[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 90 (Wednesday, July 13, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 13, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                         TRIBUTE TO WINN NEWMAN

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                           HON. BARNEY FRANK

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 13, 1994

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, one of the most dedicated 
and thoughtful fighters for social justice whom I have worked with died 
2 weeks ago. Winn Newman was a lawyer who showed what the legal 
profession can be at its best. As a labor lawyer, as a leader in 
Americans for Democratic Action, and as a citizen, Winn Newman fought 
hard for the things that he rightly believed would make this a better 
and fairer society. He was one of the pioneers on the question of pay 
equity, and did a great deal to help address the intolerable situation 
of women being compensated far less than man for equal work.
  In the July 8 Washington Post, Judy Mann wrote a column which 
captured the essence of this strong, gentle man. Because Judy Mann did 
do such a good job of describing a man who ought to be a role model for 
all lawyers--indeed for all citizens--I ask that her column be printed 
here.

                [From the Washington Post, July 8, 1994]

                        A Gentleman and a Lawyer

                             (By Judy Mann)

       There was a moment of tribute at the convention of the 
     American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees 
     (AFSCME) for Winn Newman, the labor lawyer who died of a 
     stroke June 24. When the moment ended, two groups remained 
     standing.
       One was a group of public employees from Washington state; 
     the other from New York. They had received hundreds of 
     millions in pay raises as a result of Newman's landmark 
     ``comparable worth'' lawsuits. ``They remembered deeply what 
     Winn had done for them on pay equity,'' Al Bilik, president 
     of the Public Employee Department of the AFL-CIO, said at the 
     packed memorial service last week at AFL-CIO headquarters.
       The essential ingredient in Newman's bold legal concept was 
     fairness. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 required employers to 
     give men and women ``equal pay for equal work,'' but not for 
     similar work. This was a critical point, for women and men 
     often are segregated by sex in the work force, and the job 
     categories predominantly filled by women invariably pay less 
     than jobs filled by men.
       Newman pioneered the argument that comparable jobs should 
     be of comparable worth to the employer, and he did it in 
     litigation, legislative hearings and in collective 
     bargaining. He helped forge the coalition of trade unions, 
     political groups and women's organizations that has been 
     critically important in advancing women's rights in the work 
     force.
       The AFSCME pay equity campaign has led to comparable worth 
     standards being adopted by dozens of state and local 
     governments. ``The pay equity campaign of AFSCME represents a 
     break in union traditions of acquiescence to inferior pay for 
     women,'' wrote economist Barbara R. Bergmann in ``The 
     Economic Emergence of Women.'' She credits Newman and the 
     late Ruth Weyand with starting the pay equity campaign in the 
     United States when they were lawyers for the International 
     Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
       ``He played an extraordinary and in many aspects a unique 
     role in . . . expanding our concepts as a country about what 
     is fair and just in the treatment of working women,'' said 
     Marcia Greenberger, of the National Women's Law Center. This, 
     she predicted, is the legacy that will have the most profound 
     impact on women.
       ``Winn's great genius was to look at the jobs women have 
     traditionally held and enjoyed and excelled at and question 
     why those jobs didn't have greater pay and advancement 
     opportunities.
       ``In the early '70s, he was one of the pioneers in defining 
     discrimination on the basis of pregnancy as an aspect of 
     illegal sex discrimination. That was a concept that was not 
     only new but in fact very controversial,'' she said. He and 
     Weyand took a pregnancy discrimination case against General 
     Electric to the U.S. Supreme Court, and when they lost there, 
     he helped lead the campaign in Congress to overturn the 
     Supreme Court decision two years later.
       ``He really was a revolutionary,'' said Judith Lichtman, 
     head of the Women's Legal Defense Fund, which spearheaded 
     that drive. ``When he started thinking about and talking 
     about and doing something about sex discrimination in 
     employment, there weren't very many people who were.
       ``He was willing to use creatively the resources of the 
     trade union movement on behalf of its women members and to 
     provide the leadership, as well as his organizing skills and 
     his legal ability. He was a master at using litigation for 
     social change.''
       Bernice Resnik Sandler, one of the most influential 
     advocates for women in education, was in the standing-room-
     only crowd at the memorial service. One of her daughters had 
     been fired once because she was pregnant. ``That's less 
     likely to happen because of Winn,'' Sandler said. ``He was 
     among the first men who understood that women's issues were 
     important, not just to women but to everybody.''
       ``He was not a religious man,'' David Davidson, a labor 
     lawyer and former colleague of Newman's, said in his eulogy. 
     ``But no religious activist ever had a stronger belief in the 
     worth and dignity of every human being.''
       Newman, who was 70 years old when he died, was unassuming, 
     funny, warm and wonderfully patient about explaining fine 
     points of the law to newspaper columnists. Greenberger 
     described him well when she said he had a combination of 
     ``good grace and tenacity.''
       But there was something else that contributed to the great 
     affection and respect in which he was held. He had a quality 
     that is especially prized in times marked by cynicism and 
     demagoguery: It's called integrity. He had it in spades.

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