch."[^2] The class definitions remain in § 43A.02.[^10] The act has never been repealed; the same method was extended to cities, counties and school districts by the [[Local Government Pay Equity Act]] of 1984.[^2][^22] ## Record and readings **Reading one.** On the At Issue spine's first reading, the act is a sex-keyed instrument: it sorts the state's job classes by the sex of their incumbents and directs money to classes that are mostly female, and it was enacted by a DFL Legislature and signed by a Republican governor without recorded opposing testimony — evidence, on this reading, of a settled cross-party design.[^2][^3][^1] **Reading two.** On the second reading, the act is ordinary personnel policy with sex-neutral operation: it defines male-dominated and balanced classes as well, measures value by skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions, raised the pay of men in female-dominated classes, and passed the House 100–13 and, per a secondary source, the Senate unanimously.[^10][^3][^12][^13] Neither reading is supported by a claim that the act was enacted by one party alone or that it has been repealed.[^5][^2] ## Open items 1. **The Senate roll call.** The 1982 Senate vote is reported as unanimous by a secondary source; the Senate Journal was not read.[^13] 2. **Cost and duration.** The office's report describes both a four-year implementation and a three-year process costing 3.7 percent of payroll; the Library's timeline gives two years and under 2 percent.[^3][^14] 3. **Simoneau's party.** The member record of the House chief author was not read.[^5] ## See also - [[Local Government Pay Equity Act]] · [[Council on the Economic Status of Women]] · [[Pay equity]] · [[Comparable worth]] - [[At Issue - Minnesota's Feminist Regime]] · [[DFL Feminists]] · [[GOP Feminists]] · [[How Minnesota Got Here]] - [[Al Quie]] · [[Linda Berglin]] · [[Nina Rothchild]] ## Notes [^1]: Laws of Minnesota 1982, ch. 634 (H.F. 2005), approved March 23, 1982 — the State Government Pay Equity Act: § 43A.01, subd. 3; definitions of balanced, female-dominated and male-dominated classes; comparability of the value of the work. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/1982/0/634/ [^2]: Minn. Stat. § 43A.01 (2025), policy — subd. 3, equitable compensation relationships between female-dominated, male-dominated and balanced classes in the executive branch; history 1981 c 210 s 1; 1982 c 634 s 1. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/43A.01 [^3]: Legislative Office on the Economic Status of Women, *Pay Equity: The Minnesota Experience*, 6th ed. (Dec. 2015; posted Feb. 2016) — the 1981 task force; the 1982 act's chief authors Berglin and Simoneau; bipartisan support; the 1984 local act, penalties and the 2003 reporting moratorium. https://mn.gov/mmb-stat/pay-equity/Pay_Equity-The%20Minnesota%20Experience.pdf [^4]: Minnesota Legislative Reference Library, Legislators Past & Present, record of Linda Lee Berglin — House 1973–80; Senate 1981–2011 (resigned Aug. 2011); DFL caucus; Health and Human Services chair; listed as chair of the women's commission, 1977 to 1980. https://www.lrl.mn.gov/legdb/fulldetail?id=10047 [^5]: Journal of the House, 1982, 70th Day (Feb. 11, 1982; OCR) — introduction of H.F. 2005 by Simoneau, Greenfield, Rodriguez, Luknic and Pogemiller, "relating to employment; providing for equitable compensation relationships." Minnesota Legislative Reference Library archive. https://www.lrl.mn.gov/archive/Journals/house/1981-1982/19820211070.pdf [^6]: Minnesota Legislative Reference Library, Legislators Past & Present, record of Marsha Johnson "Marnie" Luknic — House 1979–82 (District 24B); party when first elected, Independent Republican. https://www.lrl.mn.gov/legdb/fulldetail?id=10388 [^7]: Minnesota record, *How Minnesota Got Here — Minnesota's Administrative Discrimination Regime* (merged master, footnoted; compiled June 12, refreshed June 19, 2026), §4.7 — the four instruments (Duluth Model, comparable worth, the women's-economic-status organ, § 43A.191) and their construction schedule 1976–1985. [^8]: Minnesota record, *The Instrument No One Will Name* (densified companion, June 18, 2026), §4 and notes 19–28 — the two feminist caucuses (1973), the 1982 Pay Equity Act vote, the Quie appointments, the cross-party channels and the women's-economic-status organ. [^9]: Minnesota Department of Employee Relations, *State Employees – Salary Equalization*, report to the Legislative Commission on Employee Relations, Nina Rothchild, Commissioner (Jan. 31, 1983) — the statutory policy and the four-step comparability-adjustment procedure. https://www.lrl.mn.gov/docs/pre2003/other/830746.pdf [^10]: Minn. Stat. § 43A.02 (2025), definitions — subd. 33: for affirmative action purposes "protected groups" means females, persons with disabilities and listed minorities; history from 1981 c 210 and 1982 c 634. