The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“PAYCHECK FAIRNESS ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Labor was published in the Senate section on pages S7928-S7929 on Nov. 17, 2010.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
PAYCHECK FAIRNESS ACT--MOTION TO PROCEED
Cloture Motion
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 3772, which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 561, S. 3772, a bill to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to provide more effective remedies to victims of discrimination in the payment of wages on the basis of sex, and for other purposes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, hereby move to bring to a close the debate on the motion to proceed to Calendar No. 561, S. 3772, the Paycheck Fairness Act.
Harry Reid, Patrick J. Leahy, John F. Kerry, Carl Levin,
Jack Reed, Bernard Sanders, Benjamin L. Cardin, Frank
R. Lautenberg, Ron Wyden, Tom Harkin, Amy Klobuchar,
Sherrod Brown, Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Christopher J.
Dodd, Patty Murray, Barbara Boxer.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived.
The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the motion to proceed to S. 3772, a bill to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to provide more effective remedies to victims of discrimination in the payment of wages on the basis of sex, and for other purposes, shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski).
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 58, nays 41, as follows:
YEAS--58
AkakaBaucusBayhBegichBennetBingamanBoxerBrown (OH)BurrisCantwellCardinCarperCaseyConradCoonsDoddDorganDurbinFeingoldFeinsteinFrankenGillibrandHaganHarkinInouyeJohnsonKerryKlobucharKohlLandrieuLautenbergLeahyLevinLiebermanLincolnManchinMcCaskillMenendezMerkleyMikulskiMurrayNelson (FL)PryorReedReidRockefellerSandersSchumerShaheenSpecterStabenowTesterUdall (CO)Udall (NM)WarnerWebbWhitehouseWyden
NAYS--41
AlexanderBarrassoBennettBondBrown (MA)BrownbackBunningBurrChamblissCoburnCochranCollinsCorkerCornynCrapoDeMintEnsignEnziGrahamGrassleyGreggHatchHutchisonInhofeIsaksonJohannsKylLeMieuxLugarMcCainMcConnellNelson (NE)RischRobertsSessionsShelbySnoweThuneVitterVoinovichWicker
NOT VOTING--1
Murkowski
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 58, the nays are 41. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted in the affirmative, the motion is rejected.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am very disappointed that the Paycheck Fairness Act was filibustered today.
The Paycheck Fairness Act passed the House on January 9, 2009, by a vote of 256-163 and Senate passage is long overdue.
This critical legislation will strengthen the Equal Pay Act and close the loopholes that have allowed employers to avoid responsibility for discriminatory pay.
Although the wage gap between men and women has narrowed since the passage of the landmark Equal Pay Act in 1963, gender-based wage discrimination remains a problem for women in the workforce.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, women only make 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man. The Institute of Women's Policy Research found that this wage disparity will cost women anywhere from $400,000 to $2 million over a lifetime in lost wages. Today an average college-
educated woman working full time earns as much as $15,000 less than a college-educated male. Working families lose $200 billion in income per year due to the wage gap between men and women.
Pay discrimination is hurting our middle class families and hurting our economy. Loopholes created by the courts and weak sanctions in the law have allowed many employers to avoid liability for engaging in gender-based pay discrimination.
That is why the Paycheck Fairness Act is so important.
The bill closes loopholes that have allowed employers to justify pay discrimination and prohibits employers from retaliating against employees who share salary information with their co-workers. It puts gender-based discrimination sanctions on equal footing with other forms of wage discrimination--such as race, disability or age--by allowing women to sue for compensatory and punitive damages. And it also requires the Department of Labor to enhance outreach and training efforts to work with employers in order to eliminate pay disparities.
One of the 111th Congress's most important achievements was passing the Lilly Ledbetter Equal Pay Restoration Act. That legislation, which is now law, ensures that women who have been the victims of pay discrimination get their day in court and can challenge employers that willingly pay them less for the same work.
The Equal Pay Restoration Act honors the legacy of Lilly Ledbetter, a supervisor at a Goodyear Tire Plant in Alabama, who after 19 years of service discovered she had earned 20 to 40 percent less than her male counterparts for doing the exact same job.
Today we had another important opportunity to honor the legacy of women like Lilly Ledbetter by passing this legislation.
But instead of standing up for equal economic opportunity for women, Republicans said no, and filibustered this important bill.
I am very disappointed by this outcome, but I want my colleagues to know that we will not give up this fight.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I rise today to express my disappointment in the failure of the Senate to invoke cloture on the Paycheck Fairness Act. After our triumph 2 years ago in advancing gender equality through the Lilly Ledbetter Act, the first piece of legislation signed by President Obama, the Paycheck Fairness Act would have been another step towards ending gender discrimination in the workplace.
Four decades after the Equal Pay Act was signed into law, women still earn only 77 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts. That equates to almost $11,000 less per year. In Rhode Island, women on average make approximately $36,500 where men make $49,000. For full-
time, college educated Rhode Island workers over 25 years old, women make an average of $55,000, while men average $70,000. This is simply unacceptable and shows that the remedies provided by current law are not adequate. Those who dismiss the disparity as a consequence of women's ``choice of work'' ignore the fact that the wage gap exists even in highly skilled industries such as aerospace engineering and network systems and data communications analysis.
The Paycheck Fairness Act would have required employers seeking to pay women less money than their male counterparts to justify the difference with legitimate business factors. It would also have allowed women to compare their wages to those of their colleagues in the same county, not just their own office, providing a larger and fairer pool of comparative examples. And the bill would have allowed women to receive punitive and compensatory damages equal to those in cases of race-based discrimination. We owe it to the hard-working women of the United States, especially in these difficult economic times, when every penny of every paycheck counts, to continue to fight for equality.
I commend the bill's original sponsor, Secretary Clinton, as well as Senator Dodd and Senator Mikulski, who have worked so hard to bring attention to the issue of gender discrimination in the workplace. I will continue to fight alongside my colleagues for the passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act.
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