Norton and Members of Congress at Press Conference to Support New Grassroots Movement to Close Wage Gap

Norton and Members of Congress at Press Conference to Support New Grassroots Movement to Close Wage Gap

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today joined Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) to express strong support for a new grassroots movement to close the wage gap announced at the National Press Club. The leaders of the grassroots movement, Roslyn Ridgeway, President of Business and Professional Women/USA; Michele Leber, Chair of the National Committee on Pay Equity; and Dr. Evelyn Murphy, President of the WAGE Project, have been strong supporters of Norton and Harkin's Fair Pay Act and of the Paycheck Fairness Act, on which DeLauro, Norton and Harkin are all cosponsors. Both bills update the Equal Pay Act of 1963.

Norton, who enforced the Equal Pay Act (EPA) as chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under President Jimmy Carter, decried the failure of the Republican majority to give either bill even a hearing. She said that the failure to move the bills endangers the economy itself because the workforce participation of women has exploded, filling the gap left by the declining workforce participation of men; the emergence of a female workforce better educated than their male counterparts; and the need for a female level so great that even 75% of women with small children work. "Closing the wage gap has become a national imperative. Yet we have been unable to update the Equal Pay Act enacted 40 years ago when the average woman did not work. It is clear that my colleagues and I cannot move these bills, but a strong women's coalition certainly can," said Norton.

Under the EPA, if men and women are doing comparable work, they could receive comparable wages if the woman could prove that the reason for the wage disparity was not market forces, but discrimination. In today's workplace, the pay problems of most women stem mainly from the sex segregation in the jobs, according to Norton. For example, two-thirds of white women and three-quarters of African American women work in just four areas: sales, clerical, service, and factory jobs. "Only a combination of more aggressive strategies can break through the old societal habits of undervaluing the work performed by women as well as employer steering of women into traditional women's jobs," the Congresswoman said.

Norton said that corrections to make the pay for men and women more equal in different but comparable jobs are neither radical nor unprecedented. State employees in almost half the state governments, in red and blue states, have already taken action to eliminate the part of the pay gap that is due to discrimination. Over the years, twenty states have adjusted wages for female state employees, raising pay for teachers, nurses, clerical workers, librarians, and other female-dominated jobs that paid less than men with comparable jobs. Minnesota, for example, implemented a pay equity plan when it found that similarly skilled female jobs paid 20% less than male jobs. "There often will be some portion of the pay gap that is traceable to market conditions, but twenty states have shown that you can tackle the discrimination gap without interfering with the free market system," Norton said. The states generally have closed the discrimination gap over a period of four or five years at a one-time cost of no more than 3 to 4% of payroll.

However, bills to modernize the Equal Pay Act in more modest ways, such as the Paycheck Fairness Act, have also languished. Norton said that the collective power of the new grassroots movement could make the difference because "Republicans and Democrats alike understand that women are a formidable political force when they work together - and Congress understands what a gender gap can mean in November."

http://www.norton.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=340&Itemid=6