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Dear MomsRising.org Member,
We woke up this morning to an article which made us think the calendar had been switched back 50 years while we were sleeping. Yesterday, the Senate failed to pass the Fair Pay Act. What was almost worse than that defeat were the out-of-touch, misinformed -- and downright insulting -- statements about women.
Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who didn't even come to vote, said that instead of legislation allowing them to demand equal pay, women simply need "education and training."1 Not only is his information wrong -- women are currently paid less for the same work, even though they have the same education and training -- he's also sending a message to our nation, to our sons and daughters, that this pay gap is okay, and it's women's fault for being paid less. Not so!
We have the perfect way to show Senator McCain just how qualified we really are.
*Sign the Petition for Fair Pay & Send Senator McCain Your Resume (or thoughts on the matter) while you're at it:
http://www.momsrising.org/fairpaymccain
When you sign the petition, you'll join us in telling Congress: "We Need Equal Pay for Equal Work -- it is good law, make it enforceable again."
(Don't have your resume perfected? At the link above, you can also write a quick note. And, you can describe your training and qualifications to bring the Senator up-to-date. Got friends and colleagues who are more than well-enough educated and trained to deserve equal pay? Tell them to send their resumes in, too!)
Women now make up 58% of college graduates and nearly half of the labor force, but still earn less pay for the same work as men. Worse yet, mothers only make 73 cents to a man's dollar, for the exact same job. College graduate, high school graduate, law school diploma, nursing degree, whatever your training; women should make equal pay for equal work.
Senator McCain's statement is a sad testament to the fact that many leaders are out of touch with the realities of working women today. Maybe as a Senator with only 16 women colleagues, he's simply out of touch with the reality that America has a broad and deep pool of highly qualified, trained, and utterly capable women. Let's remind him of that fact.
Sign the petition for Fair Pay, add your resume and/or comments, forward this email around to friends, and help us change this country, one leader at a time:
http://www.momsrising.org/fairpaymccain
-- Kristin, Katie, Roz, Anita, Amy, Joan, Donna, Nanette, and the whole MomsRising.org Team
[1] http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/04/23/mccain-opposes-senate-bill-that-sought-equal-pay-for-women/
THE LILLY LEDBETTER FAIR PAY ACT LOWDOWN:
The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (H.R. 2831) is an important legislative "fix" to a May 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision (Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.), which severely limited the ability of victims of pay discrimination to sue and recover damages under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Without this "fix," the impact of the Court's decision will likely be widespread, affecting pay discrimination cases under Title VII involving women and racial and ethnic minorities, as well as cases under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Basically, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is a narrow "fix" to reestablish law that was in place until the U.S. Supreme Court Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. decision of last year. This Act stops us from losing ground on civil rights and fixes a fundamental unfairness in the workplace which many women face.
SOME PRESS LINKS ABOUT THE LEDBETTER DECISION:
New York Times Ledbetter Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/30/us/30pay.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Washington Post Ledbetter Article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/29/AR2007052900740.html
New York Times Ledbetter Editorial: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/31/opinion/31thu1.html
LA Times Ledbetter Editorial: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-court31may31,0,6046584.story?coll=la-opinion-leftrail
WHAT OUR ALIGNED ORGANIZATIONS HAVE TO SAY:
Alliance for Justice, http://www.afj.org/assets/resources/take-action/ledbetter-background-final.pdf
Alliance for Justice's 5 minute documentary short on Lilly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w1eSymFBOg
National Women's Law Center, http://www.nwlc.org/display.cfm?section=employment
National Organization for Women, http://www.now.org/issues/economic/070530equalpay.html
This is what I sent:
In a little over a week, I'll be the first woman in my family to graduate from college. With an archaeological field school under my belt and study abroad, I've had more education and training in my job field than any other woman in my family had in hers at my age. My parents didn't pay for my education because their parents couldn't pay for theirs, which leaves me the first to be able to get out of this stupid rut my family's been left in since the Depression.
What more do you want? Do I have to grow testicles before my job training and education begin to count?
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Date: 2008-04-26 04:37 pm (UTC)From:I have also met Lilly, and talked a bit about her: she was incredibly qualified, she just DIDN'T KNOW that other people were making way more than she did because she was forbidden by her employment contract from asking. How the hell IS one supposed to know they deserve more money unless they know what the going rate is? Even if she had known, it wouldn't have become clear she was being discriminated against until several pay raises had gone by, and those ones would then become completely unactionable - she couldn't even sue to bring her salary up to what it should have been if she'd gotten fair raises, let alone get back pay. Does that make sense? NO.