Republicans Unanimously Block Equal Pay Bill

[TownieDeac]

Link

After allowing the Paycheck Fairness Act to move forward last week, Senate Republicans turned around on Monday evening and unanimously voted to block the bill, which would ban salary secrecy and tighten rules to try to narrow the gender wage gap.
The vote came weeks after the Republican National Committee claimed that “All Republicans support equal pay.” Senate Republicans have unanimously shot the bill down multiple times over the past four years.
The bill includes a number of provisions aimed at preventing the gender wage gap in the first place, which currently means a woman who works full time, year round makes 77 percent of what a similar man makes and hasn’t budged in a decade.
It would ban salary secrecy, in which employers prohibit or strongly discourage employees from discussing pay with each other, thus making it difficult for women to discover unequal practices. While it’s illegal to tell workers they can’t talk about wages with each other without a business justification, since it infringes on the right to engage in concerted activities for mutual aid, it’s still widespread: about half of private sector workers say they can’t talk about pay at work. But in workplaces without this practice, the wage gap shrinks. Among the federal workforce, where pay scales are usually transparent, the wage gap has fallen significantly over the past 20 years. It’s also falling among unionized workers, who similarly tend to have wage transparency.
The Paycheck Fairness Act would also narrow the definitions of what is considered a legitimate business-related justification for pay disparities between a man and a woman with the same skills, responsibilities, and working conditions, while increasing penalties for those who are found to have no reason for gaps. It’s meant to discourage unequal pay scales so that women don’t have to remedy situations by bringing lawsuits, which are time consuming, costly, and increasingly difficult to win.
Republicans say they are in favor of equal pay for women’s work, but they haven’t articulated their alternatives to the Democrats’ bill. Instead they say women are already protected and argue that the gap isn’t as big as the statistics say. But while it’s true that many factors go into the gender wage gap, it can’t be explained away and discrimination is likely at least partly to blame.

 

[TownieDeac]

Tent continues to shrink...

 

[ImTheCaptain]

Tent continues to shrink...

...that's what she said

 

[94Deac]

At this year's GOP convention, they'll be handing out free Ray Rice jerseys to all the gals in attendance.

 

[RJKarl]

So the GOP wants women to make less money for the same jobs, stop them from getting birth control and cut Food Stamps. Hmmmm, this should help in 2016.

The GOP doesn't women, blacks, Hispanics, gays or poor people to vote for them. That should leave to win the WH.

 

[avalon]

To be honest, I really hate the 77% number. I think it is misleading, and Democrats know that and use it to win political points.

 

[PhDeac]

Is it descriptive or is it calculated from a regression analysis of income that controls for a range of factors?

 

[TownieDeac]

Is it descriptive or is it calculated from a regression analysis of income that controls for a range of factors?

Descriptive, I guess. Not controlled very well certainly.

 

[94Deac]

The GOP doesn't women, blacks, Hispanics, gays or poor people to vote for them. That should leave to win the WH.

And yet hordes of them will.

avalon: You're totally right. Democrats need to follow the GOP's lead in not using misleading numbers or data to win political points.

 

[TownieDeac]

And yet hordes of them will.

avalon: You're totally right. Democrats need to follow the GOP's lead in not using misleading numbers or data to win political points.

Two wrongs though.

I get what avalon is saying, but the message itself is, unfortunately, still not strong enough unto itself. Clearly, since Republicans are claiming one of two things:

A) Wage inequality does not exist.
B) You cannot solve wage inequality through legislation, so do not legislate it.

A is not a difficult null hypothesis to work against. Whether it's 77% or 90%, the gap is inexcusable, and doesn't simply rest on pay alone. It's about equality of opportunity. B is fine, but a really ignoble stance to take, you know, as legislators.

 

[WFFaithful]

And yet hordes of them will.

avalon: You're totally right. Democrats need to follow the GOP's lead in not using misleading numbers or data to win political points.

