by Mike Hall, Oct 16, 2007

Women make up about half the nation’s workforce, and now, not only are outpacing men in earning college and other advanced degrees, they also make up the majority of the professional employees. But as a study by the AFL-CIO Department for Professional Employees (DPE) points out, there is one area where women workers lag far behind men.

The wage gap between the sexes still plagues the American workforce….Equal pay is a problem in every occupational category, even in occupations where women considerably outnumber men.

In fact, median weekly earnings for full-time working women dipped to 80.8 percent of men’s earnings in 2006, down from a record 81.0 percent the previous year, according to new U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

But there’s a solution: The DPE report finds that the best way to narrow that wage gap is a union card.

The wage survey says that some 7.5 million women workers are represented by unions and

The union difference is quite apparent when you look at the median weekly wages in predominantly female and consequently lesser paid occupations: Union preschool and kindergarten teachers earned a whopping 56.7 percent more than their non-union counterparts, while for elementary and middle school teachers, the union wage advantage was 34.6 percent. In 2006, union librarians earned almost 29 percent more than their non-union counterparts, while union social workers and counselors earned 27 and 26.4 percent more, respectively. For RNs, the union difference was 15 percent.

Overall, the study finds that women in professional and related occupations earn 27 percent less than their male counterparts.

• Female elementary and middle school teachers earned more than 10 percent less than similarly employed men, despite comprising 82 percent of the field.
• Female registered nurses earned nearly 10 percent less than their male colleagues, despite the fact that 90 percent of nurses are women.
• Female physicians and surgeons earned a whopping 38 percent less than their male counterparts.
• Female college and university teachers earned more than 25 percent less than those who were male.
•  Female lawyers earned 30 percent less than male lawyers.

The DPE study also finds that no matter what level of education women complete, their salaries continue to fall behind those paid to men with the same education. For high school graduates, the difference is 34 percent. Women with bachelor’s degrees earn 31 percent less than men with four-year degrees and a woman who earns a Ph.D. also earns 29 percent less than a man with a doctoral degree.

The inequality continues into a woman’s retirement years. The DPE report says that in 2005, the average Social Security benefit was 32 percent less for women than for men. Compounding the lack of retirement security for women, the study finds only 29 percent of women received a pension or annuity income and the median amount was $6,420 a year. However, 44 percent of men received a pension or annuity income and the median amount was $12,000.

Along with the union difference, the AFL-CIO, women’s groups and civil rights and other organizations are fighting for stronger equal pay laws to help narrow the wage disparity, including the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, that the U.S. House of Representatives passed in July.

Ledbetter worked for two decades at a Goodyear tire plant in Alabama, where she was paid less than men doing the same work as she was. But she didn’t find out how much less until years into her career and so could not file a pay-discrimination lawsuit until 1998. A jury awarded her $3.8 million, but in May, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Ledbetter and tossed out the pay-discrimination verdict, saying she had waited too long to file suit. President Bush says he will veto the bill if it gets to his desk.

In addition, this past summer the House held hearings on the Paycheck Fairness Act, sponsored by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), that had been bottled by the former Republican majority for 10 years.

Click here to read the entire DPE report and click here to learn more about the fight for equal pay. Also visit the National Committee on Pay Equity for more information.

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