The Nation's Pulse: Pay Equity Iniquity
Gahr, Evan
THE NATION`S PULSE by Evan Gahr Pay Equity Iniquity I t was hardly the stuff of mass demonstrations, but don't let the numbers fool you. On April 8, 1999, small groups of protesters all across...
...In Indiana, where the AFL-CIO's comparable worth bill has already passed the House, as it has in a number of other states, Brian Burton of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce wonders how far things will go...
...Or is it re-education...
...Bianchi-Sand's assumption of cultural bias is shared by U.S...
...It also includes provisions, quietly added this spring, that would make it even easier for plaintiffs to win so-called "pay discrimination" lawsuits...
...and Rep...
...This April, the EEOC granted the Labor Department unprecedented authority to seek punitive damages in so-called pay discrimination cases...
...sector...
...In other words, the department is on a fishing expedition and in recent months has landed some prize catches, including a $1.5-million settlement from CoreStates Financial Bank in Philadelphia and $3.1 million from Texaco this January...
...Not only would any employer who didn't follow or adopt the "voluntary" guidelines be vulnerable to lawsuits...
...In the last decade, the GOP has supported all sorts of dubious measures that ostensibly benefit women and minorities—but are actually bait-and-switch efforts in which alleged discrimination is used to justify elaborate "affirmative action" schemes that dramatically increase government power and further fuel the litigation explosion...
...The idea that men and women should be paid the same wages for different jobs that supposedly require equivalent skill has been defeated at the ballot box, vanquished in the courts, and discredited by numerous studies (the wage gap it would solve is a myth...
...It's a nifty trick that relies on a technique called the "DuBray analysis...
...In his State of the Union address, Clinton called for "equal pay for equal work," winning applause from Democrats and Republicans alike...
...Once largely pushed by public sector unions, the AFL-CIO signed on in 1993...
...If we are going in that direction, maybe the state ought to establish production quotas for all goods and services in the private sector...
...The Paycheck Fairness Act, a somewhat less stringent bill proposed by Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D...
...That's no idle threat...
...So employers are a bunch of bigots who don't even realize it...
...Nussbaum has gloated that the AFL-CIO campaign is the "biggest thing to happen to equal pay since the Equal Pay Act was passed...
...They huffed and puffed and demanded that the "wage gap" between men and women be solved through "comparable worth" laws...
...Yet comparable worth trudged along...
...Amy Habib, counsel to the pro-business Labor Policy Association, notes that Republicans are "scared" to oppose pay equity lest they alienate female voters...
...Equal Employment Opportunities Commission Chairman Ida Castro...
...Senator Tom Harkin's (D-Iowa) Fair Pay Act bars paying women less than men for jobs that "require comparable skills, effort, responsibility, and working conditions...
...Other companies are running scared and many more could well buckle under as recently unveiled comparable-worth legislation advances in state legislatures and Congress...
...In an apparent pay-off to feminists for theirsupport during the impeachment process, Clinton has thrown his weight behind pay equity, promising more money to fight discrimination (i.e., hire more quota mongers for the EEOC) and educate women about their rights...
...Perhaps the men just happened to work in a more profitable division...
...Is government going to establish a wage for all jobs in the state of Indiana...
...Production quotas may sound absurdly outdated, but not long ago, so did comparable worth...
...Comparable worth was expressly rejected...
...For those lacking the proper "attitudes," Washington is happy to provide a quick education...
...Throughout the 1980's, similar antics in other cities and states led to an estimated $5oo million in "pay equity" adjustments...
...Comparable worth" may connote consciousness-raising groups and other relics from feminism's heyday...
...ttitudes haven't caught up with the law," says Susan BianchiSand, executive director of the union-backed National Committee on Pay Equity, as she explains the "cultural problem" of undervaluing women's work...
...Moreover, the EEOC, which administers the Act, found reasonable cause for determining discrimination in less than four out of loo charges filed...
...No matter...
...according to legal experts, the Daschle bill allows unlimited punitive damages for "victims" of wage discrimination...
...President Clinton endorsed the Daschle bill this April...
...Feminist furor made comparable worth famous in the 197o's, but it was really union lawyers who brought home the bacon—with an ingenious strategy that made litigation part of the collective bargaining process...
...When women are paid above the median, the Department disregards the results, according to employment lawyer Paul Grossman, who has represented companies subjected to DuBray...
...In comments earlier this year, she blamed the so-called pay gap on "subliminal gender discrimination [emphasis added...
...Jeffrey Norris, president of the pro-business Equal Employment Advisory Council, says that "it appears that OFCCP's methodology is to try and convince federal contractors that there is a pattern of pay disparities that should be remedied by back pay...
...The full-scale push began this year...
...Currently, only back pay is allowed...
...would require the Labor Department to prepare "voluntary" guidelines for companies to compare wages paid for different jobs, to eliminate "unfair pay disparities between occupations traditionally dominated by men or women...