A teacher I know posted an article on facebook decrying the GOP educational agenda, but I know that there is no way she'd ever vote for a Democrat.

 

[avalon]

The problem is, by using misleading numbers, Democrats can focus on legislation that sounds good but doesn't do much to actually solve the problem. And then they can rail on Republicans for blocking their useless legislation. Is making forbidding employees from talking about salary numbers more illegal the best way to reach equal pay?

 

[94Deac]

The problem is, by using misleading numbers, Democrats can focus on legislation that sounds good but doesn't do much to actually solve the problem. And then they can rail on Republicans for blocking their useless legislation. Is making talking about salary numbers more illegal the best way to reach equal pay?

So the conservatives' solution is what, I mean other than denying it exists? Arguing about the size of the crack in the highway seems to have taken precedence over actually fixing it.

 

[avalon]

I'm a liberal, 94Deac. No, the Republicans aren't doing anything to close the wage gap either.

 

[PhDeac]

The problem is, by using misleading numbers, Democrats can focus on legislation that sounds good but doesn't do much to actually solve the problem. And then they can rail on Republicans for blocking their useless legislation. Is making forbidding employees from talking about salary numbers more illegal the best way to reach equal pay?

One factor that research has found contributes to unequal pay is that women don't know what to negotiate for.

 

[2&2 Slider To Leyritz]

Two wrongs though.

I get what avalon is saying, but the message itself is, unfortunately, still not strong enough unto itself. Clearly, since Republicans are claiming one of two things:

A) Wage inequality does not exist.
B) You cannot solve wage inequality through legislation, so do not legislate it.

A is not a difficult null hypothesis to work against. Whether it's 77% or 90%, the gap is inexcusable, and doesn't simply rest on pay alone. It's about equality of opportunity. B is fine, but a really ignoble stance to take, you know, as legislators.

Depends who you ask. If I'm an employer, I can excuse it pretty easily unless we are supposed to completely ignore biological gender differences.

 

[MHBDemon]

The problem is, by using misleading numbers, Democrats can focus on legislation that sounds good but doesn't do much to actually solve the problem. And then they can rail on Republicans for blocking their useless legislation. Is making forbidding employees from talking about salary numbers more illegal the best way to reach equal pay?

While it’s illegal to tell workers they can’t talk about wages with each other without a business justification, since it infringes on the right to engage in concerted activities for mutual aid, it’s still widespread: about half of private sector workers say they can’t talk about pay at work. But in workplaces without this practice, the wage gap shrinks. Among the federal workforce, where pay scales are usually transparent, the wage gap has fallen significantly over the past 20 years. It’s also falling among unionized workers, who similarly tend to have wage transparency.

There is an issue of causation, but it has to be considered as a legitimate factor in decreasing the wage gap.

 

[TownieDeac]

Depends who you ask. If I'm an employer, I can excuse it pretty easily unless we are supposed to completely ignore biological gender differences.

Damn, yeah, I forgot about C. The people who just legitimately want to pay women less.

 

[avalon]

One factor that research has found contributes to unequal pay is that women don't know what to negotiate for.

There is an issue of causation, but it has to be considered as a legitimate factor in decreasing the wage gap.

Will this bill make it more likely that women will talk to their male colleagues about their salary? I don't know the details of the bill (I don't see anything about this part on their online summary), but I'm skeptical that banning something that is already illegal will make a huge difference. There are reasons people don't share their salary info besides employers asking them not to.

I may have been hyperbolic in calling the legislation useless, it certainly could provide benefit, but I doubt that's the main purpose of the bill. Did the Dems expect this to pass, or were they hoping Republicans would block it so they have another talking point leading up to the mid-term elections?

 

[PhDeac]

Depends who you ask. If I'm an employer, I can excuse it pretty easily unless we are supposed to completely ignore biological gender differences.

If you're hiring women whose time of the month is 23% of the month, that's a problem.