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Statement of the Michigan National Organization for Women on Equal Pay Day 2008

Wage Inequity Must Be Addressed NOW

Forty-five years after the federal Equal Pay Act, Michigan women still earn less than 70 per cent of what Michigan men earn. The Michigan National Organization for Women calls on the Michigan Legislature to pass the pay equity bills (SB 417, HB 4625 – 4627, and HB 5136) that would give employers and employees the help they need to narrow and eventually eliminate the pay gap.

Equal Pay Day – Tuesday, April 22 is the national observance of Equal Pay Day, the symbolic point in the new year that a woman must work in order to earn the wages paid to a man in the previous year. Because women on average earn less, they must work longer for the same pay.

Wage Ratio - Nationally, women’s average wage is 77 per cent of men’s average wage according to the U.S. Department of Labor. For women of color, the wage gap is even greater. Without action, it will take nearly 50 years for women to gain wage equality. In Michigan, women’s median, full-time wage is 69.8 per cent of men’s wages. Michigan ranks 47th among all states with regard to pay equity according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (www.iwpr.org).

Women’s Top Issue - Pay equity consistently ranks as a top workplace concern that women want addressed by their elected officials (www.pay-equity.org).

Why the Wage Gap - Economists and social science researchers have determined that the wage gap is the result of a variety of forms of sex stereotyping and sex segregation. These include: (1) steering girls to certain limited education and vocation choices; (2) discrimination in the workplace, including discrimination in hiring, promotion and pay setting; (3) occupational segregation and steering by employers; (4) bias against mothers and care-takers in leave and attendance policies; and (5) undervaluing women workers in pink-collar jobs. The proposed legislation only attempts to address one cause of wage disparity: that of compensating employees unequally based on irrelevant factors like sex and race, when the work is of comparable value if evaluated for skill, effort, responsibility, working conditions and training required.

Pink-Collar Jobs - In pay equity studies, it is generally accepted that a gender-dominated occupation is one in which 70% of one sex hold jobs in the occupation. In 2000, two-thirds of all U.S. working women were still crowded into twenty-one of the largest 500 occupational categories. These female-dominated occupations are fairly consistently paid less than male-dominated or mixed occupations. Thus janitors are paid more than nurses’ aides, parking lot attendants are paid more than child care workers, construction laborers are paid more than bookkeepers and cashiers.

Occupational Segregation - One way some women have responded to wage inequities after Title IX banned sex discrimination in education has been to choose male-dominated, highly paid occupations such as engineering, skilled trades, medicine, law, accounting, and pharmacy, among many others. Indeed, over the last 30 years, there has been notable progress in integrating women in many non-traditional occupations. But most women workers are still in traditional pink-collar jobs where wages are lower than traditional male occupations or mixed occupations. The federal and state Equal Pay Act can be used by workers in the same or similar occupation in an establishment to challenge sex-based wage disparities. Only legislation to enhance the Michigan Civil Rights Act can address wage disparities in dissimilar occupations that require comparable skill, responsibility, effort, education or training, and working conditions.

How to Compare Dissimilar Jobs – Critics of pay equity assert that you just can’t compare jobs that are dissimilar. The metaphor “you can’t compare apples and oranges” is often used. Well, yes you can. Apples and oranges can be compared as to size, weight, number of calories, color, fiber content, vitamin content, etc. Similarly, job classification and pay studies use factor analysis to compare dissimilar jobs. Classifiers look at an accurate job description and then assign a point value for each factor. Pay should then be linked to the comparable value. A very simple unweighted job evaluation grid using a scale of 1 – 10 for each factor might look like the table below. Which job should pay more if the jobs are paid based on these factors alone?

