Dive Brief:

• New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has vetoed a bill barring gender-based pay discrimination, objecting to the law because it would make the Garden State "very business unfriendly," according to NJ.com

• Christie, after making his conditional veto, said there is "no reason for our law to go beyond the Lilly Ledbetter Act," the federal equal pay legislation.  

• It's not the first time Christie has vetoed similar bills, each time saying requirements and penalties were too broad. Business interest groups in the state also opposed the bill, according to NJ.com. The veto comes as the issue of gender pay equality is proving an elusive goal for many U.S. employers.

Dive Insight:

According to the article, the law would have prohibited an employer from paying any gender less for "substantially similar" work. To pay an unequal rate, employers had to prove the decision would be based on factors other than gender, such as training or education, for example. 

Saying he supports "explicit prohibition on wage discrimination on the basis of gender," Christie told press conference attendees that the bill ignores differences in employees' "respective work and working conditions." He added that uncovering unlawful wage discrimination needs an "intensive fact-based evaluation of the workplace and positions. This bill eliminates that requirement. That is wrong."

State Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen), a sponsor of the new law, told NJ.com that Christie's amendments to the bill would dilute it by prohibiting pay comparisons across all of an employers' operations and facilities. 

There were other Christie objections around treble damages and state contractors being required to file gender, race, job title and compensation of every employee associated with a state contract. Weinberg has said that requirement was necessary because "the first step toward determining inequity is transparency."