Lily Ledbetter MJS Op-Ed on Walker’s Denial of Working Women’s Rights

Wisconsin’s working women deserve fairness

By Lilly Ledbetter Milwaukee Journal Sentinel May 22, 2012

When Wisconsin passed the Equal Pay Enforcement Act in 2009, it completed a 20-year fight to strengthen the state’s equal pay law. The act finally gave women in the workplace the right to hold employers accountable for discrimination in Wisconsin.

On April 6, Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled Legislature quietly voted to repeal the Equal Pay Enforcement Act. With the stroke of a pen, Gov. Scott Walker took away 20 years of hard work that ensured our daughters and granddaughters equal rights in the workplace. It’s this type of belief system that created the divisiveness we’ve seen all too often recently.

Walker has launched a civil war on Wisconsin’s middle-class men and women. From ending years of gender equality enforcement to record job losses, Wisconsin’s working families are under attack. We need a governor who will bring all parties together and find solutions to return rights to women and put Wisconsinites back to work.

Republicans know that the public doesn’t agree with their views, so some have turned to misconstruing the facts. The governor and his friends in the state Senate want us to believe that there is no problem, that the pay gap exists only because women choose lower-paying jobs, that the law didn’t work and that remedies exist for victims of pay discrimination. But the truth is, the facts show otherwise.

According to the National Partnership on Women and Families, women in Wisconsin on average earn $10,033 less annually than male workers, amounting to over $8 billion in lost wages for Wisconsin’s working women and their families each year. This means that women make just 75 cents for every $1 a man makes for the same work. This isn’t just an issue for women; it’s an issue for families.

If the wage gap were closed, and Walker actually listened to the people he represents, Wisconsin families would have enough money to buy 91 more weeks of food or over 2,500 gallons of gas. What would your family do with $10,000 more in income each year? Pay off burdensome debts? Save for your children’s future? Invest in your local economy?

On the national level, the first bill that President Barack Obama signed into law was the Fair Pay Act in 2009. I couldn’t be prouder that this legislation bears my name, as I personally have lived the challenge still facing far too many women in the workplace. Wisconsin’s Equal Pay Enforcement Act was legislation similar to that federal law.

Today, Wisconsin is a better place to live, work and raise a family due to this federal legislation, but Walker’s war on women is a direct assault on that fairness. We should stand tall for all of our mothers, sisters, daughters and granddaughters and work to restore that fairness.

Lilly Ledbetter, a 20-year employee of Goodyear Tire, was the plaintiff in Ledbetter vs. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.

 

Scott Walker Wages War on Women

Amanda Terkel

Scott Walker Quietly Repeals Wisconsin Equal Pay Law

Huffington Post                 Posted: 04/ 6/2012 / Updated: 04/ 6/2012

Follow:

 Scott Walker,  Video,  Women’s Rights, Equal Pay, Scott Walker Equal Pay, Scott Walker Wisconsin, Wisconsin Equal Pay, Wisconsin Pay Equity, Marlo’s Slideshows, Politics News

WASHINGTON — A Wisconsin law that made it easier for victims of wage discrimination to have their day in court was repealed on Thursday, after Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) quietly signed the bill.

The 2009 Equal Pay Enforcement Act was meant to deter employers from discriminating against certain groups by giving workers more avenues via which to press charges. Among other provisions, it allows individuals to plead their cases in the less costly, more accessible state circuit court system, rather than just in federal court.

In November, the state Senate approved SB 202, which rolled back this provision. On February, the Assembly did the same. Both were party-line votes in Republican-controlled chambers.

SB 202 was sent to Walker on March 29. He had, according to the state constitution, six days to act on the bill. The deadline was 5:00 p.m. on Thursday. The governor quietly signed the bill into law on Thursday, according to the Legislative Reference Bureau, and it is now called Act 219.

Walker’s office did not return repeated requests for comment.

State Sen. Dave Hansen (D-Green Bay) and Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee), the authors of the Equal Pay Enforcement Act, criticized Walker on Thursday for not informing the public of his actions on SB 202.

“We are finally starting to see progress here in Wisconsin, yet like their counterparts across the country, Legislative Republicans want to turn back the clock on women’s rights in the workplace,” said Hansen.

Women earn 77 cents for every dollar that men make. In Wisconsin, it’s 75 cents, according to the Wisconsin Alliance for Women’s Health (WAWH), which also estimates that families in the state “lose more than $4,000 per year due to unequal pay.”

Business associations lobbied in support of SB 202, according to the state’s Government Accountability Board. Groups like Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, and the Wisconsin Restaurant Association all backed a repeal.

Sara Finger, executive director of WAWH, said that the repeal was a “demoralizing attack on women’s rights, health, and wellbeing.”

“Economic security is a women’s health issue,” she said. “The salary women are paid directly affects the type and frequency of health care services they are able to access. At a time when women’s health services are becoming more expensive and harder to obtain, financial stability is essential to maintain steady access.”

Walker is facing a recall election in June. The two frontrunners on the Democratic side who are competing to unseat him, former Dane County executive Kathleen Falk and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, sharply criticized the governor for allowing the repeal bill to become law.

Falk said Walker has “turned back the clock for women across Wisconsin.”

“As a woman and as a mother who worked full-time while raising my son, I know first-hand how important pay equity and health care are to women across Wisconsin,” she said in a statement to The Huffington Post.

A spokesman for Barrett’s campaign said that Walker’s “ideological civil war includes a war on women, and repeal today of this protection against pay discrimination is a major step backwards for Wisconsin values and basic fairness.”

“Tom Barrett knows equal pay for equal work is essential, and failing to stand up for Wisconsin women in the workplace is yet another reason he [Walker] must be defeated this summer,” he said.

UPDATE: 2:17 p.m. — The Plum Line reports that President Barack Obama’s campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith responded to Walker’s repeal, calling on former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, to take a position on the issue.

“As he campaigned across Wisconsin, Mitt Romney repeatedly praised Governor Scott Walker’s leadership, calling him a ‘hero’ and ‘a man of courage,’” she said. “But with his signing yesterday of a bill make it harder for women to enforce in court their right to equal pay, Walker showed how far Republicans are willing to go to undermine not only women’s health care, but also their economic security. Does Romney think women should have ability to take their bosses to court to get the same pay as their male coworkers? Or does he stand with Governor Walker against this?”