I’m hoping that every woman in America pays attention to the issue of pay equity this election.  You may know that a white woman earns only .76 for every dollar her male colleague makes; the numbers are even more dismal for women of color.

But you may not know that sometimes women get paid less than men to do the same job.  Yes, that’s discriminatory but sometimes the employer gets away with it.

Take the case of Lilly Ledbetter for example.  Ledbetter, an Alabama grandmother, worked at a Goodyear tire plant for 19 years, blazing a trail as a female supervisor. She found out that, despite commendations for her work, she had received smaller raises than had the male supervisors.  Ledbetter sued - and won but Goodyear appealed all the way to the Supreme Court.  The Court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that her claim fails because she had not filed it within a six month time frame from the time the initial discrimination began.  Hard to do, since she didn’t know that she was being discriminated against until years later.

In 2006, I had the privilege of speaking with Hillary Clinton on the topic of pay equity for women.

She was eloquent on the topic; truly committed to the notion that women should get equal pay for equal work.  Her senate website offers a pamphlet on the subject (guess who contribured the negotiaitng tips?)

Hillary is still committed to that notion; in her speech at the DNC, she contrasted the Democratic platform with that of John McCain, saying, “And in 2008, he still thinks it’s OK when women don’t earn equal pay for equal work.”

Barack Obama supports pay equity as well.  As he said when he accepted the Democratic nomination in Denver:

“And now is the time to keep the promise of equal pay for an equal day’s work, because I want my daughters to have exactly the same opportunities as your sons.”

Not only should we be paying attention to the candidate’s positions on the the issue of pay equity, we should be paying attention to the progress of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act that Republicans have stalled in Congress (see the National Women’s Law Center website for the latest attack and contact your representatives to stop it).  That legislation would fix the outcome of the Supreme Court decision described above - restoring reason and interjecting a strong dose of reality to a situation that affects every working woman in America.

TAGS: candidates, Equal pay, income disparity, issues, negotiating pay