Although equal pay has been the law for 40 years, working women are not likely to have equal pay for another 50 years, according to new state-by-state AFL-CIO reports, which show that at the current rate, the wage gap between men and women won’t close until after 2050. Last year, women were paid 76 cents for every dollar men received, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s $24 less to spend on groceries, housing, child care and other expenses for every $100 worth of work. The wage gap is least in the District of Columbia, where women make 96.7 cents for every dollar a man makes and the highest in Utah, where women only make 71.1 cents for every dollar a man makes. Nationwide, working families lose $200 billion of income annually to the wage gap.
The situation is worse for women of color. In 2000, Latinas were paid only 55 cents and African American women were paid only 67 cents for every dollar men received. Although their pay inequality is less severe than for women as a whole, Asian Pacific American women still earned only 83.5 cents for every dollar men earned.
On April 15, Equal Pay Day, working women across the country will lobby state legislators, rally, hold town meetings and press conferences and attend “Unhappy Hours”—symbolic events at local restaurants—to highlight the gender gap in wages.
It takes a woman worker on average until April 15 to earn as much as a man was paid during the previous year. Equal Pay Day is sponsored by the National Committee on Pay Equity, a coalition of more than 80 organizations, including the AFL-CIO.
Doing the Same Job, Making Less than Men
Pat Harris knows what it’s like to be paid less than a man for doing the same job. Not long after she started working in the U.S. Capitol in 1988, she found that she and the other female custodians were making $1 less per hour than the male custodians. “That dollar may not sound like much,” Harris says, “but it means a lot when your pay is low to begin with.”
“It just wasn’t fair,” she says. “We did the same work and we were expected to meet the same standards as the men. So we should be paid the same.”
Determined to change the inequality in wages, Harris and 18 other women workers filed a federal lawsuit in 1997 against the Architect of the Capitol to gain a fair wage. After several members of Congress intervened, the Architect settled the case and the women now are paid the same as the men.
“We opened the eyes of people. Now they understand that women working in the same environment, using the same materials and doing the same work as men ought to get paid the same thing as men,” says Harris, who is a member of AFSCME Council 626 in Washington, D.C. She credits her union with playing a key role in helping the women file and win the lawsuit.
Congress Considers Equal Pay
“Women have no less responsibility for taking care of their families than men do,” says Jan Laue, executive vice president of the Iowa Federation of Labor. “We don’t get a better price at the grocery store or lower mortgages. So equal pay is very important.”
Two bills—the Paycheck Fairness Act, sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), and the Fair Pay Act, sponsored by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.)—would strengthen penalties for equal pay violations and make it easier for women to win wage discrimination cases in certain situations.
“If these bills had been law back in 1997,” Harris says, “we wouldn’t have had to fight so hard to get people to just do the right thing.”
Equal Pay Actions Nationwide
In Boston, working women plan to hold an “Unhappy Hour” at a downtown bar. During the event, women’s drinks will cost 76 cents, while men will have to pay $1. In Iowa, the state federation will sponsor a statewide television broadcast with women talking about the need for equal pay.
Many working women will use their political strength on Equal Pay Day to lobby state legislators to pass pay equity laws. Women’s groups will lobby for such laws in Alabama, Nevada and Wisconsin.
Working women will hand out cookies at the University of Louisville, in Kentucky, to symbolize how the dollars women are paid “crumble” when compared with what men are paid.
In San Antonio, women’s groups plan to hold a peaceful demonstration at the main post office as people drop off last-minute tax returns.
“There is no good reason for women to have to wait for another 50 years for their pay to catch up with what men get,” says Gloria Johnson, president of the AFL-CIO constituency group Coalition of Labor Union Women, and chairwoman of the Executive Council Committee on Women Workers. “This is a national shame and we ought to do something about it now.”
Nationwide, working women are fighting for pay equity in a climate of corporate greed, says AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson. “Companies say they can’t afford to pay women what they’re worth. Yet they continue to approve outrageous compensation packages for executives, even when their own employees complain of wage discrimination.”
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