Actress and writer Marlo Thomas points out today in Huffington Post :
...National Equal Pay Day. I can't believe we're having another one. I still have my little green button from 1970 -- with "59¢" emblazoned on it -- tacked to my bulletin board. I remember how we all wore that button on our t-shirts as we marched to protest the gender pay disparity of that time. Now we're at 77 cents.
Forty years and 18 cents. A dozen eggs has gone up 10 times that amount.The Paycheck Fairness Act, which failed to pass the U.S. Senate last year, is being reintroduced today by Sens. Barbara Mikulski and Rosa L. DeLauro. The Act would make it harder for employers to pay unequal pay for equal work; remove obstacles to class action lawsuits based on gender discrimination; and ensure the Department of Labor uses its full investigatory tools to uncover pay discrimination. Contact your member of Congress and urge them to support the Paycheck Fairness Act here.
Of course, paycheck fairness becomes a non-issue when workers are union members. According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, joining a union raises the chances a woman will have health insurance more than a four-year college degree. It raises a woman’s wage as much as a full year of college. Union women earn about 32 percent more than nonunion women.
The attacks by corporate-backed politicians to workers' rights in Wisconsin, Ohio and across the country, will of course have an impact on women workers. An opinion piece in Maine's Portland Press Herald makes clear that anti-worker legislation is a step back for paycheck fairness:
Gov. Paul LePage is promoting legislation to undermine unions -- part of an effort to weaken Maine's worker protections, such as child labor and overtime laws.
This is a problem because, simply put, unions are one of the very best ways for women to achieve paycheck fairness. So-called "right to work" bills are part of a national effort that included the drive to weaken workers' collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin.
If we allow our unions to be undercut, women's earnings will suffer.Nearly 100 years ago the Teamsters Union championed equal pay. The following was printed in the July 1917 issue of the Teamsters Journal:
"Equal pay for equal work should become a constant, vigorous slogan among all employees in all crafts. The strength and brains of women and girls are exploited the world over and especially so in the United States. All working men and women should become actively, and, if necessary, drastically interested in fighting for equal pay for duties performed by either sex. The standard of living in every workingman's home is lowered by sexual inequality of pay and both sexes should band together and swat the curse from all parts of the earth where it exists."Teamsters, keep on swatting that curse for all womankind.