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/43A.02 [^11]: Minnesota Legislative Reference Library, Legislators Past & Present, record of Arlene Ione Lehto — House 1977–82 (District 8A), first elected as a Democratic-Farmer-Labor member; Duluth; printing-business manager; a member of the 1981–82 pay-equity task force, per the pay-equity history. https://www.lrl.mn.gov/legdb/fulldetail?id=10365 [^12]: Journal of the House, 1982, 85th Day (Mar. 9, 1982; OCR), p. 6922 — final passage of H.F. 2005: "There were 100 yeas and 13 nays," with the roll call. Minnesota Legislative Reference Library archive. https://www.lrl.mn.gov/archive/Journals/house/1981-1982/19820309085.pdf [^13]: Workday Magazine, "Minnesota's pay equity laws have bridged wage gap for women" (Apr. 23, 2013) — the 1982 act "passed the Senate unanimously" and "passed the House 100-13," signed by Quie; Rothchild's recollection of the era; Perpich's priority. https://workdaymagazine.org/minnesotas-pay-equity-laws-have-bridged-wage-gap-for-women [^14]: Minnesota Legislative Reference Library, Women's Legislative Timeline, "1982 – State Government Pay Equity Act" — enacted "as a result of the task force efforts by the Council"; authors of both sexes with bipartisan House support; the 1984 local act. https://www.lrl.mn.gov/womenstimeline/details.aspx?recid=37 [^15]: This project's research file for the GOP Feminists article (Oct. 28, 2026): party labels for each member named in the 1982, 1984 and 2014 roll calls, taken from the per-session party field of the Legislative Reference Library's member records and checked against its seat totals; it also lists sources that could not be retrieved, including the 2014 Senate journals and a 2008 Minnesota History article. [^16]: Minnesota Legislative Reference Library, Legislators Past & Present, record of Cal R. Ludeman — House 1979–82 (District 20B) and 1983–84 (District 27A), first elected as an Independent Republican; Tracy; farmer. https://www.lrl.mn.gov/legdb/fulldetail?id=10387 [^17]: Laws of Minnesota 1982, ch. 619 (H.F. 1831), approved March 23, 1982 (scan) — "An act relating to human rights," including sexual harassment as an unfair discriminatory practice and protecting workers who quit because of it from benefit disqualification. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/data/revisor/law/1982/0/1982-619.pdf [^18]: Minnesota Legislative Reference Library, "Party Control of the Minnesota Legislature and Governor's Office" — party control of the House, Senate and governorship by session, including 1981–82, 1983–84, 2011–12, 2013–14, 2017–18, 2019–20, 2023–24 and 2025–26. https://www.lrl.mn.gov/histleg/caucus_table [^19]: Minnesota Department of Employee Relations, *State Employees – Salary Equalization*, report to the Legislative Commission on Employee Relations, Nina Rothchild, Commissioner (Jan. 31, 1984; scan) — the § 43A.01, subd. 3 policy and the four-step comparability-adjustment procedure under § 43A.05. https://www.lrl.mn.gov/docs/2013/other/131030.pdf [^20]: Minnesota Department of Employee Relations, *State Employees – Salary Equalization*, report to the Legislative Commission on Employee Relations, Nina Rothchild, Commissioner (Jan. 1, 1985; scan) — the statutory policy and the comparability-adjustment list by bargaining unit and compensation plan. https://www.lrl.mn.gov/docs/pre2003/other/850607.pdf [^21]: Minnesota Secretary of State appointment card, Nina Rothchild (digitized by the Legislative Reference Library; OCR) — Commissioner, Department of Employee Relations, appointed by Perpich effective 1/3/83; reappointed effective 1/5/87. https://www.lrl.mn.gov//archive/sos/cards/pdf/appointments_0001667074.pdf [^22]: Laws of Minnesota 1984, ch. 651 (H.F. 1766), approved May 2, 1984 — the Local Government Pay Equity Act, Minn. Stat. §§ 471.991–.999: definitions, the duty of every political subdivision, reports to the Department of Employee Relations. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/1984/0/651/