Women Will Wait Until 2056 to See Pay Equity, Unless We Act Now
Emmelle Israel, AFL-CIO Media Outreach fellow, sends us this.
At the current rate, pay equity between men and women won’t occur for another 45 years, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR).
Add in the past 48 years since the Equal Pay Act was first signed into law and you have an almost 100-year long struggle for basic wage parity—even longer if you reach back into history and take into account all the women who stood up for themselves when they noticed their male counterparts were paid more for similar work.
The enduring wage disparity between female and male workers prompted a series of forums on Capitol Hill regarding the gender wage gap, sponsored by Women’s Policy, Inc.
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler was a featured speaker, along with Susan Meisinger of HRExecutive Online at yesterday’s forum, moderated by Women’s Policy Inc. President Cindy Hall and Rep. Gwen Moore.
Shuler shared with attendees a story about her first job working at a restaurant as a waitress, making only five cents above minimum wage. All the waitresses were women and all the cooks were men. Although the men were already paid more than the women, the waitresses had to pool their tips together and divide the money with the cooks as well. It was her “first
experience with wage, gender and workplace frustration.” Read the rest of this entry »
Supreme Court Backs Wal-Mart in Pay Discrimination Case
The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled 5-4 that as many as 1.6 million women who are current or former Wal-Mart employees cannot sue Wal-Mart for pay discrimination in a class-action suit. A lower court had ruled that the women could join together in a class action.
But the court did not rule on the women’s claims of systematic and company-wide pay and promotion discrimination.
Ten years ago, a group of women who worked at Wal-Mart stores, led by Betty Dukes, filed a lawsuit alleging the corporation engaged in company-wide gender discrimination by paying women less than men, promoting fewer women to management positions and promoting male employees more quickly.
United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) President Joe Hansen called the decision “deeply disturbing.” The UFCW has been a longtime supporter of Wal-Mart workers’ fight for justice.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says working people are disappointed by today’s Supreme Court ruling in favor of Wal-Mart.
Our courts should be available to working men and women who seek to challenge discriminatory promotion and pay practices by their employers. Today’s decision continues a disturbing trend of closing the courthouse doors to workers seeking redress against corporations.
The ruling means the already uphill battle for women to fight pay discrimination will get even worse. John Nichols at The Nation writes that the ruling is “a big win for Wal-Mart, and for other large firms that may not choose to treat employees fairly.” The court ruled on the grounds that
the class-action status that could potentially involve hundreds of thousands of current and former female workers was too large.
Call Senate Now for Paycheck Fairness
Before Congress adjourns to go home for the 2010 elections, the Senate needs to step up and pass the Paycheck Fairness Act (S. 182) to help close the wage gap between women and men. The House passed the bill last year, but it has been bottled up in the Senate by Republican obstructionists. The Paycheck Fairness Act is likely to come up for a vote in the Senate before Oct. 1. (Call 1-877-667-6650 toll free, and tell your senators it’s time to do the right thing and pass Paycheck Fairness for women and their families. Ask them to pass the Paycheck Fairness Ac t this session with no amendments)
In a live webcast this morning, U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said the legislation will benefit everyone, not just women workers.
It’s about our families. There are many women who lead and are the breadwinners for their family. A woman’s earnings affect her family’s ability to afford healthy food, rent and a college education for her children. Equal pay is not only a sound policy, but it is the right thing to do.
Tell Senate It’s Time to Pass the Paycheck Fairness Act—Now!
Time is running out for the Senate to follow the lead of the House of Representatives and pass the Paycheck Fairness Act (S. 182) to help close the wage gap between women and men. The Senate is back to work but could be gone for the fall elections in three weeks.
Call your senators today toll free at 1-877-667-6650 and urge them to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act before the end of September. Even if your senators are co-sponsors, they need to hear from you today, so the bill can be put on the Senate’s to-do list before adjournment.
The bill would deter wage discrimination by closing loopholes in the Equal Pay Act and barring retaliation against workers who disclose their wages to co-workers.
