[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 12 (Tuesday, January 29, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S358-S360]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. HARKIN (for himself, Mr. Leahy, Mrs. Boxer, Mrs. Murray, 
        Mr. Lautenberg, Mr. Brown, Mr. Blumenthal, and Mrs. 
        Gillibrand):
  S. 168. A bill to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to 
prohibit discrimination in the payment of wages on account of sex, 
race, or national origin, and for other purposes; to the Committee on 
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
  Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, on January 29, 2009, President Obama 
signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay

[[Page S359]]

Act. It was a proud day and I was there for that. A critical law, the 
first legislation signed into law by President Obama after his first 
election, reversed the outrageous Supreme Court decision in Ledbetter v 
Goodyear and made clear that a worker such as Lilly Ledbetter, who does 
not learn of her pay inequities for years, still had recourse to 
challenge her wage discrimination.
  Today we celebrate the anniversary of the enactment of this important 
law, but at the same time we must recognize it was only a first step. 
We need to do much more to ensure that all workers in our society are 
paid fairly for their work and are not shortchanged because of the 
their gender, race or other personal characteristic. That is why, 4 
years after enactment of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, I am proud 
to introduce once again the Fair Pay Act, a bill I have introduced in 
every Congress since 1996.
  Let me give some background. In 1963, Congress enacted the Equal Pay 
Act to end unfair discrimination against women in the workplace. At 
that time, 25 million female workers earned just 60 percent of the 
average pay for men. While we have made progress toward the goal of 
true pay equity fully a half century later, too many women still do not 
get paid what men do for the same or nearly the same work. Let's be 
clear about this. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 has to do with women doing 
the same jobs as men. But still, on average, as we know, for every $1 a 
full-time male worker earns, a woman earns just 77 cents. So we have 
gone from 60 cents, in all those 60 years, to 77 cents for every $1 a 
man makes.
  What does that translate into? You might say, OK, 7 cents is that a 
big deal? Yes, it is. Over a lifetime of work it means an average of 
$400,000 that a woman loses because of the unequal pay practices.
  I will say that again later on, but that $400,000 is not just the pay 
she loses during her lifetime. Think about the retirement benefits that 
woman loses because she has been underpaid all those years. That is why 
we have a system in America, when a woman retires, a man retires, they 
had the same kind of work, a man gets a lot more retirement than a 
woman because they paid in more because they were paid more during 
their lifetime.
  This system is wrong, it is unjust, and it threatens the economic 
security of our families. The fact is millions of American families are 
dependent on a woman's paycheck just to get by, to put food on the 
table, to pay for childcare, to deal with rising health care costs.
  In today's economy, few families have a stay-at-home mother. In fact, 
71 percent of mothers are in the labor force. They are a major 
contributor to their familie's income. Two-thirds of mothers bring home 
at least one-quarter of their familie's earnings and in more than 4 of 
10 families with children, a woman is the majority or sole breadwinner.
  That means in today's economy, when a mother earns less than her male 
colleagues, her family must sacrifice basic necessities, as well as 
face greater difficulty for these kids to save for college, afford a 
home, live the American dream. The lifetime of earning losses all women 
face, including those who are without children or whose children are 
grown, affects not only their well-being during their working lives, as 
I said earlier, but it affects their ability to save and have a decent 
retirement.
  The evidence shows that discrimination accounts for much of the pay 
gap. In fact, according to one study, when we look at all the reasons 
there is a wage gap--we have race, 2.4 percent; 3.5 percent union 
status; labor force experience; industry category; occupational 
category--41 percent unexplained. They cannot explain why it is. The 
fact is, that is because of discrimination. It is because our laws have 
not done enough to prevent this discrimination from occurring. That is 
why the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was a critical first step. That is 
why it is important to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act.
  That bill was introduced last week by Senator Mikulski. I am proud to 
be an original cosponsor. She has always championed that. What that 
does is start to close a lot of the loopholes and barriers to effective 
enforcement in our existing law to close that 41 percent unexplained 
gap. We need to strengthen penalties and give women the tools they need 
to confront discrimination.

