Date: 2009-01-09
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Madam Speaker. I yield myself 3 minutes. Madam Speaker. Members of the House. in 1963. the Equal Pay Act was passed to end the discriminatory practices of paying men and women differently for performing the same job. The laws principle is that women and men should be paid based upon their merits and not on an employers prejudice. Before the Equal Pay Act. women in the workplace earned 59 cents on the dollar compared to their male counterparts. Things have gotten better since the passage of the act. but we still see that women earn only 78 cents for every dollar that is earned by a man doing the same job with the same responsibilities. It is also very disturbing that African American women earn only 66 cents on the dollar. and Hispanic women ear an astonishing 55 cents on the dollar compared to their male counterparts in the workplace. This wage disparity will cost women anywhere from $400.000 to $2 million over a lifetime in lost wages. and it will follow them right into retirement in the form of smaller pensions and reduced Social Security benefits. It will make their health care even more expensive. Today. this House will take a critical step forward to ensure that the Equal Pay Act lives up to its promise. Over 12 yearg ago. our colleague. ROSA DELAURO from Connecticut. introduced the Paycheck Fairness Act. In those 12 years. she was unable to get a hearing in. this Congress. But she has now received a hearing. and later today she Will receive passage of this legislation that will greatly strengthen the Equal Pay Act and close many of the loopholes that have allowed employers to avoid responsibility for discriminatory pay. Currently. an employer can refute a pay discrimination claim if he or she provides the difference of pay is based upon any factor other than gender. even factors unrelated to the job. That is just unacceptable. An excuse for equal pay that is not related to the job is no excuse at all. H.R. 12 will ensure that employers either provide equal pay for equal work. or provdde a real business justification for not doing so. They will have to show that any genderbased wage differential is jobrdlated. not based on or derived from genderbased differential and is consistent with business necessity. H.R. 12 will also prohibit employers from retaliating against employees who discuss their pay. Many employers have policies forbidding employees from talking about their pay. This was the case of Lilly Ledbetter. the subject of the previous legislation that we just considered here this morning. For years. Lilly Ledbetter was paid less than her male counterparts just because she was a woman. but she was unable to know that because she could not discuss her pay with any of the other supervisors. the people in the place of employment. That is wrong. They should be allowed to do that. Such policies silence workers and allow embloyers to hide discriminatory pay practices. Employees should feel free to discuss their pay. It is often the only way that they can discover discriminatory pay practice and seek to rectify them. The bill will also put genderbased discrimination sanctions on an equal footing with other forms of discrimination by allowing women to sue for punitive damages in addition to compensatory damages. just as business and workers may do under section 1981 for race and national origin discrimination. If we are serious about closing the gender pay gap. we must get serious about punishing those who would otherwise scoff at the weak sanctions under the current law. I -The Paycheck Fairness Act -will require the Department of Labor to continue collecting pay information based upon gender. It also creates a program designed to help strengthen the negotiation skills of girls and women. Any pay gap based on gender is unacceptable. especially during these tough economic times. Single women who are head of households are twice as likely to be in poverty as single men. For families. especially those working under or near the poverty line. equal pay for women will make a ignificant difference in their economic wellbeing. Allowing wage discrimination to continue will hold down women and their families while further harming the American economy. And. again. Id like to thank Congresswoman ROSA DELAURO for her passionate advocacy of this legislation and her introduction of this legislation. I reserve the balance of my time.