Union membership is key to improving wages. Collective bargaining is a system that works for women. Pay inequity is a kitchen table issue, Alexis Herman, the U.S. secretary of labor, believes. Equal pay is essential to attracting good workers and keeping America competitive in this global economy. America s 63 million working women represent nearly half of the country s workforce, but account for 66 percent of minimum wage workers.
Women also predominate in part-time jobs.
Moreover, part-time workers seldom receive benefits, such as health care or a pension, and are far less likely to belong to a union. Thirty-five years after President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act to prohibit pay disparities between men and women performing work requiring similar skill, effort and responsibilities, the pay differential has narrowed by about 40 percent, or 16 cents per dollar earned. That means the pay gap has closed by less than half a penny per year over the last 35 years. At the current rate, it will take until the year 2038 for women to reach parity in wages, NCPE says. In January President Bill Clinton announced a new initiative to ensure that equal pay for equal work becomes reality sooner.