Wal-Mart suit: pay disparity

Recently, a district court judge in San Francisco announced that a sex discrimination case against Wal-Mart will be heard as a class action lawsuit – paving the way for the largest civil rights class action suits in history and rocketing the issue of unequal pay for women into the news and into our daily lives.

The fact is, the greatest predictor of your wages is your gender. In Maine, a woman earns 76 cents for each dollar that a man working full-time earns. Women of color fare even worse. Wage disparity is not just a Wal-Mart problem; it is an issue throughout our communities. The solution is pay equity.

Pay equity is the answer to two problems that women in the work force face. First, women – as claimed by those filing against Wal-Mart – are paid less than male workers who hold the same job. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 require employers to give men and women the same pay for doing the same job.

But the problem goes much deeper. Researchers note that wage disparities exist, in part, because women have historically spent less time in the work force then their male counterparts, or have elected to work part-time or created flexible arrangements in order to provide care giving to children or adult family members. But these facts tell only part of the story. Not only do women get paid less for the same work; but there are also certain types of positions-so called pink collar jobs-that have historically been undervalued and underpaid simply because they are largely populated by women.

It’s not hard to recall what those positions are: nurses, medical assistants, sales clerks, K-12 educators, food service workers are all predominately women. Think about it; certainly the value of the work done by a teller is equal to that done by a shipping clerk, but the tellers, mainly women, are paid less. These classifications of jobs bring wages down throughout the sector – and men who work in those jobs suffer too.

Maine is fortunate to have a landmark law to help put an end to this type of pay disparity. Broader than the federal law, it requires that men and women performing jobs of comparable skill, effort and responsibility within the same establishment receive equal pay. It calls upon all employers to consider their assumptions when determining pay for job classes, and to assess whether pay is unequal between comparable jobs.

Pay disparity and wage discrimination is unfair and contributes to the disproportionately high poverty among women and children in Maine. Yet, achieving pay equity is not just a woman’s issue, it’s a family issue. When women are paid less than men in the same or comparable jobs it deprives them and their family of much needed income. If women are not paid fairly, the whole family suffers. A woman being paid 76 cents for each dollar a man is paid translates to a woman being paid for only three weeks out of every month. Is your family missing a paycheck every month?

Further, pay equity is a business issue. It just makes good business sense. Nearly 60 percent of women in Maine work. Recruiting and retaining female employees is not a luxury for Maine business – pay equity is essential to Maine businesses to attract and retain quality workers.

Finally, women deserve to be paid fairly for the work they do. Working women pay the same as men for goods and services. No business sells merchandise to women at a 24 percent discount of what men pay.

The good news is that the laws exist to protect women workers. The bad news is – women must take the first step to bring issues of discrimination to light. Employers have an additional responsibility to examine their pay scales in advance of a complaint, and can do so with guidance from the Department of Labor. If you are a woman who feels that you have been paid unfairly and want to know your rights, you can contact the Maine Women’s Lobby or the Bureau of Labor Standards at Maine’s Department of Labor.

Working women in Maine continue to say that pay is one of their biggest workplace concerns and that they are not being paid fairly for their work. No greater investment in Maine’s future can be made than valuing all workers equally, regardless of gender or race. Pay equity benefits Maine families and Maine businesses.

Sarah Standiford is director of the Maine Women’s Lobby, a nonprofit membership organization advocating for increasing opportunities for Maine women and girls. The Maine Women’s Lobby successfully advocated for enforcement of Maine’s Equal Pay Law.