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Paycheck Fairness Act
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HERvotes Blog Carnival: It’s Time to Pass the Paycheck Fairness Act!

May 31, 2012 by Leave a Comment

By Fatima Goss Graves, Vice President for Education and Employment at the National Women’s Law Center

For this 14th #HERvotes blog carnival, we’re blogging about equal pay and the need for the Paycheck Fairness Act – which will be on the Senate floor for a vote next week.

Why do we need the Paycheck Fairness Act (PFA)?   It would update the 50-year-old law by providing incentives to employers to pay women fairly.  It also would ban employers from retaliating against their employees who choose to share salary information with their coworkers.

It’s time for Congress to stand up for the rights of working women and to advance fair pay! The PFA is pending in the 112th Congress, with a vote expected in the Senate on June 5. It has twice passed the House, and it fell just two votes short of a Senate vote on its merits in the last Congress. This is a commonsense bill that would help women and their families – especially in this tough economy.

So please join us in supporting the PFA today! Start by calling you Senators today and urge them to vote for it. After you’ve called, read and share the blog posts below. We’ll be tweeting about this blog carnival all day with the hashtag #HERvotes and we encourage you to join us!


#HERvotes, a multi-organization campaign launched in August 2011, advocates women using our voices and votes to stop the attacks on the women’s movement’s major advances, many of which are at risk in the next election.

Part of the #HERvotes blog carnival.

Read More:

I Didn’t Get Equal Pay.  You Should- Lilly Ledbetter, via AAUW

Advancing Paycheck Fairness for Latinas means Advancing Immigrant and Reproductive Rights- Natalie D. Camastra, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health

Restoring Some Reality to the Paycheck Fairness Debate- Fatima Goss Graves, National Women’s Law Center

Paycheck Fairness Makes the Political Personal- Alison Channon, National Women’s Law Center

Closing the Wage Gap Is About Fairness, Not Magic!- Samantha Lint, National Women’s Law Center

NASW Supports the Paycheck Fairness Act- National Association of Social Workers

If Our College Graduates Can’t Fight For Fair Pay, Who Can? (PDF) – Jamie Dolkas, Equal Rights Advocates

Salary Negotiation, Powerful Women and the Wage Gap- Katherine Birdsall, Feminist Majority Foundation

Raise the Minimum Wage and Narrow the Wage Gap- Abby Lane, National Women’s Law Center

Paycheck Fairness Does Not Have to be an Oxymoron- Malak Yusuf, Wider Opportunities for Women

America’s Women and Families Deserve a Vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act- Sarah Crawford, National Partnership for Women & Families

The Facts Behind the Call for Equal Pay- Christine Miranda, NOW

Families, the Wage Gap, and the Economy- Caitlin Highland, Feminist Majority Foundation

Stimulate the Economy: Pay Women Fairly- Linda Meric, 9to5, National Association of Working Women

HERvotes Blog Carnival: Equal Pay and the Single Woman- Elisabeth Gehl, Business and Professional Women’s Foundation

The Wage Gap: Collective Change, Not Choice- Maggie Fridinger, National Council of Women’s Organizations

The Paycheck Fairness Act: Telling the Truth About Workforce Equality – Dani Nispel, National Council of Women’s Organizations

Paycheck Equality: It’s Not a Suggestion, It’s the Law- Anny Bolgiano, Coalition of Labor Union Women

Women of Color, the Wage Gap and the Paycheck Fairness Act- Katherine Birdsall, Feminist Majority Foundation

A Jewish Call for Equal Pay- Ian Hainline & Katharine Nasielski, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism

Justice for Working Women- Miri Cypers, Jewish Women International

The Paycheck Fairness Act: For When Women are Old and Broke- Kate McGuinness, Fem2.0

The Relationship Between Unequal Pay and Other Forms of Gender Discrimination- Debra Miller, Feminist Majority Foundation

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Stimulate the Economy: Pay Women Fairly

May 31, 2012 by Leave a Comment

by Linda Meric, Executive Director, 9to5, National Association of Working Women

Misogyny has taken center stage this 2012 election cycle. This “war on women” has legislators voting to limit women’s control over their health. Political candidates have spoken out against women serving in combat. Candidates have called the federal equal pay law a “nuisance,” and some elected officials are claiming that pay discrimination against women doesn’t exist.  

The simple truth is that a significant pay gap does exist for women and people of color. Women were paid 77 cents for every dollar men got paid in 2010 annual earnings. For women of color, the pay gap is even wider. African American women earned 67 cents and Latinas 58 cents for every dollar earned by white males, the highest earners.

Mary Henderson, a 9to5 Colorado member, knows about pay inequity first-hand.  When she worked at a Colorado Wal-Mart store, she was paid thousands of dollars less than a man with less education and the same seniority in the same position.  When she inquired about being paid less, she was punished with a transfer to a store requiring an hours-long commute.

