Ok, so there are MANY things I should be doing. But, if I don't write about this now, I may regret that I didn't speak up. Not that it will make a difference, other than I will know I was not silent or ignorant during this crucial moment in history.
In the shadow of all the financial crisis hubbub, which is really serious, what you probably won't hear about today is the ongoing fight for legislation on equal pay for equal work.
In 2007 the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Ledbetter v. Goodyear that workers only have 180 days to file a wage-discrimination complaint from the day the payroll decision is made. This means, that you must obtain proof you're paid less than someone equally qualified and file your case within 6 months of the payroll decision. Thus, if a company is able to go for 181 days with the inequity unresolved, they will be off the hook. Of course, this makes addressing the wrong almost impossible. For one, people don't know immediately if they are being treated unfairly. Secondly, these sorts of inequities add up and develop gradually over time. Finally, it's difficult to get the proof necessary in less than 180 days.
The Supreme Court decision makes it virtually impossible to get the fair protection U.S. citizens are all guaranteed.
Justice Ginsburg, now the only woman on the court, wrote a dissent in which she argued the points I outlined above and asked Congress for legislation to counteract the Court's ruling.
Congress tried to redress this problem, but the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act did not make it out of the Senate back in late April 2008.
For the record, John McCain was against it, saying that women and minorities need "more education and training." Whereas, the point was that this legislation would protect people who were already EQUALLY qualified. Similar legislation is coming up now, and McCain says he will still vote against it.
Now, McCain has a woman on his ticket, which allows him to pander to female votes while feeling free to consistently vote down issues that matter most to women and minorities. Recently I heard a poll that found "less educated women" are the majority of females voting for McCain/Palin. Women that need more education, as McCain says, are evidently the ones he consistently relies upon, but he won't be there in return to help them or offer anything other than blame.
Overall, it is very painful to see this sort of exploitation done in the name of women's progress.
5 comments:
I heard a story on NPR yesterday that McCain also has the lead with 'rural' voters....but that he needs to increase it in order to decisively win the election. The whole Palin thing eats me up because where the f is she right now? Why isn't she out there? Oh wait, she's probably training with Karl Rove et al to withstand the media onslaught come the debates to sound extraslick to those same women. I just cannot stand how W has made being educated seem like a bad thing...rather than serve as a role model to emulate, Obama becomes someone to deride or mock.
Also, I think Olivia's goal today is to drive me batty!
Evidently this is where she is, allowing reporters to see her for 15 to 30 seconds talking with foreign leaders about their children:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/23/media-presses-mccain-campaign-for-access-to-palin-meeting/
Nice huh.
Feel free to call me whenever. I'm getting nothing done today. But I don't want to interrupt you, if you're working. Are you busy doing stuff?
Nope. Just watching Babe, Kiki's Delivery Service, Curious George, etc., etc.....
And now McCain is trying to delay the debates....come ON. Why don't people see through him already?
This is disgusting. I remember hearing reports about the Ledbetter case when it was first decided. I thought it was a travesty.
As far as I'm concerned, the only "education" women need is on how to negotiate for a salary. I include myself in that statement. I remember women outnumbering men in all my AP classes in high school and in most of my college classes. Women are smart and capable. We've proven that. The problem is that many women believe that if they work hard, they'll be paid according to their merit. And it's just not true. Companies don't pay you according to merit. They pay you what they can get away with paying you.
Wanna hear my employment history as it relates to this subject?
I had already been employed at the IBR for probably two, maybe two and a half years when I first became aware that there must be a huge pay inequity. How do I know? Because that was about the time that my direct supervisor (the editor at the time), Steve, was first brought into budget discussions. After he learned how much everyone in his department was making, he came up to me personally and apologized to me. It was the first I'd known about the pay inequity, but I decided not to worry about it too much since Steve was obviously in my corner and was going to work to fix it.
Unfortunately, a few months later, Steve was let go. One week afterward, we were trying to put together that week's paper and Rick, our inept publisher, was trying to help us. But he couldn't find two of the columns we run every week. I found them for him, and one of them that week ended up being advice for women on how to negotiate for a raise. Rick chuckled lamely, "Ooh, we better not let Lora read that one, ha ha." I said, "Yeah, about that." He said, "Don't worry, I know we need to get you caught up to where everyone else is, and I've budgeted a good raise for you."
My raise that year ended up being 4%. And I had just moved into a more expensive apartment -- well, not apartment. A room I was renting inside someone else's house. That's all I could do.
We hired a new editor, John, and about 10 months later I was due for another review. John was very demanding, but he also by that time thought very highly of me. So at the end of the review, I asked for his help. I mentioned the two prior conversations, and explained that on my tiny salary, incremental improvements like a 4% raise would never get me "caught up." "Four percent of not much is not much," I said. "You're right," he said. "I have some chits to cash in with corporate. I'll do what I can."
But just a month or two later, before he could do anything for me, he left the company.
We hired Robb as the next editor. When the subject came up, he told me he knew my wages were a problem. "Frankly, it kind of looks like discrimination," he said.
So I was looking forward to using that comment as ammo in my next review. That review never came. I was let go the same month I was supposed to have it.
I always thought I could work within the system to fix my pay inequity. But that turned out to be a lie. And of course by the time Robb let the word "discrimination" slip -- the closest thing I ever had to proof; I never obtained anything harder than that, though maybe I should have asked some of my coworker friends what they made -- Ledbetter had already been passed, so any legal options I might have had were probably gone. And I just feel so bitter right now. Used and bitter.
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