...Most importantly, the private sector marks a new and far juicier target for this remarkably resilient movement...
...Cleverly re-packaged, comparable worth is back with a vengeance...
...For each salary grade, the OFCCP calculates the median pay for men and women, plus the overall median...
...Until the last few years, comparable-worth settlements were mostly confined to the public EVAN GAHR is a contributing writer for The American Enterprise magazine...
...But it would be a big mistake to dismiss the protesters as a bunch of hapless 1970's refugees...
...The legislation could prove a huge boondoggle for trial lawyers...
...After Texaco agreed to plunk down several million dollars to get the feds off its back, Shirley Wilcher, OFCCP director, vowed to "review corporate policies to ensure that women are paid equally with men who have similar responsibilities [emphasis added...
...Under the Clinton administration, the Labor Department has essentially forced comparable worth on federal contractors in everything but name...
...In the early 1980's, Winn Newman and other labor lawyers filed pay discrimination claims against municipalities that seemed doomed to fail—and usually did...
...once a city or state got bad press from a lawsuit, governments scurried to re-negotiate contracts and increase pay for predominantly female jobs...
...Or perhaps they had simply negotiated a higher settlement...
...In a multi-pronged push for "pay equity" this year, the Clinton administration has joined forces with Big Labor and feminists...
...legislators, sticklers for detail, took "equal pay" to mean exactly that...
...Leading the effort is Karen Nussbaum, a former 6o's radical who served in the women's bureau of the Labor Department before she joined the AFL-CIO...
...The sympathetic response from the GOP shouldn't surprise anyone...
...Labor Department has forced what are essentially multi-million-dollar comparable-worth settlements on government contractors...
...In a moment of candor, a National Committee on Pay Equity official once admitted to an interviewer that men ask for more money...
...This February, the AFL-CIO kicked off a 24-state campaign for pay equity...
...Plenty of folks in our sexist society still believe that a construction worker should earn more than a secretary, as if lugging bricks were tougher than pecking at a keyboard...
...In addition to supporting the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which encouraged a system of quotas, Republicans have helped Democrats enact the Family Leave Act and raise the minimum wage...
...Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn...
...The department's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) looks at a company's "salary grade," which usually has several kinds of jobs...
...The American Spectator • August 1999 57...
...Yet pro-business groups are nervous...
...Yet an obtuse white male might dispute the proposition that placing books on a shelf is as perilous as navigating burning buildings...
...Bianchi-Sand, a former AFL-CIO official, has a point...
...Corporations stand to face even more government pressure and threats of lawsuits if legislation before Congress and state legislatures succeeds...
...56 August /999 • The American Spectator explanations...
...Of course, some might offer different Comparable worth—the doctrine that will not die...
...It is then assumed that discrimination is at work...
...When that passed in 1963, Democrats now stand poised to pervert the Equal Pay Act under the guise of strengthening it...
...In Minnesota, one of the several states with comparable worth laws for government employees, a study rated the jobs of firefighter and librarian equally...
...After much combing through data, the government can usually find some pay grades where women are below the median...
...In the nation's capital, though, Republican administrations leveled a jaundiced eye at comparable-worth schemes, which a Reagan appointee called "the looniest idea since Loony Tunes...
...But just as the 1964 Civil Rights Act was twisted to support "affirmative action," — although sponsor Hubert Humphrey vowed to literally eat the bill if it did — Democrats, with the apparent acquiescence of the GOP, now stand poised to pervert the Equal Pay Act under the guise of strengthening it...
...There is plenty more where that came from...
...Despite the implication that women are underpaid due to some vast right-wing conspiracy, the nation hardly faces an epidemic of pay discrimination...
...It would be illegal to pay men and women different salaries for the same job...
...Pay differences were allowed due to seniority, a merit system, or for any reasons "other than sex...
...Let's hope that feminists and labor unions won't take Burton up on the dare...
...When a federal appeals court rejected an equal-pay lawsuit brought by the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) against Washington state, an AFSCME official could cry all the way to the bank: "Yeah, we lost in court, but then we turned around and won $101 million and 23-percent increases for nurses and secretaries, so is that really losing...
...The agency does not appear to believe that it is necessary to establish a legal basis for discrimination—all they need to do is establish facts" that convince the company it is better to settle than fight...
...Meanwhile, under the guise of fighting discrimination, the U.S...
...On April 8, 1999, small groups of protesters all across the country turned out for "Equal Pay Day...
...In the past five fiscal years, allegations of Equal Pay Act violations accounted for less than 1.5 percent of charges filed with the EEOC, according to Habib...
...But such explanations do not matter...
...At the union, Nussbaum is helping to push a model bill for states that bars wage differences for "equivalent" jobs, even if they are "based on varying market rates and [differing] economic benefits...
Vol. 32 • August 1999 • No. 8
