American Forum Op-Ed

AMERICAN FORUM
By Marianne Hill

Women’s Equality Day, August 26, is both a celebration of women’s progress and a reminder that equality remains a goal, not a reality.

On this day in 1920, women gained the right to vote under the 19th Amendment. Today, over 90 years later, the struggle to advance women’s rights is concentrated on the economic front -- with an end to discrimination against women in the labor force a critical, and hotly-debated, objective.

Two proposals now stalled in Congress would improve women’s odds of getting a fair shake at the workplace. They face an uphill battle, but it’s one worth fighting.

Many companies pay their male employees more than even better-qualified women in the same job. The best-known victim of pay discrimination today may be Lilly Ledbetter, but her case is far from unique. Consider the lawsuit against Wal-Mart, the one that the Supreme Court ruled could not proceed as a class action suit. The firm’s records, cited by the plaintiffs, showed that although more than two-thirds of the firm’s hourly employees were female, only 15 percent of store managers were women. “Women were paid less than men of equal seniority in every major job category, even though women on average had higher performance ratings and lower turnover rates than men,” states the Public Justice Center.

The Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act would close many of the loopholes and lax penalties that have made the Equal Pay Act of 1963 ineffective in ensuring pay equity in such cases. Studies show that bias against women begins at hiring and persists at promotion time. According to the American Association of University Women, one year after graduating from college, women earn only 80 percent as much as their male counterparts in the same field, and after 10 years of experience, women earn only 69 percent as much. In other words, the pay elevators for women start lower, are slower and don’t go as high as those for men. And the wage gaps are worse for black and Hispanic women.

A woman working full-time in 2009 earned at the median only 77 percent of what a man earned. Over the course of her lifetime, this translates into $400,000 of lost earnings. At the bottom of the wage scale, poor adults are largely women, and the poverty rate of 15 percent among working age women is 30 percent higher than that for men. The top of the income scale is dominated by men: approximately 80 percent of persons earning $100,000 or more per year are men.

The Fair Pay Act of 2011 would require employers to make public the job-related data that is basic to determining whether or not there has been discrimination. At present, women who believe they have been discriminated against cannot get the data on jobs and pay scales they need without filing a lawsuit. At some firms, they cannot even ask co-workers about their pay.

The other bill, the Paycheck Fairness Act, clarifies that wage differences must be based on job characteristics, not on gender. And, if wage discrimination is proven in court, individuals would be able to receive full compensatory and punitive damages, as is already true in cases of discrimination based on race. It would prohibit retaliation by firms against employees who raise wage parity issues.

Eliminating the wage gap is particularly important in families where the woman is the only job-holder. And, among families with children under 18 years of age, 34 percent of working mothers are the sole earners in their family. Progress towards pay equity, then, is vital to the future of American families, and it depends on the passage of proposals like the Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act.
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Hill is an activist who holds a Ph.D. in economics.
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Copyright © American Forum 8/11

Lilly Ledbetter

AMERICAN FORUM
By Lilly Ledbetter and Linda Hallman

Yesterday a sharply divided Supreme Court ignored more than 40 years of established jurisprudence in its Wal-Mart v. Dukes decision, which severely restricts the ability of employees to fight discrimination as a class-action group. In a deeply misguided opinion, the majority ruled that the women of Wal-Mart cannot band together nationwide and stand up as one against the biggest retailer in the world. It's hard to manage the court costs and find the courage to keep going. We only wish the women of Wal-Mart would not have to do that. Yet the high court decided they did not have enough in common to pursue a nationwide class-action suit, a sadly ironic twist for former employees of the great homogenizer of American retail.

The court’s decision was not related to the merits of the case, however, and the women of Wal-Mart are already planning how to proceed next, either individually or in smaller, reformulated class-action cases. In fact, Wal-Mart may rue the day it fought against allowing a single class-action case. The company’s gamble—that if it could throw up enough barriers, the women would quit—is not going to pay off, and the Goliath retailer may soon end up with more Davids than it ever wanted to fight.

Unfortunately, many other employee class-action cases are now destined to be stuck at a red light, while employers are getting the go-ahead to continue to rely on highly subjective gender discrimination practices, hurting women and their families. And this disturbing ruling extends beyond class-action certification, echoing other recent stories of institutions that were “too big” to be held accountable. First, the banks were too big to fail, and American taxpayers bailed them out even as they were losing their homes and jobs. Now, Wal-Mart is too big for justice, even though American women still face a persistent pay gap that not only undermines their families’ economic security but undercuts the nation’s recovery as well.

