Equal Pay Day raises call for equal wages for women

By Colleen O'Connor at the Denver Post

At the annual Equal Pay Day rally held Tuesday on the steps of the state Capitol, lawmakers, government officials, business owners and activists advocated for pay equity.

"It's striking to me that the wage gap has narrowed over the past three to four decades, but there's been no real movement," said Steven Chavez, director of the Colorado Civil Rights Division and a member of the state's Pay Equity Commission.

The wage gap has narrowed by about half a cent each year since the Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963.

Still, census data show that women who work full time make about 77 cents for every dollar made by men.African-American women make about 62 percent of what the average white man makes. For Latino women, it's about 52 percent.

In Colorado, women working full time earn on average $9,925 less each year than men, according to research released Monday by the National Partnership for Women & Families and the American Association of University Women.

This gap has cost Colorado's families more than $6.7 billion annually, it said.

In a 2010 report, the Colorado Pay Equity Commission estimated parity pay for full-time female workers would generate $3.6 billion to $11.6 billion annually, "which could provide economic stimulus through consumer spending, savings and taxation."

On Tuesday, two members of Congress re-introduced legislation to attempt to close the national wage gap. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., introduced it in the House of Representatives, and Sen. Barbara Mikulsi, D-Md., introduced it in the Senate.

Similar legislation passed the House last year but fell two votes short in a key procedural vote in the Senate.

Critics argue that wage disparities result not from discrimination but from such choices as leaving the workforce to care for children or older parents. They also cite data from the Department of Labor's Time Use survey that shows full-time working women spend an average of 8.01 hours per day on the job, compared with 8.75 hours for men.

On the other hand, proponents cite studies from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics that show median weekly earnings of women are less than of men in every industry. In 2009, women's average weekly wages were $657 per week compared with $819 for men.

In fields dominated by men, like construction, women's earnings are 91 percent of men's. In fields dominated by women, like health care, women's earnings are 72 percent of men's.

"As a father and a husband, I strongly believe in equal pay for equal work," said Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., via e-mail. "I voted to bring this bill to the floor last year, and I look forward to continuing the discussion this year."

Sen. Michael Bennett, D-Colo.,who co-sponsored the bill last year, argued that equal pay is good for the economy.

"Families are still struggling to make ends meet," he said in a statement. "The last thing people can afford is to be paid less because of who they are."

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_17831767

Closing the wage gap

Today, April 20, people across Colorado, and the nation, will observe Equal Pay Day 2010 - representing the point when women's wages finally catch up to men's wages from last year.

According to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau statistics, women who work in full-time, year-round jobs earn, on average, 77 cents to every $1 earned by men working in full-time, year-round jobs.

For women of color, the wage gap is even wider. In 2008, the earnings for African American women were 67.9 percent of men's earnings and Latinas" earnings were 58 percent of men's.

In Colorado, women's earnings generally exceed the national average by a penny or so. But this is no great cause for celebration - especially in these tough times when every penny counts. As those lost pennies add up, women and their families are being shortchanged thousands of dollars a year and hundreds of thousands of dollars over a lifetime.

Reaching pay equity means more now than ever before.

According to the Center for American Progress report, "A Woman's Nation Changes Everything," women are now the breadwinner or co-breadwinner in two-thirds of all American families. With more women in the workforce, and more families reliant upon women's paychecks to make ends meet, it's clear to see how all of us - women and men - have such a huge stake in eliminating the wage gap.

The good news is that there are pending state and federal actions that would positively impact the pay gap now.

In Colorado, we're working to establish a permanent state Pay Equity Commission. Nationally, we are hopeful for the Paycheck Fairness Act.

The statewide effort grows from the nonpartisan Colorado Pay Equity Commission, created in 2007. That Commission brought a diverse group of stakeholders together to analyze the pay gap and identify solutions. One of the key recommendations was to create a permanent Pay Equity Commission to further focus on the problem, monitor pay equity progress and work toward solutions in the state. It's anticipated that a proposal to do so will be introduced this year.

Nationally, women were earning a mere 59 cents for every $1 a man earned when the Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963. Enforcement of the Equal Pay Act, and other civil rights laws, has helped narrow the wage gap, but huge disparities remained. In 2009, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act was signed into law, helping ensure that victims of discrimination have fair access to the courts. But we're not there yet.

Additional steps are needed.

One such step, the Paycheck Fairness Act, would close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act, enhance remedies, prohibit retaliation against workers who share wage information, and provide the government with new tools to monitor and address pay inequities. Passage is critical -- particularly in these economically perilous times when the self-sufficiency of women and their families is so at risk.

LaTerrell Bradford - a Denver woman who testified about pay inequity before the Colorado Legislature - calls equal pay a "non-negotiable." She was working as part of an all-female support team when a man was hired in the same job classification. Her supervisor - a woman - discovered that he was to earn much more than any of the women were presently earning. She went to human resources and the company agreed to pay everyone at that higher rate. "It would not have been fair," Bradford says, "nor legal, to sit next to him, do the exact same work and have him be paid more."

Are women workers really worth less than men? Any American of good conscience would say "no." We must ensure that our laws and workplace practices say "no" as well by ensuring family-flexible workplace policies, basic labor standards like paid sick days and, yes, an end to the wage gap.

Women and their families just cannot afford to wait any longer. We must tighten wage disparity laws now to ensure equity for every worker.

Linda A. Meric is National Director of 9to5, National Association of Working Women.