Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I rise as an enthusiastic supporter of the Murray amendment requiring the EEOC to implement the change recommended by President Obama that would add compensation data to its employment data form, and also to provide it with $1 million to be able to pay for its implementation.

First, I would like to salute the Senator from Washington State, who has been a longstanding and assertive advocate of equal pay for equal work for women. I thank her for her ongoing, persistent advocacy.

I so admire this amendment, which insists we develop even better tools to pinpoint those companies with over 100 employees in terms of their pay.

The Senator from Washington State was right there when we passed the Lilly Ledbetter bill. She has been right there as we tried to move to the next step on the Paycheck Fairness Act, and now today she is here to implement the EEOC rule that would also help to do the kind of work we need to do to ensure that the Equal Pay Act of 1963, a major civil rights law which guaranteed equal pay for equal work, is enforced. We spent days talking about enforcement of civil rights laws. Let's enforce the law passed over 50 years ago to guarantee equal pay for equal work.

Here is a quick history. The Lilly Ledbetter bill kept the courthouse door open for when people wanted to file wage discrimination based on gender claims. That courthouse door was slammed in the face of Lilly and other women who found out too late about what they were paid. We kept the courthouse door open. Then, we introduced the Paycheck Fairness Act. The Paycheck Fairness Act would get rid of the other barriers to women getting equal pay for equal work.

One of the biggest barriers is that pay is kept a secret. One of the biggest secrets in the United States, other than national security, is what women get paid in the workplace. Let's keep it our little secret, they say. In fact, in many instances, you have to sign an agreement in order to be hired that you will not disclose your pay to another worker. If you do, you can be fired.

We are not talking about small businesses. We are not talking about those mom-and-pop stores like my dad's grocery store. But I can assure you that my father paid equal pay for equal work to my mother. But in January, our President--President Obama--announced that the EEOC would add compensation data to its employment data form that companies must submit annually that will help shed light on the wage gap across geographic regions and industries.

Our colleague from Tennessee, the distinguished Senator, Mr. Alexander, has introduced an amendment preventing this change from going into effect. We had dueling amendments. I am for the Murray amendment. It requires the EEOC to implement the Obama change and provides $1 million to do it.

What is the EEO-1 form? It is the employer information report that requires companies to submit information annually about their employees based on race, ethnicity, gender, and job category. So it is equal pay, equal work. The form helps identify and prevent discrimination and protects employees' civil rights.

In January, President Obama announced that companies with over 100 employees--remember, this is over 100 employees--must include compensation data on their EEO-1 form that would identify the wage gap based on gender and ethnicity across regions. This change has been strongly supported by many of us, and I support it.

Much is said about the President overreaching. I don't get it. Sometimes--often, the President is being criticized on the other side of the aisle for not doing too much--that he is not a leader, that he is not a fighter, that he is not a champion. I take exception to that. I think he is a leader. I think he is a fighter, and I think he is a champion, and he certainly has been that on behalf of the empowerment of women and girls. What did he do? He exercised his Executive authority to declare that the EEOC action on pay data collection would do this. The EEOC, in partnership with Department of Labor, has a proposal to annually collect summary pay data--as I said, in addition to gender, race, and ethnicity, which it already collects--from companies with over 100 employees. This proposal would cover 63 million employees. It stems from a recommendation of the President's Equal Pay Task Force in a Presidential memorandum issued in 2014. It will help focus public enforcement of equal pay laws and provide better insight into discriminatory pay practices across industries.

Today the EEOC is proposing revisions to its longstanding form to require these companies, not just contractors, to provide this information. It would go across 10 job categories and 12 pay bands, but it would not require the reporting of specific salaries of individual employees. Remember, the report is on the basis of job category and pay band. We won't know if Suzy Smith gets paid more or less than Sam Jones. What we will know is what they are paying computer operators. We will know what they are paying lab technicians. These are jobs that tend to be gender neutral. We will know if you are working in a call center or a firm that employs 100 people that you would be able to do it. Remember, it covers 63 million people.

The proposal is broader than one that was originally published by the Department of Labor, and it lays important groundwork for progress towards achieving equal pay. It will encourage and facilitate greater voluntary compliance by employers dealing with existing Federal pay law. It will also assist the EEOC, and in case of contractors, in better focusing investigations on employers that are unlawfully short- changing workers based on gender, race, or ethnicity. It wouldn't go into effect until September 2017.

Why is this important? It covers only companies of 100 or more employees. It will affect 63 million people. Nobody's personal privacy will be impinged upon because it is information with job category and pay band. But it will show, first of all, which are the good-guy companies. These become the best places to work. My gosh, this can be a small recruitment tool. You go to work for X company, and they do pay equal pay for equal work. But if it has been a persistent pattern of egregious violation of unequal pay for doing the same job, it enables sparse resources at the EEOC to be targeted.

One, I say cheers to President Obama for taking leadership to get to the real facts of the matter, and to pinpoint who the egregious violators are that employ more than 100 people. So, again, there is no negative impact on small business, and it gives no personal information, but does give corporate information. I think the Obama action was outstanding, and I think the Murray amendment defending the Obama action is exactly what is needed on this bill to take the very important steps of ensuring the enforcement of civil rights laws passed by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson that said equal pay for equal work.

I am sure there will be additional debate on this issue.

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