[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 44 (Thursday, April 18, 2002)]
[House]
[Page H1472]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          EQUAL PAY FOR WOMEN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, Tuesday was Equal Pay Day. That is the day 
when women rise to say they are not being equally paid. A year and 4 
months into the next year is how long women had to wait this year in 
order to earn what the average man earned. I feel Equal Pay Day, I 
suppose, stronger than most. I feel like I have been working for equal 
pay for women at least half of my life. I am a former Chair of the 
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, where I administered the Equal 
Pay Act. It is amazing to see that this act has not been touched in 40 
years. It was the first of the great civil rights acts to be passed. It 
obviously needs to be revised because it is a very different world with 
a very different economy from the 1963 economy.
  There is a bill here pending, the Paycheck Fairness Act, that would 
modestly revise this bill. Did we know, for example, that if women and 
men discuss their wages against the wishes of the employer in the 
workplace, he can sanction them? The Paycheck Fairness Act would bar 
that. And did we realize that class actions under the Equal Pay Act are 
much harder to obtain because the act was passed so early? So it is an 
unequal civil rights law.
  Actually there are two kinds of equal pay. One kind was violated 
right under our nose. A couple of months ago I went to the Ford 
Building to see the women who clean the House receive their checks from 
a class action they won against the Congress of the United States 
because women who clean our offices were paid a dollar less than men 
who clean our offices. And they won. This was the first class action 
brought under the Congressional Accountability Act. All I can say is 
the women who clean this House and this Senate held us accountable. But 
then there is another kind of equal pay, and that is the kind that 
affects the average woman. Senator Tom Harkin and I have a bill to go 
at that pay. It goes at jobs that are underpaid because they are 
stereotyped as female jobs.
  Women work in only three sectors: factory, service, and clerical. 
Those jobs are often paid according to the gender and not the sex. The 
Fair Pay Act would allow women to sue when the job she is doing is 
equal in responsibility and in content to the job a man is doing even 
though that job is not the very same job. It is interesting when you 
poll, you find that equal pay is among the top one or two issues for 
the American public. Why is that? Because equal pay is no longer a 
woman's issue. Equal pay has become one of the great family issues of 
our time. If there is a working woman in your family, you lose $4,000 
annually because one of the breadwinners, or in some cases the only 
breadwinner, is a woman.
  It is time we fixed the Equal Pay Act. It was a great breakthrough in 
1963. Almost 40 years later it needs the kind of repair that you would 
need if you were 40 years old and had not seen a doctor since you were 
born. The EPA has not seen a doctor. It has not had us tend to it for 
40 years. The Paycheck Fairness Act is certainly the place to begin; 
194 Democrats have signed on. I am sure many Republicans also agree 
that this is the year to tell America that we understand that women and 
men work, that they are in the same families, that when they have been 
doing the same jobs, similar jobs or comparable jobs, they should be 
paid equally.
  If we did not learn anything else on Equal Pay Day, I hope that is 
the message we sent. I certainly hope that before this session is out, 
this Congress will do more than rhetorically recognize the notion of 
equal pay. Let us pass the Paycheck Fairness Act.

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