Written by: Casey King
The third time might not really be a charm due to for a third time in
three years, Republicans in the Senate shot down wage equality legislation. This
time on April 9, 2014 it came in the form of Sen. Barbara Mikulski’s (D-MD)
Paycheck Fairness Act of 2014. The Act called for revisions of the Equal Pay Act
of 1963, in order to see more results in paycheck equality. Women are still facing
discrimination in the work place, making $0.77 to every man’s $1.00, and changes
to legislation need to be made. Many families depend on income from all members
to live, and cutting women short $0.23 is making life unnecessarily harder for many
families in the United States. Women of color experience even more of a wage gap,
Black women are paid $0.64 to every man’s $1.00, and Latina women $0.56 to every
man’s $1.00.
The Paycheck Fairness Act would have given women the tools to stand up for
themselves in paycheck discrimination based on gender, including grant programs
to provide training for women to learn how to negotiate a fair income. Workers
would not have to face repercussions for inquiring about their wages or the wages
of other employees to make a complaint or investigation. The bill would also require
the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission collect employee’s income
information from employers to insure no discrimination of gender is taking place.
Employers would be given training and proved outreach to help with deciding their
employee’s income. Employers who are found guilty of discrimination of gender in
the workplace, or failed to produce the paycheck information to the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission or to the employees making a complaint
would face civil action.
For many women this would give them exactly what they need in order to
finally be paid based on the quality of their work. However, the bill fell six votes
short of passing, with absolutely no Republicans voting in favor. Their complaint
was that the bill would result in too many civil lawsuits. Civil lawsuits, in the bill,
would be the result of employers engaging in pay differences based on gender. So it
seems that Republicans know that there is an issue, but they don’t want to deal with
fixing it.
As of now, women will continue to earn less than men for their equal work.
Democrats have said they will reintroduce the bill and continue to push wage
equality legislation. Senator Mikulski encourages women to keep fighting for equal
pay for equal work by calling “on the women of America to suit up, square your
shoulders, put on your lipstick and continue the fight for this equal pay revolution!”