Livid_Liberal
08-04-2008, 07:31 PM
House Passes Bill to Close Pay Gap Between Women and Men
http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/08/01/house-passes-bill-to-close-pay-gap-between-women-and-men
by Mike Hall, Aug 1, 2008[/b]
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House passes 'Paycheck Fairness Act'
http://www.msmagazine.com/news/uswirestory.asp?ID=11184
August 1, 2008
(Thank You Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)!)
The Paycheck Fairness Act (H.R. 1338) won House approval (247–178) last night. The bill to help close the wage gap between women’s and men’s pay was first introduced 11 years ago but was bottled up by the Republican majority for a decade.
If the Paycheck Fairness Act makes it to President Bush’s desk, he will continue Republican opposition to strong fair pay laws by vetoing the bill, according to a White House statement.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s bill would provide more effective remedies for women who are not paid equal wages for doing equal work, by adding some teeth to the 1963 Equal Pay Act.
Women are paid only 77 cents for every dollar a man is paid, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Women workers covered by a union contract are guaranteed equal pay. But millions of other working women don’t have that protection and must rely on today’s inadequate fair pay laws.
At a time when America’s economy is in deep turmoil, economist Evelyn Murphy, president and founder of The WAGE Project, estimates the wage gap costs the average full-time U.S. woman worker between $700,000 and $2 million over the course of her work life.
These figures are even worse for women of color. African American women earn only 68 cents and Latinas 57 cents for every dollar that men earn.
Says DeLauro:
We have an obligation to ensure this does not go on any longer. And we must begin today by toughening remedies in the Equal Pay Act to give America ’s working women the opportunity to fight against wage discrimination and receive the paycheck they have earned. No one should be forced to consider a trade-off between a full wage, a family life, and a good job.
Says House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.):
Equal pay is an issue of fundamental fairness. But as families grapple with difficult economic times, equal pay for equal work is often about daily survival for millions of families.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for women has increased more rapidly than for men. Women are more likely to have subprime mortgages and be affected by the foreclosure crisis. Many low-wage women workers are single mothers with no other source of support for their families and closing the pay disparity could strengthen their households.
DeLauro says the bill is even more vital today because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last year in the Lilly Ledbetter case.
It is clear that the current system is rife with loopholes that have allowed employers to avoid responsibility for discriminatory pay scales.
We all know Lilly Ledbetter’s story—for so many years, she was shortchanged by her employer. And years later, she was shortchanged again, by the Supreme Court ruling 5 to 4 against her discrimination claim— drastically limiting women’s access to seek justice for pay discrimination based on gender.
Last year, the House passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act that, in effect, would reverse the Supreme Court ruling. But, in the Senate, a bid to bring the bill to the floor was blocked by a filibuster, led by a minority of mostly Republican senators, that had the blessing of Bush and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz .).
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is among the co-sponsors of the Senate version of the Ledbetter fair pay bill.
At a recent forum on the economy and women’s issues,
Obama said:
We won’t truly have an economy that puts the needs of the middle class first until we ensure that when it comes to pay and benefits at work, women are treated like the equal partners they are.
The Paycheck Fairness bill now goes to the Senate.
http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/08/01/house-passes-bill-to-close-pay-gap-between-women-and-men
by Mike Hall, Aug 1, 2008[/b]
---------------
House passes 'Paycheck Fairness Act'
http://www.msmagazine.com/news/uswirestory.asp?ID=11184
August 1, 2008
(Thank You Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)!)
The Paycheck Fairness Act (H.R. 1338) won House approval (247–178) last night. The bill to help close the wage gap between women’s and men’s pay was first introduced 11 years ago but was bottled up by the Republican majority for a decade.
If the Paycheck Fairness Act makes it to President Bush’s desk, he will continue Republican opposition to strong fair pay laws by vetoing the bill, according to a White House statement.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s bill would provide more effective remedies for women who are not paid equal wages for doing equal work, by adding some teeth to the 1963 Equal Pay Act.
Women are paid only 77 cents for every dollar a man is paid, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Women workers covered by a union contract are guaranteed equal pay. But millions of other working women don’t have that protection and must rely on today’s inadequate fair pay laws.
At a time when America’s economy is in deep turmoil, economist Evelyn Murphy, president and founder of The WAGE Project, estimates the wage gap costs the average full-time U.S. woman worker between $700,000 and $2 million over the course of her work life.
These figures are even worse for women of color. African American women earn only 68 cents and Latinas 57 cents for every dollar that men earn.
Says DeLauro:
We have an obligation to ensure this does not go on any longer. And we must begin today by toughening remedies in the Equal Pay Act to give America ’s working women the opportunity to fight against wage discrimination and receive the paycheck they have earned. No one should be forced to consider a trade-off between a full wage, a family life, and a good job.
Says House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.):
Equal pay is an issue of fundamental fairness. But as families grapple with difficult economic times, equal pay for equal work is often about daily survival for millions of families.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for women has increased more rapidly than for men. Women are more likely to have subprime mortgages and be affected by the foreclosure crisis. Many low-wage women workers are single mothers with no other source of support for their families and closing the pay disparity could strengthen their households.
DeLauro says the bill is even more vital today because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last year in the Lilly Ledbetter case.
It is clear that the current system is rife with loopholes that have allowed employers to avoid responsibility for discriminatory pay scales.
We all know Lilly Ledbetter’s story—for so many years, she was shortchanged by her employer. And years later, she was shortchanged again, by the Supreme Court ruling 5 to 4 against her discrimination claim— drastically limiting women’s access to seek justice for pay discrimination based on gender.
Last year, the House passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act that, in effect, would reverse the Supreme Court ruling. But, in the Senate, a bid to bring the bill to the floor was blocked by a filibuster, led by a minority of mostly Republican senators, that had the blessing of Bush and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz .).
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is among the co-sponsors of the Senate version of the Ledbetter fair pay bill.
At a recent forum on the economy and women’s issues,
Obama said:
We won’t truly have an economy that puts the needs of the middle class first until we ensure that when it comes to pay and benefits at work, women are treated like the equal partners they are.
The Paycheck Fairness bill now goes to the Senate.