Obama Tells Senate: Mind the Gap, Pass Paycheck Fairness Act
President Obama today called on the U.S. Senate to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act to close the pay gap that leaves women earning only 77 cents for every dollar that men earn. He says the Paycheck Fairness Act is a
common-sense bill that will help ensure that men and women who do equal work receive the equal pay that they and their families deserve….Paycheck discrimination hurts families who lose out on badly needed income. And with so many families depending on women’s wages, it hurts the American economy as a whole. In difficult economic times like these, we simply cannot afford this discriminatory burden.
47 Years After Equal Pay Act, Women Still Paid Less Than Men
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Forty-seven years after President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, women still are not being paid the same as men for equivalent work. On average, women earn about 78 cents for every dollar earned by men. For women of color, African American women and Latinas, the gap is even wider. According to the most recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median wages of full-time, year-round workers in 2008 stood at $35,745 for women and $46,367 for men. That’s $10,622 less per year for women and their families in a difficult economy.
The U.S. Senate is considering the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would give employees the tools they need to close the wage gap between men and women and provide the government with enforcement power to correct pay inequities. The U.S. House passed the bill last year. The advocacy group MomsRising has an action here to urge your senator to close the wage gap and back the Paycheck Fairness Act.
Work. Family. Conflict. Resolution?
The realities of our workplaces have not changed to meet the new realities of our economy and society, says AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker. Employers and political leaders must create new policies that help working families deal with their basic needs of feeding their families, caring for their elderly parents, paying the mortgage.
Speaking this afternoon to a conference on the “Three Faces of Work-Family Conflict,” sponsored by the Center for American Progress, Holt Baker said, “Our families are trying to live in two different worlds at the same time—and it is just not working.”
Most people—men and women, across race and class—agree that the changing status of women is a good thing, now that we are half the workforce and have the opportunity and the weight of being breadwinners. But we also agree that something’s got to give.
The conflict between work and family is no longer between men and women, Holt Baker said. “It’s between families and the systems that are not meeting our needs.” Read the rest of this entry »
Equal Pay Day 2010: Women, 78 Cents, Men, $1
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Today’s the day when women workers finally catch up with the pay men received last year—the day we mark as Equal Pay Day. Being three months and 20 days behind men’s wages means women who work full-time still are paid, on average, 78 cents for every dollar men are paid. According to the most recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median wages of full-time, year-round workers in 2008 stood at $35,745 for women and $46,367 for men.
The wage gap is even worse for women of color. In 2008, the earnings for African American women were $31,489, 67.9 percent of men’s earnings (a drop from 68.7 percent in 2007), and Latinas’ earnings were $26,846, 58 percent of men’s earnings (a drop from 59 percent in 2007).
The chart here shows the molasses-like movement in closing the wage gap. One way to speed up the progress is to urge lawmakers to support the Paycheck Fairness Act, which was passed by the U.S. House in 2009. It updates the Equal Pay Act by giving employees the tools they need to close the wage gap and providing the government with enforcement power to correct pay inequities. Momsrising has an action here to urge your senator to close the wage gap and back the Paycheck Fairness Act.
Wage Gap Between Women and Men Bad, Women of Color Suffer Most
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The pay gap between female and male workers in this country got a hearing in a Senate committee yesterday. But you wouldn’t even know the hearing happened: The issue apparently doesn’t rank up there with the antics of drunk superstars or foolish golfers to get attention by the corporate media.
Right now, U.S. working women receive 77 cents for every dollar paid to a male worker. The ratio has remained nearly unchanged for years. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) has been pushing for more than a decade to pass a paycheck fairness bill, and yesterday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held a hearing on the Paycheck Fairness Act (H.R. 12/S. 182).
One Year After Ledbetter: Work Still Needed on Pay Equity
One year ago today, working people celebrated a milestone in the battle for pay equity when the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was signed into law.
The law corrected the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that Ledbetter, a 20-year employee of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., had sued too late when she discovered her pay was far below that of men doing similar work. President Obama signed the bill into law Jan. 29, 2009.
In observance of the anniversary, Ledbetter, writing on Alternet, said there is still work to do:
We need to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act. This bill gives teeth to the protections against pay discrimination. And women, who are still shortchanged in the workplace, deserve just that. The bill would empower women to negotiate for equal pay, create stronger incentives for employers to follow the law, and strengthen federal outreach and enforcement efforts. It would also strengthen penalties for equal pay violations.
