When Lilly Ledbetter, equal pay pioneer and activist, spoke at WVU Tuesday night about her struggles with Goodyear, she said, “I wasn’t asking a favor. This is what I was entitled to and had earned it.”
After 19 years at Goodyear under a policy that prohibited employees from discussing their pay, Ledbetter received a note saying that among four co-equal managers — three men and her — she was paid 40% less than her male counterparts for the exact same job. Her long journey eventually ended at the U.S. Supreme Court, where she lost on a technicality in 2007. (She missed the 180-day deadline to file her complaint.)
The wage gap hasn’t improved much since then. In 2017 (the most recent data available), women made 20% less than men nationally, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In other words, for every $1 a man made, a woman only made 80 cents. The gap widened even more when race was taken into account.
In West Virginia, those numbers are even worse. Looking at 2017 data, women in the Mountain State working full-time earned 26% less than men, or 74 cents for every $1 a man made — a loss of over $12,000 a year — according to an analysis done by the National Partnership for Women & Families.
Our Legislature had the opportunity to take a step toward rectifying this situation and chose not to do so.
No fewer than five bills were introduced that would have made it unlawful for companies to prohibit employees from discussing their wages and benefits with each other and would limit employers’ ability to inquire about an employee’s salary history.
All five never made it out of their committees. Two of the three House bills, all named for Katherine Johnson, were introduced by Del. Barbara Fleischauer, D-Monongalia. Neither went anywhere. A third House bill, this one introduced by Republican Del. Erikka Storch, at least got a roll call. But the House moved to table the motion to discharge the bill from committee (effectively killing it). All Republican delegates except one voted to table the discharge. Even Storch voted to kill her own bill.
In the Senate, two bills — Creating the Katherine Johnson Fair Pay Act of 2020 (SB 62) and Relating to Pay Transparency Act of 2020 (SB 696) — legislating the same thing also failed. SB 696 never made it out of committee, and a motion to discharge SB 62 from committee was rejected. In that rejection, all Republican senators and two Democrats (both men) voted to kill the bill.
Legislation like this is important because if employees aren’t permitted to discuss their pay, they’ll never figure out that some people — usually women — are making less money doing the same job. And if they never know about the discrepancy, they’ll never ask for it to be rectified, and companies can continue paying women less with no one the wiser. Like Ledbetter did for 19 years until someone slipped her that note.
During the Q&A Tuesday, Ledbetter was asked how to keep the fight for equal pay moving forward. Her response: Elect people who know how to work across the aisle and not fester in partisan divides.
West Virginia women see who supports them and who doesn’t. And they’ll remember when it comes time to cast their ballots.
Morgantown Area News
'Saturday, September 7, 2024'
