[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 64 (Tuesday, April 22, 2008)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E675]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 IN SUPPORT OF EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. GWEN MOORE

                              of wisconsin

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, April 22, 2008

  Ms. MOORE of Wisconsin. Madam Speaker, in 1963, when the Equal Pay 
Act was signed into law to grant the right to equal pay to women who 
worked full-time, year-round, women made 59 cents on average for every 
dollar earned by men doing the same level of work. In 2006, women 
earned 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. While that is progress, 
it is slow progress and it means that the wage gap between men and 
women has narrowed by less than half a cent per year since passage of 
that law. At the same time, African-American women today earn only 63 
cents and Hispanic women bring home just 52 cents for each dollar 
earned by men.
  In my State of Wisconsin, women with a college degree still make 
considerably less than men with the same amount of education. With 
rising gas prices, higher health insurance, and a disproportionate 
amount of single-family homes headed by women, it is of the utmost 
importance that workers receive fair and equal pay for equal work. This 
is not just a civil rights issue: it's a survival issue for women 
workers providing for their family's food, rent, and heat.
  But a right to equal pay is no right at all unless it can be 
enforced.
  Madam Speaker, I am a proud cosponsor of H.R. 1338, the Paycheck 
Fairness Act, which would strengthen the Equal Pay Act of 1963 by 
providing more effective remedies to women who are not being paid equal 
wages for doing equal work. For example women would be able to seek 
full compensatory and punitive damages because the bill would put 
gender-based discrimination on an equal footing with wage 
discrimination based on race or ethnicity for which full compensation 
is already available. The bill would also prohibit employers from 
retaliating against employees who share salary information with their 
coworkers, require the Department of Labor to enhance outreach and 
training efforts to work with employers to eliminate pay disparities, 
and create a new grant program to help strengthen the negotiation 
skills of girls and women.
  This week, in honor of Equal Pay Day, the Senate plans to consider 
another bill, H.R. 2831, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which is 
necessary to ensure that victims of workforce discrimination can seek 
effective remedies. A recent Supreme Court decision last spring made it 
extremely difficult for workers who suffer from workplace wage 
discrimination to seek justice in court. Instead of allowing workers 
who suffer wage discrimination to bring a case within 180 days of the 
last time they were illegally underpaid, the Supreme Court decision 
would require that the case be brought within 180 days of the first 
time that an employer first started to discriminate by paying lower 
wages.
  This decision overturned precedent and made it much more difficult 
for workers to pursue pay discrimination claims. H.R. 2831 would simply 
restore the longstanding interpretation of title VII and other 
discrimination statutes, thereby protecting women and other workers.
  Madam Speaker, equal work deserves equal pay, no matter your gender, 
skin color, national origin, age or disability. That's the law of the 
land. But we need to make sure that we have the measures in place to 
ensure that these rights can be strongly enforced.

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