  It is outrageous that the Senate has not yet passed the Paycheck 
Fairness Act. In the last two Congresses this bill got more than a 
majority of support. In 2010 58 United States Senators, a large 
majority, voted to pass this legislation. If we had 58 votes, why 
didn't we get it? Because of Republican obstructionism, we could not 
even proceed to debate the bill. This was a filibuster on a motion to 
proceed to the bill. We got 58 votes, but we could not even debate it.
  Since we just went through a recent debate on rules reform, I want 
the American people to understand this. The Republicans, the minority 
party has continuously prevented the Senate from even considering the 
issue of unequal wages and gender discrimination. Millions of women and 
their families are concerned about the fact that they get paid less 
than their male colleagues. It is unfair; it is unjust. Nevertheless, 
repeatedly, the Republicans have filibustered even debating the issue.
  Just last week we had a vote in the Senate to change the rules. We 
made some modifications of the rules. I truly hope those modifications 
which were made will now enable us to get over this hurdle so we can 
bring up the Paycheck Fairness Act and debate it. If they want to offer 
amendments, that is fine, but let's debate it. Let's have amendments 
and then let's vote to pass the bill. I hope the changes in the rules 
last week will enable us to do so.
  As I said, the Lilly Ledbetter bill was a first step. The Paycheck 
Fairness Act will start to close some of the loopholes and make sure 
the penalties will be enforced. But there is one more step which needs 
to be taken, and I think it is the most critical one of all--equal pay, 
yes. We have had that since 1963; that is, women and men doing the same 
job. The Lilly Ledbetter Act allows us to go back and get the back 
wages that were due, but that is sort of after the fact.
  The Paycheck Fairness Act will make sure we have penalties and 
enforceability. However, there is one other huge, glaring 
discrimination that is ongoing in our society today against women; that 
is, as a nation we unjustly devalue jobs traditionally performed by 
women even when they require comparable skills to the jobs 
traditionally performed by men.
  Today millions of what we call female-dominated jobs, such as social 
workers, teachers, childcare workers, nurses, those who care for our 
elderly in assisted living care or in nursing homes--most of these jobs 
are equivalent in skills and working conditions to male-dominated jobs, 
but the female-dominated jobs pay significantly less. This is unfair 
and unjust discrimination.
  Why is a housekeeper worth less than a janitor? Why is a maid worth 
less than a janitor? Eighty-nine percent of maids are female; 67 
percent of janitors are male. While the jobs are equivalent in skills, 
effort, responsibility, and working conditions, the median weekly 
earnings for a maid are $387 and for a janitor it is $463. Computer-
support workers--a job that is 72 percent male--have median weekly 
earnings of $949. In contrast, secretaries and administrative 
assistants, which is 96 percent female, have median weekly earnings of 
$659. Why do we value someone who helps with computers more than 
someone who makes the entire office function? That is not to say the 
men are overpaid, it is just to say that jobs we have long considered 
in our country as ``women's work'' or ``women's jobs'' are grossly 
underpaid.
  Now to address this more subtle, deep-rooted discrimination, today I 
introduced the Fair Pay Act. As I said, this is a bill I have 
introduced--along with Congresswoman Norton--every year since 1996. The 
bill will ensure that employers provide equal pay for jobs that are 
equivalent in skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions.
  People have asked: How do we do that? Well, we have some history. In 
1982 the State of Minnesota implemented a pay equity plan for its 
State, and I think, also, municipal employees. The State found that 
women were segregated into historically female-dominated jobs and that 
women's jobs paid 20 percent less than male-dominated jobs. Pay equity 
wage adjustments

[[Page S360]]

were phased in over 4 years, leading to an average pay increase of $200 
per month for women in female-dominated jobs.
  In 1983, in my home State of Iowa, the Iowa Legislature--a Republican 
legislature and a Republican Governor, I might add--passed a bill 
stipulating that the State shall not discriminate in compensation 
between predominately male and female jobs deemed to be of comparable 
worth. That was in 1983. I am proud of Iowa. I just want to say this 
was passed by a Republican legislature and signed by a Republican 
Governor.
  Toward that end, the State engaged a professional accounting firm to 
evaluate the value of 800 job classifications in State government. The 
final recommendations, which were made in April of 1984, proposed that 
10,751 employees should be given a pay increase. After being 
implemented in March 1985, female employees' pay had increased at that 
time by about 1.5 percent. Think of what that means from 1985 to now 
and how much more those women are paid over all those years. This can 
be done as well for the women in this country who are currently being 
paid less, not because of their skills or education but simply because 
they are in undervalued ``female jobs.'' Making sure they receive their 
real worth will make a real difference for them and the family who rely 
on their wages.
  Again, many of these jobs are jobs that we don't know what we would 
do without them. Have you ever visited someone in your family who was 
in a nursing home? Who is taking care of those people? Women. If we 
take someone who is in a situation like that, they have to lift and 
move heavy people. They have to be strong, and they care for people. 
Then we look at truckdrivers. Most truckdrivers are men. Truckdrivers 
have power steering and power brakes. A person doesn't have to be 
strong to drive a truck. They are making a lot more money than that 
woman who is working in a nursing home and taking care of our 
grandparents. Why? Skills, effort, responsibility, and working 
conditions are about the same.
  What my bill would do would be very simple. It would require 
employers to publicly disclose their job categories and their pay 
scales. Got it? Employers would publicly disclose their job categories 
and pay scales without requiring specific information on individual 
employees. I am not asking anyone to say what they are paying an 
individual employee. We just want to know job categories and pay 
scales. If we give women information about what their male colleagues 
are earning, they can insist on a better deal for themselves in the 
workplace.
  Right now women who believe they are the victim of pay discrimination 
must file a lawsuit and endure a drawn-out legal discovery process to 
find out whether they make less than the man working beside them. With 
pay statistics readily available, this process could be avoided. In 
fact, I remember when Lilly Ledbetter first testified before our 
committee--the committee I now chair and the committee on which the 
distinguished occupant of the chair is proud to serve.
  I had provided Lilly Ledbetter information on the Fair Pay Act--the 
one I am talking about. I asked her if the Fair Pay Act had been law, 
would it have averted her wage discrimination case. She made it very 
clear that had she had the information about pay scales, which our bill 
provides, this would have given her the information she needed to 
insist on being paid a fair salary from the beginning rather than 
having to resort to litigation years after the discrimination began.
  Four years after President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay 
Act, let's make sure what happened to Lilly never happens again by 
recommitting ourselves to eliminating discrimination in the workplace 
and making equal pay for equivalent work a reality.
  I have introduced this bill in every Congress since 1996. We get 
focused on Lilly Ledbetter, and that is important. We are focused on 
paycheck fairness as well. Let's think about the millions of American 
women out there who are in these traditional women's jobs which require 
the skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions that are 
similar to a man and yet they are grossly underpaid.
  If Minnesota and Iowa--and there may be some other States I don't 
know about; I just know about those two. If they can do it--and they 
did this in the 1980s for State employees as well as municipal 
employees in Minnesota--surely we can do this nationwide. If we really 
want to stop the discrimination in pay in this country between women 
and men, the Fair Pay Act is the one that will do it.
  I am going to continue to push for this as long as I am here. 
Hopefully, we can have some hearings on it again, which I will, and 
hopefully we can begin to move on it.
                                 ______