We need to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act (S. 3220) to close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act and bar retaliation against workers like Mary Henderson and others who disclose their own wages to co-workers. Without this bill, employers penalize and even fire employees for talking about their salaries, leaving workers in the dark, preventing them from ever finding out about pay discrimination.

 

9to5 member LaTerrell Bradford, calls equal pay a “non-negotiable.”  While working as part of an all-female support team, a man was hired in the same job classification. Her female supervisor discovered that he was to earn much more than any of the women and advocated for every team member to be paid at the higher rate.  Human resources relented because as Bradford says, “It would not have been fair nor legal to sit next to him, do the exact same work and have him be paid more.”

The wage gap has long-term effects on the economic security of women and families. Women lose hundreds of thousands of dollars, up to over a million, over their careers. That means less money to make ends meet and achieve economic security for families.  A lifetime of lower wages also means that women save less for retirement and qualify for lower social security payments.

The country is leading up to an election where women will play a major role in choosing our president.  Candidates need to focus on issues that are important to women: pay equity and the economy.  Pay equity reduces poverty and stimulates the economy.  All women deserve to be paid fairly, and when they are, their families and the economy will win.

 

Part of the #HERvotes blog carnival.

 

Background on 9to5, National Association of Working Women: 9to5 is one of the largest national membership-based organizations of working women in the U.S., creating a powerful force for change. Founded in 1973, 9to5 empowers women to organize and lead campaigns on family-friendly workplace policies, equal opportunity and economic security issues. To learn more visit 9to5.org or call the Job Survival Helpline at (800) 522-0925.

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Paycheck Equality: It’s Not a Suggestion, It’s the Law

May 31, 2012 by Leave a Comment

by Anny Bolgiano, Intern, Coalition of Labor Union Women

Q: What’s better than paycheck equity legislation?

A: Effective paycheck equity legislation.

The government makes a lot of suggestions and recommendations to us Americans. The CDC recommends staying home when you have the flu and getting 2.5 hours of exercise per week, and the EPA recommends testing your home for radon and checking the UV index before outdoor activities. The government also makes laws, and we all know how laws are different from recommendations and mere suggestions. It is illegal to litter, it is illegal to trespass, it is illegal to sell certain drugs, and IT IS ILLEGAL TO PAY A WOMAN LESS THAN A MAN FOR THE SAME WORK. I put that last one in all caps because some employers seem to be a little confused about which category it falls under, and luckily Congress has picked up on this and has decided to clarify the matter.

This Tuesday, June 5th, the Senate is expected to vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act, (S. 797, H.R. 1519), taking a step towards remedying the consistent wage gap in our country. Because gender discrimination is already illegal, many people are unclear about why we need this act. It’s important that we understand how the Paycheck Fairness Act would build off of existing legislation, and why it’s necessary.  Because you know what’s even better than paycheck equity legislation? Effective paycheck equity legislation.

The legislation would improve the Equal Pay Act of 1963, an act which made it illegal to pay men and women different wages for the same work. This was an important step towards gender equality, but if we evaluate the effectiveness of the bill, we see that it needs to be supplemented. Change has been overall positive, but insufficient. According to the National Women’s Law Center, between 1963 and 2010, the wage gap went from 41.1% to 22.6%, illustrating that pay inequity is still an urgent issue in this country. The bill recognizes the need for close monitoring of the problem, and would enable more comprehensive data collection by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. General awareness of pay inequality would also be promoted; the legislation would establish The National Award for Pay Equity in the Workplace, and require the Department of Labor to confront the issue at a national summit on wage disparity.

Equality cannot be achieved through courts and legislation alone; it must be monitored and maintained on all levels by knowledgeable and legally empowered workers, especially women workers. The Paycheck Fairness Act would provide women with a legislative “toolbox,” taking steps to improve the enforceability of the law, and making women partners in the eradication of their discrimination.  Congress has tried sending the message, “Hey employers, let’s stop discriminating” and now, the Paycheck Fairness Act also turns to women and says, “Hey women, let’s not let them get away with this anymore” The bill would prevent companies from penalizing workers for being transparent with others about their salaries or inquiring about other employee’s salaries, and establish negotiation skills training for girls and women. Additionally, it would bolster the repercussions of discriminatory paycheck practices, providing women with the legal safeguards of compensatory and punitive damages.

Let’s hope that employers begin to understand the difference between legislation and recommendations. You won’t be fined for not knowing the UV index and you won’t go to jail if you don’t exercise enough or go shopping with the flu (seriously though, it’s a bad idea). But you do have to pay women the same wage as their male counterparts, and there are legal repercussions for gender pay discrimination. Employers need to make decisions with the knowledge that unethical, discriminatory behavior has legal repercussions. More importantly, there is a human cost, which is the true and lasting repercussion of all grave injustices.

Part of the #HERvotes blog carnival.

Filed Under: Paycheck Fairness Act Tagged With: , ,