Friday 12 September 2008
by: Brian Hayden, Kansas City InfoZine
Not enough has been done in the last eight years to remedy the pay inequities between men and women, a new federal study reveals. (Photo: Viktor Koen / The New York Times)
Not enough has been done in the last eight years to remedy the pay inequities between men and women, a new federal study reveals.
Washington, DC - Sens. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., also criticized the Bush administration Wednesday for not doing more to close the wage gap between men and women.
"This is an issue, not only for women, but it's truly a family issue and an issue on justice and equity," Clinton said.
She called the Government Accountability Office report a "ringing indictment of the Bush administration," and said the government must sharpen its tools to eliminate the disparities.
"The GAO report found that the Bush administration does not effectively monitor pay discrimination," she said. "The actions of this administration defy common sense, so it's time to defy your government."
The report, "Federal Agencies Should Better Monitor Performance in Enforcing Anti-Discrimination Laws," stated that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission does not use all available information to identify gender pay differences. It also charges that the Department of Labor's efforts to monitor its own performance are limited.
The report recommended that both agencies better monitor their enforcement efforts related to gender and pay.
The department's technology will be updated next year to better monitor disparities, said David Frank, deputy director of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. Even so, Frank contended that the report did not focus on the other types of discrimination his office works to eliminate.
"To us, it's no worse than race pay discrimination," he said. "They're both equally important to us."
The report comes on the heels of last year's Supreme Court case, Ledbetter V. Goodyear Tire and Rubber. The court ruled 5-4 that gender discrimination cases had to be brought within 180 days of an alleged incident.
The case, in which a woman was paid less than men who did the same work, angered many. They said continuing incidents of discrimination should be fair game in a discrimination lawsuit.
Legislation soon followed the Court ruling. A bill named after Lilly Ledbetter, the former Goodyear employee, failed in the Senate in April. It would have eliminated the 180-day rule.
Clinton's bill, the Paycheck Fairness Act, awaits action in the Senate after a companion bill passed the House in July by a vote of 247 to 178. The legislation would create a training program to help women negotiate equal pay and require the Labor Department to educate employers and employees about pay equity.
Harkin's bill, the Fair Pay Act, would require employers to provide equal pay for jobs comparable in skill, such as housekeeper and janitor. The Senate has not taken the bill up.
Not everyone supports the bills.
Michael Eastman, director of labor policy for the U.S. chamber of Commerce said small businesses don't want the government saying how much they should pay their workers.
Citing the Equal Pay Act of 1963, he said, "Equal pay for equal work is already the law of the land.... It's no accident that we're seeing this so close to an election."
Clinton and Harkin were not sure if the bills would pass before Congress adjourns, which it intends to do at the end of the month.
Harkin said that the administration's lack of effort signals its feelings toward pay disparity in the 21st century.
"Not only is the Bush administration not doing anything about it, they don't want to know about it," he said.
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