By Arlene Holt Baker, Executive Vice President, AFL-CIO, Member, - TopicsExpress

By Arlene Holt Baker, Executive Vice President, AFL-CIO, Member, Coalition of Labor Union Women The Equal Pay Act was landmark legislation. As Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi remarked in a press conference last Thursday, “He [President John F. Kennedy Jr.] knew it was a first step to end the ‘unconscionable practice’– in his words – of paying women less than men for the same amount of work. But in the course of 50 years, loopholes in the Equal Pay Act were carved out and exploited. Disparities affecting minority women widened. And the ‘unconscionable practice’ persists.” The increase of working women during the past 50 years is phenomenal. Now working women make up almost half of the total workforce in the United States. Their impact on the economy is enormous and their contribution to their family’s economic well-being is more important today than ever before. Bur after 50 years, the average full-time woman worker’s wages have only improved by 18 cents compared with every dollar that a man earns. In 1963, the average wage for women was 59 cents compared with men’s earnings and today it is 77 cents. And for African American and Hispanic women, the numbers are even more devastating: For African American women, the pay gap is 64 cents and for Hispanic women, it is 55 cents compared with white non-Hispanic men. Working mothers are penalized, too. A June 1 MomsRising e-mail message noted: “A recent study found that with equal resumes and job experiences, mothers were offered $11,000 lower starting salaries than non-mothers (fathers, on the other hand, were offered $6,000 more in starting salaries than non-fathers). Another study found that women without children make 90 cents to a man’s dollar, mothers make 73 cents to a man’s dollar and single moms make only about 60 cents to a man’s dollar.” Women who work full-time, year-round will typically lose $443,360 over their lifetimes because of the wage gap. Many women and people of color work as teachers, librarians, restaurant workers and child care workers where salaries are low. Even when working in male-dominated fields that pay more, women still earn less. (See the Bureau of Labor Statistics report on salaries for men and women here.) One way to address these problems is to urge passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act (S. 84/H.R. 377), which would close loopholes in our existing equal pay laws, prohibit retaliation against workers who ask about or share wage information and empower women to better negotiate salary and benefit increases. Last Thursday, the Coalition of Labor Union Women, AAUW (American Association of University Women), Alliance for Justice, the American Civil Liberties Union, Jewish Women International, MomsRising, the National Council of Jewish Women, the National Council of Women’s Organizations, the National Partnership for Women and Families, the National Women’s Law Center, UltraViolet and 9to5 participated in a multi-generational lobby day. They asked House and Senate members to cosponsor the Paycheck Fairness Act and urged House members to sign on to a discharge petition led by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) that would bring the Paycheck Fairness Act to the floor. My 18-month old twin granddaughters, Logan Sophia and McKenzie, deserve to grow up in a world of fairness and equality. I wish for them what every grandmother wishes for their grandchildren: Happiness, success in school, finding a career that brings them satisfaction, fairness, justice and a voice at work. A collective bargaining agreement is one of the best ways to fight discrimination in the workplace and close the gender wage gap. The Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO, said in its 2013 fact sheet: “Union preschool and kindergarten teachers earned 52 percent more than their nonunion counterparts, while for elementary and middle-school teachers, the union wage advantage was 36 percent.….In 2011, union women earned weekly wages that were 26 percent more than nonunion women.” Please join me in recognizing the anniversary of the Equal Pay Act and contact your U.S. Senators and Representative and ask for their support for the Paycheck Fairness Act—a step in closing the wage gap.