	Child Care Worker	Parking Lot Attendant
Skill required	4	3
Responsibility required	6	4
Effort required	6	3
Education/training required	3	3
Working conditions	4	4
Total Points and Comparable Value	23	17

The Costs of the Pay Gap – Pay inequity has real consequences to women and their families (www.wageproject.org):

A high school graduate loses $700,000. A young woman graduates from high school this year and goes straight to work at $20,000 a year. Over her lifetime, she will make $700,000 less than the young man graduating with her.
A college graduate loses $1.2 million. A young woman graduates from college into a $30,000 starting salary. Over her lifetime, she will make $1.2 million less than the young man getting his diploma in line right behind her.
A professional school graduate loses $2 million. A young woman gets a degree in business, medicine, or law and graduates into a $70,000 starting salary (along with staggering student loan debts). Over her lifetime, she will make $2 million less than the young man at her side.

Working women do not want special treatment. They want fair treatment. With strengthened laws, working women and employers can achieve pay equity.

The National Organization for Women (NOW) is the largest organization of feminist activists in the United States. For more information, contact Mary Pollock, Legislative Vice-President at 517-449-2386.

Funny Girls Comedy Show with headliner Toni Imhoff, Saturday April 26 2--8 at 7:30 pm. Cadillac Club, 1115 S. Washington Ave. Lansing, MI 517 853-1912 benefiting the MI Women's Historical Center and Hall of Fame to the Mich NOW site. Contact Sue Rumph at rumph@oakland.edu

Michigan NOW Supports Worker Protection Bills

Michigan NOW supports the following bills that were approved by the House Labor Committee on November 6, 2007 and awaiting action by the Michigan House of Representatives. Michigan NOW Members are urged to contact their House members in support of the bills:
- HB 4532 which would prohibit discrimination against an employee on the basis of legal conduct occurring during nonworking hours and not on the employer’s premises. We regard this as extending First Amendment protections of free speech and assembly to private sector employees, a long-needed protection. We have direct experience with employers discriminating against women’s rights activists. Lifestyle discrimination is also a problem where an applicant or employee may choose legal, off-duty hobbies, political activity, or personal conduct that is not favored by the employer. These victims need a remedy in law.
- HB 4887, which would prohibit the use of credit history in the hiring process except where it is a bona fide occupational requirement of a particular job or occupation. Our experience is that employers sometimes routinely do a credit check because the information is available rather than because credit history information is job-related and consistent with business necessity. This is an acute problem for displaced homemakers who may have no credit history at all.
- HB 4926, which would prohibit employment discrimination based on an individual's body type, degree of physical fitness, or other physical characteristic. Although the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act prohibits sex, height and weight discrimination and the Michigan Persons With Disabilities Civil Rights Act prohibits disability discrimination, appearance discrimination is still practiced by employers in our experience. It is a form of employment discrimination that particularly affects women. The phrase “Front Office Appearance” or FOA is a common term used by employers in judging whether clerical applicants are suitable for their decorative value to predominantly male executives or for public contact positions. Employers are sometimes screening applicants on what they perceive as eventual medical health care cost liability from visible physical characteristics.
- HB 4927, which would prohibit employment discrimination because of a known or believed illness or health condition of a member of an employee's family. Although the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits family association disability discrimination, it is our experience that employment structures are still designed for male heads of households with a non-working wife to care for children, disabled, and frail elderly. Accordingly, caretaker discrimination associated with the health care status of family members hits women harder than men at the workplace. Every time a woman of child-bearing age is interviewed for a job in Michigan, the potential employer is wondering what her birth control and child care arrangements are and if a woman has disabled children or eldercare responsibilities. Men of child bearing age or with living parents bear no such burden because the assumption is that he will not be primarily responsible for the care of children, parents, or disabled family members. Many men would choose to participate more in child care, disabled, and eldercare responsibilities if there were not such a stigma attached to it, and loss of pay and career opportunities. Having a legal remedy for these situations would help prevent employers from using information about family member’s illnesses to discriminate against applicants or employees.
In its endorsement letter to the House Labor Committee, Michigan NOW thanked members of the Committee and the bills’ sponsors and supporters for bringing to light some work place dilemmas and designing a remedy for them that particularly affect working women. Passing these bills would make Michigan a more attractive place to work than other states without such protection without burdening employers with undue cost. These are common-sense employee protections.
Mary Pollock
Legislative Vice-President