Photos by Susan Zachem

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) addresses a Capitol Hill rally on Equal Pay Day. Standing behind her from right are Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), and former Wal-Mart employee Brenda Houle.

Sidebar: Wage gap facts and figures

With women still earning only about three-quarters of what men earn, lawmakers marked Equal Pay day on April 19 by reintroducing two bills in Congress that would address many of the problems that cause women workers to receive lower pay.

Union members joined U.S. legislators and women's groups at a Capitol Hill rally to talk about pay inequality and the proposed legislation. The rally was sponsored by the National Committee on Pay Equity, a coalition of labor, civil rights, women's, and allied organizations.

The proposed bills are the Paycheck Fairness Act, introduced in the Senate by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and in the House by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), and the Fair Pay Act of 2005, introduced by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.).

Brenda Houle, a former employee at Wal-Mart in Pennsylvania, drove home the reality for many women who fall victim to gender discrimination in the workplace.

Houle said she worked for Wal-Mart for five years and was consistently cited for her performance record. She was asked to manage various departments in the store and to train employees in other stores.

But when it came time to be promoted into a management training program, she was told she was not "ready." Meanwhile, she watched as men with less experience were paid more for the same job and then promoted into the management training track.

Houle said she resigned when her husband, whose health insurance she used, became gravely ill and she was unable to support her family on Wal-Mart wages.

"My story isn't unusual or extreme," Houle said. That is why she joined thousands of other employees in filing a class action discrimination suit against Wal-Mart, the largest company in the world.

Clinton said Brenda Houle is what the debate over pay discrimination "is really about: women who work hard and play by the rules and want to build a better life for their families. They just want to be treated fairly."

Working women have made progress against discrimination since the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Clinton said, but "we still have a lot of work to do to create a level playing field. We need to make sure that employers treat men and women equally in the workplace."

Clinton said it is unfortunate that the Bush administration "doesn't see things this way." She noted that the Bush administration stopped the collection of data on women workers and removed important information about the wage gap from the Labor Dept. website.

"They are trying to turn Washington into an evidence-free zone," Clinton charged. "The facts are inconvenient, so they don't collect the facts and they don't disseminate the facts. The Bush administration has taken a giant step backward for womankind."

To those critics who say women make the choice to take lower paying jobs, Clinton replied: "Nobody makes the choice when you are working in a department in Wal-Mart to get paid less than a male who is also working in a department in Wal-mart who gets paid more. . . . Let's not kid ourselves. . . . There is an abundance of evidence that women are not being treated fairly at all levels of pay. This is about women in every place along the employment trail in America not being treated fairly."

DeLauro said the wage gap–even among college-educated women–"sends a strong message that no matter how hard women work or whatever they achieve in terms of advancement in their own profession and degrees, they will not be compensated equitably."

"Closing the wage gap is about our values," DeLauro said. "It is about rewarding hard work, creating opportunity, and ending discrimination." If the Republican majority in Congress ever allows the two bills to reach the floor, "I defy anyone to vote against this legislation," she said.

DeLauro noted a pattern in the Bush administration to erode programs that help women–Title 9, family and medical leave, and vocational education, for example. "If that does not constitute an assault on women's economic freedom, then I don't what does," she said.

The current debate on Social Security also serves to point up pay discrimination against women that follows them into retirement, DeLauro said.

DeLauro noted that Social Security is the only retirement income for 29 percent of women. "The Bush proposal would replace the current progressive benefit structure with a private account based only on the worker's contributions to this account. So, privatization would be a double loss. In addition to earning less over your lifetime, women will now have a drastically reduced Social Security check to look forward to in retirement as well," she said."

Harkin said sometimes discrimination is blatant, like forcing people to the back of a bus. "Sometimes discrimination is silent–like paying whole classes of people different pay for work that is comparable to work that men do."

"This is hurting American families," Harkin said. "In nearly 10 million American households, the mother is the only bread winner. These women struggle to pay the rent or make mortgage payments, buy the groceries, cover the medical bills, and save for a child's education. But they face systemic pay discrimination. That's what the Fair Pay Act is all about. It's about equal pay for jobs that are comparable in skill, education, and working conditions."

"It is unconscionable that in the 21^st century we have categories of jobs that are 'women's jobs.' And what do we do? We undervalue those and pay women less for doing that work, and yet it's work that is absolutely necessary for the full functioning of our capitalist system."

Norton continued the point. "There is no reason for a female emergency service operator to be paid less than a fire inspector. There is no reason today why a social worker should be paid less than a probation officer. This is determined by the gender associated with the job–not with the skill and responsibility associated with the job," she said.

Norton said fair pay legislation is hardly unprecedented. She noted that some 26 states already have revised pay rates for female government workers to achieve pay equity for librarians, teachers and other traditionally female-dominated occupations.

The Paycheck Fairness Act would:

• Prohibit employers from retaliating against employees who share salary information with co-workers.
• Allow women to sue for punitive damages when their rights under the Equal Pay Act are violated.
• Require the Labor Dept. to continue collecting and disseminating critical information about women workers.
• Strengthen enforcement of Equal Pay laws among federal contractors.
• Create a training program to help women strengthen their negotiation skills.
• Require the Labor Dept. to enhance outreach and training efforts to work with employers to eliminate pay disparities.

The Fair Pay Act of 2005 would:

• Amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to prohibit discrimination in the payment of wages on the basis of sex, race, or national origin.
• Require employers to provide equal pay for jobs that are comparable in skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions. The law would prohibit companies from reducing other employees' wages to achieve pay equity.
• Require public disclosure of employer job categories and their pay scales, without requiring specific information on individual employees.
• Allow payment of different wages under a seniority system, merit system, or system that measures earnings by quantity or quality of production.
• Allow employees who allege discrimination in wage-setting based on sex, race or national origin to either file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or in court.

At a rally for equal pay, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) urges support for legislation that would help to boost pay in traditionally female-dominated occupations. At right is House Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.).

Wage gap facts and figures

A 2004 study by the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWR), which was based on data from the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, found that full-time working women earn about 76 cents for each dollar men earn. African American women earn only 71 cents and Latinas 59 cents for every dollar that men earn. According to a study by the AFL-CIO and the IWR, working families lose $200 billion in income each year to this pay gap–an average loss of more than $4,000 per family. The AFL-CIO also said the 24 cents-on-the-dollar that women are losing adds up to about $455,000 over a lifetime for the average 25-year-old working woman. A study by the American Association of University Women (AAUW) found that wage discrimination exists at all levels of education and experience. The number of women with bachelors and advanced degrees now surpasses the number of men. However, the median wages of female college graduates were $17,600 less than those of male graduates, the AAUW found. The AAUW study found that women gain only about 30 cents per hour for five additional years of work experience, compared with $1.20 for white men. The AAUW study findings contradict critics of equal pay who claim that women earn less because they drop out of the workforce to care for children. The study found that 61 percent of women with children under the age of two and 78 percent of mothers with school-age children remain in the workforce. The AAUW said time spent out of the workforce is not enough to account for the persistent wage gap that women experience. The lifetime gap in earnings adds up to penalties in retirement, too. According to the AFL-CIO, half of all women with income from a pension in 2002 received less than $5,600 per year, compared with $10,340 per year for men. Since Social Security contributions and benefits are based on earnings, women also receive lower Social Security benefits.