But American women will press on as we always do, emboldened again by a Supreme Court majority that just doesn’t get the realities of the modern workplace. This past weekend, Wal-Mart plaintiff Edith Arana’s moving story of her fight against discrimination drew big applause at AAUW’s national convention—an indication of our continuing support for the women of Wal-Mart.

We’ll also be looking into other options to deal with this wrongheaded decision. The court has been wrong before— as we know all too well —but our government is structured so that we can right those wrongs through other channels. Perhaps this decision will give Betty Dukes her own bill or motivate Congress to finally pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, which aims to stop unfair pay before it starts and came within a hair of passing last year. We’re sure the Obama administration and its multi-agency Equal Pay Enforcement Task Force will also be brainstorming to address this latest misstep from the court. This kind of injustice demands action.

Setbacks in achieving women’s equality aren’t new. Ever since women started claiming our rights and fighting for equal opportunity, the powers that be have tried to thwart our plans. Although we wish the Supreme Court had understood the need for women to band together and fight, this decision is just one more battle in the ground war women have been fighting for years. It’s just a chapter, not the end.
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Ledbetter, the namesake of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, lives in Alabama. Hallman is executive director of AAUW.

AMERICAN FORUM

By: Linda Meric

The much heralded and hotly contested mid-term elections are done. The ballot questions have been decided and the candidates are either grateful because they pulled out a win or gloomy because they didn’t. Either way, it’s time to move on.

It’s time now to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act.

Women have been waiting for a very long time. Frankly, we’ve grown impatient. The moment is here. The U.S. Senate must pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, for the women of today, and for the women of tomorrow.

Since the Equal Pay Act was signed in 1963, the wage gap has been closing at a snail’s pace. In 1963, women who worked in full-time, year-round, jobs made 59 cents on average for every dollar earned by men. In 2009, women earned 77 cents to men's dollar. The wage gap has narrowed by less than half a cent per year. For women of color, the gap is even wider, with African American women and Latinas earning only 61 cents and 52 cents, respectively, on the dollar.

The pay gap is evident in almost every occupational category, in every income bracket; it’s a constant despite education, despite experience. Although enforcement of the Equal Pay Act and other civil rights laws has helped narrow the gap, it’s critical that the significant disparities in pay that remain be addressed. The Paycheck Fairness Act will be an important step to help end those disparities. It must be passed, for the women of today, and for the women of tomorrow.

Consider LaTerrell. She lives in Denver and works in the financial services industry. At one time, she worked as part of a team of three women. Then, Peter, the first male in the department, was hired. He was hired for the exact same job, only Peter didn’t have the same qualifications or the same experience. He didn’t have the same salary either. He was to be paid more. A supervisor discovered it, and the company decided to give all three women a raise to match Peter’s salary. Luckily, someone was paying attention and took action.

But women deal with unequal pay and inequitable salary ladders in all too many professions; something must be done to end it - for the women of today, and for the women of tomorrow. That something is passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act.

The Paycheck Fairness Act (S. 3772) is comprehensive legislation that updates the Equal Pay Act of 1963, strengthens penalties courts may impose for violations of existing equal pay laws, prohibits retaliation against workers who inquire about or share wage information, and empowers women to better negotiate for equal pay.

According to the National Women’s Law Center, the pay gap is about much more than fairness, it’s about women's and families' bottom-lines; the gap represents $10,622 a year. With that, you could buy a year’s worth of groceries ($3,210), arrange for three months of child care ($1,748), pay three months of rent and utilities ($2,265) six months of health insurance ($1,697), cover six months on a student loan ($1,602) -- and buy three full tanks of gas ($100)!

Our U.S. Senate must consider how the pay gap places families of today in jeopardy; at risk, especially in these tough economic times.

But if that doesn’t do it, maybe they should consider something else.

They should think about their own daughters, their granddaughters, great-granddaughters. They should think about how they prize them, how they love them, how they treasure them, how they would fight for them. Are they really worth less?

The answer should then be obvious: Pass the Paycheck Fairness Act now, without amendments, in this session. For the good of all women - women of today and of tomorrow - and for the good of our country, it’s the right thing to do.
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Meric is Executive Director of 9to5, National Association of Working Women
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Copyright (C) 2010 by American Forum. 11/10