Paycheck Fairness Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. BROWN of Maryland. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Let me start by saying it is a privilege to be able to stand on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives in this year, in this term, and in this session of Congress to participate in the debate and the discussion and to offer an amendment on this historic bill, the Paycheck Fairness Act.

I would like to first thank my friend and colleague, the chairman of the committee, Bobby Scott from Virginia, for his leadership on this issue and this bill. I want to recognize the decades' long work of my colleague from Connecticut, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, on the underlying bill and her efforts, along with many other women, including Maryland's former Senator Barbara Mikulski to finally ensure that women are paid and treated fairly in the workplace.

My amendment would enhance pay transparency protections in this bill. This amendment would make it unlawful for an employer to discriminate against an employee for simply discussing or inquiring why they are being paid a certain wage or salary.

Mr. Chairman, if you found out that you were being paid less than your colleagues for the same work, you would probably demand to be paid more. But for too long, it has been considered taboo to discuss your salary with your coworkers let alone confront your boss if you were being paid unfairly.

When pay is transparent, organizations must be able to justify each employee's salary, thus reducing or eliminating any type of bias.

That is why the Paycheck Fairness Act puts transparency front and center and why my amendment goes a little further and gives every employee the right to negotiate the higher pay.

Since Congress has not been able to act over the past several years, States have led the way in promoting pay transparency, including California, Illinois, Louisiana, and my State of Maryland. In Maryland we added very broad pay transparency protections to ensure employees the ability to discover and discuss disparities in pay, and we even expanded prohibitions against discriminatory pay practices to include gender identity, an item that I would hope that this Congress may take up later this session.

But my amendment today reiterates the importance of transparency in the workplace. Every employee should be able to advocate and negotiate for themselves without fear of reprisal. According to the Carnegie Mellon study, men are four times more likely than women to ask for a raise, and when women do ask, they typically request 30 percent less than men do.

We should be encouraging employees, regardless of their gender, to inquire and discuss disparities in pay with their employers and advocate for themselves if they aren't being paid fairly or if it is simply time they received a well-deserved raise.

Mr. Chairman, at a time when wages are not rising fast enough, Congress must ensure every working American is paid equally and fairly and is empowered throughout their salary negotiation process.

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Mr. BROWN of Maryland. Mr. Chair, unfortunately, historically, the cloak of confidentiality has often been the shield used by employers to discriminate against women when it comes to paycheck fairness.

I encourage all my colleagues to support my amendment and the underlying bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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