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“INTRODUCTION OF THE FAIR PAY ACT OF 2001” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Labor was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E531 on April 3, 2001.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
INTRODUCTION OF THE FAIR PAY ACT OF 2001
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HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON
of the district of columbia
in the house of representatives
Tuesday, April 3, 2001
Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today Senator Tom Harkin and I are introducing the Fair Pay Act of 2001, a bill that would require employers to pay equal wages to women and men performing equivalent work but not the same work in an effort to remedy the pay inequities that women continue to endure. We introduce this bill simultaneously in both Houses as an indication of the preeminent importance many American families attach to equal pay today.
A recent Labor Department study, requested by Senator Harkin and voted by Congress last term bolsters the goals of the Fair Pay Act
(FPA). The Labor Department studied wage trends among federal contractors. Its conclusions are far more important than the perhaps predictable finding that the gender gap for federal contractors is about the same as it is for U.S. employers as a whole. The most important Labor Department finding is that the major cause of the pay gap is the segregation of women into female-gender occupations. The Department makes the startling finding that, ``Since 1979, the contribution of occupational segregation to the pay gap has jumped from explaining 18 to 46 percent of the gap.'' This finding virtually demonstrates our Fair Pay Act claim that the only way to combat pay discrimination today is to attack directly the practice of paying women less because they are doing ``women's work.'' We cannot come to grips with the pay problems of the average American family without confronting the reality that the average woman works in an occupation that is 70 percent female, while the average man works in an occupation that is 29 percent female. Pay tracks gender.
Today, many more women have equivalent pay problems than traditional equal pay problems, thanks to the 1963 Equal Pay Act. Important as it is to update the EPA, it has been clear, at least since I chaired the EEOC in the Carter Administration, that the EPA needs major revision to cope with the stubborn pay problems that trap most women and their families. The Fair Pay Act accomplishes the necessary revision without tampering with the market system. A woman would file a discrimination claim but, as in all discrimination cases, she would have to prove that the reason for the gap between herself and a male co-worker doing equivalent work in the same workplace is discrimination and not other reasons, such as legitimate market factors. Gender, of course, is not a legitimate market factor.
The good news from the Labor Department study is that gender segregation has fallen since 1970 because women with greater opportunities have moved into traditionally male occupations. The bad news is that there is a limit to how much we want to encourage teachers, nurses, factory workers, librarians, and other indispensable workers to abandon these vital occupations in order to be paid a decent wage. The frightening flight of women from vital work and occupations has left children without teachers, hospitals without nurses, and communities and employers without other vital workers.
The Fair Pay Act recognizes that if men and women are doing comparable work, they should be paid a comparable wage. If a woman is an emergency services operator, a female-dominated profession, she should be paid no less than a fire dispatcher, a male-dominated profession, simply because each of these jobs has been dominated by one sex. If a woman is a social worker, a traditionally female occupation, she should not earn less than a probation officer, a traditionally male job, simply because of the gender associated with each of these jobs.
The FPA, like the Equal Pay Act (EPA), will not tamper with the market system. As with the EPA, the burden will be on the plaintiff to prove discrimination. She must show that the reason for the disparity is sex or race discrimination, not legitimate market factors.
As women's employment has become an increasingly significant factor in the real dollar income of American families, fair pay between the sexes has escalated in importance. There are remaining Equal Pay Act problems in our society, but the greatest barrier to pay fairness for women and their families today is a line drawn in the workplace between men and women doing work of comparable value. I ask for your support of the Fair Pay Act to pay women what they are worth so that their families may get what they need and deserve.
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