Archive for the 'Sharyn Tejani' Category

Sharyn Tejani, Senior Policy Counsel

In 1963, the Equal Pay Act, which prohibits employers from paying women less than men for the same work, became law. A lot has changed in the workplace since then.  But the Equal Pay Act is still pretty much the same as it was 47 years ago.  That is a big part of the reason women working full time are still only paid 77 cents to a man’s dollar—and women of color are paid even less.  Because the Equal Pay Act hasn’t kept up with new civil rights laws or been updated to reflect new workplace realities or reverse harmful court rulings, the Act is hardly ever enforced.  That means employers can easily get away with paying different wages to women and men who are doing the same job. In fact, the law is so weak that employers often find it cheaper to discriminate than to pay fair wages.

Americans are fed up with this status quo. Last month, in a nationwide poll of registered voters, 84% said they supported “a new law that would provide women more tools to get fair pay in the workplace.” Participants were told that the “law will also make it harder for employers to justify paying different wages for the same work and ensure that businesses that break the law compensate women fairly.” 72% of respondents said they strongly supported such a law. For more information on the polling results, click here:

http://www.nationalpartnership.org/epd47.

That new law is the Paycheck Fairness Act, and we need it because it would make it harder for employers to hide pay discrimination, help train women and girls about salary negotiation, support government collection of critical wage data, and reward employers that have good pay practices. Particularly in these tough economic times, Congress needs to help working families by passing laws that help women get the equal pay they earn.

The House already passed the Paycheck Fairness Act with bipartisan support.  It has 40 co-sponsors in the Senate.  Let your Senator know it is time to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act now!

Sharyn Tejani, Senior Policy Counsel

Eight months of groceries.  That is what the wage gap is costing women and their families.  Don’t believe it? Do the math.

According to data just released from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, the weekly gap in earnings between men and women is $162 which translates into $8,424 per year.  The USDA estimates that a family of four that spends “liberally” on its groceries spends $264.10 per week.  Put those two together, and you have 32 weeks—eight months worth of groceries—that women and their families miss out on because of the gender wage gap.  Of course, if you use the “thrifty” family weekly grocery bill ($133.40), the number of weeks of groceries is even higher: more than a year’s worth.

What can be done? We can pass the Paycheck Fairness Act. It provides a comprehensive approach to stopping wage discrimination.

Among its many badly needed provisions, the Paycheck Fairness Act will give women information about pay discrimination.  Right now, many employers forbid their workers from talking about their wages.  This secrecy around wages works to the employer’s advantage.  If workers don’t know how much the person sitting next to them is being paid, they can’t uncover wage discrimination.  But with the Paycheck Fairness Act in place, workers would be able to talk about their salaries and learn their coworkers’ salaries without fearing employer retaliation.

In addition to giving us the tools to unearth wage discrimination, the Paycheck Fairness Act would modernize equal pay laws so that victims of gender wage discrimination are able to get the same types of damages that are available under civil rights statutes that protect against discrimination on the basis of race or national origin.

The House has already passed the Paycheck Fairness Act, and yesterday the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee held a hearing on equal pay that focused on the bill.  We need a vote by the full Senate soon. So let your Senator know that you support the Paycheck Fairness Act—and then start making your grocery list.

Sharyn Tejani

Every day, women’s rights and civil rights groups work to improve the laws that govern our lives. And several times each day, workers sign away their right to enforce those laws in court.

Workers, of course, have no choice — if they don’t sign, they won’t get the job or risk losing their job.

Despite this blatant imbalance of power, courts routinely enforce what workers sign, and workers who are sexually harassed, fired for their race, or refused a reasonable accommodation for their disability find out too late that they can’t go to court to vindicate their rights. Instead, they have to go through a secret arbitration process where the person making the decision relies on the fact that employers hire them to hear these types of cases, the federal rules of evidence may not apply, damages that are in the statute don’t have to be given, and any decision is kept secret.

But some workers have the courage to take this system public — and hopefully you have already heard the story of one of them: Jamie Leigh Jones.

In 2005, Jones, a former employee of Halliburton/KBR, was viciously assaulted, gang raped, and sexually harassed by co-workers while working for Halliburton in Iraq. After she reported the attack, Halliburton locked up Ms. Jones in a shipping container with an armed guard out front. She was only able to contact her family after convincing her guard to lend her his cell phone.

Her dad got in touch with a Republican Congressman who got her help. Upon her rescue from Iraq and her return to the States, Ms. Jones filed a lawsuit against Halliburton for the appalling harm she endured. Halliburton insisted that Ms. Jones submit her claims to forced arbitration, because when she started working for them, she had signed an agreement to not bring claims against the company in court.

Four years after the attack, the Fifth Circuit ruled that Ms. Jones’ sexual assault claims could proceed to court, but that her sexual harassment claims could be forced into arbitration. So only now, four years later, a court will hear part of Ms. Jones’ case. Here is the testimony she gave in front of a Senate committee this month.

Ms. Jones’ case has become well known thanks to her willingness to go public — and thanks to Senator Al Franken, who is working to make sure that the Department of Defense does not spend our tax payer dollars to support companies that make their workers sign this type of agreement. See him talking about the Amendment he introduced to stop this here.

Sixty-eight Senators — including all the Republican women — voted for it. (See how your Senator voted.)

Now we’re working to make sure that the Franken Amendment survives the negotiations between the House and the Senate as this legislation is reconciled, and that efforts to weaken it fail.

How can you help? Call your Representative and Senators at 202/224-3121 and tell them you support the Franken Amendment to the DOD Spending Bill because you want your tax money spent with companies that treat workers fairly. And educate yourself about the dangers of mandatory arbitration here.