The state does not require pay equity for outside contractors, for example, the same way it does on affirmative action. As the nation’s ongoing gender pay gap shows, the public sector hasn’t dragged the private sector along, And, at least in lower-wage jobs, pay equity hasn’t ended most of the job segregation between men and women.
But supporters warn not to take its success for granted – because opponents are very aware of that success.
“I’m always very entertained by younger women having so little sense of what life was like before the women’s movement,” says Nina Rothchild, who was head of the Legislature’s Council on the Economic Status of Women, then commissioner of the Department of Employee Relations. “The triumphs of that time, I guess, are too long ago for people under the age of 50 to have been very aware of.”
As recently as 2012, legislators tried to eliminate pay equity requirements for local units of government. They again attempted to document compensation differences between state employees and their private-sector counterparts.
Mandatory salary comparisons like that can become a back-door way to eliminate pay equity, Rothchild says. “If you’re comparing salaries with the private sector, you’re going to compare them with a discriminatory system,” she argues. “You’re simply perpetuating it.”
“The biggest single reason some state salaries are out of sync with the market is that we have pay equity,” says Peter Benner, former executive director of AFSCME Council 6. “For the people AFSCME represents, a return to the market means undoing pay equity and a return to getting screwed.”
This article is adapted from the March-April 2013 edition of AFSCME Council 5’s Stepping Up magazine.
For more information
Attend the free Untold Stories program:
Equal Pay for Equal Work
Wednesday, April 24, 7 p.m.
Highland Park Library, Village View Room
1974 Ford Parkway, Saint Paul
Fifty years ago, the federal government passed the Equal Pay Act, requiring that women be paid the same as men if they’re doing the same job. Thirty years ago, Minnesota went further. The state implemented landmark legislation to erase the pay gap between men and women in the public sector. It succeeded! Our panel talks about how it happened, and why it hasn’t happened more often. Featuring Nina Rothchild, head of the state Department of Employee Relations when the law was implemented; Bonnie Watkins, of the Pay Equity Coalition of Minnesota; and Peter Benner, of AFSCME, which pushed the legislation, then made sure it worked.
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The state does not require pay equity for outside contractors, for example, the same way it does on affirmative action. As the nation’s ongoing gender pay gap shows, the public sector hasn’t dragged the private sector along, And, at least in lower-wage jobs, pay equity hasn’t ended most of the job segregation between men and women.
But supporters warn not to take its success for granted – because opponents are very aware of that success.
“I’m always very entertained by younger women having so little sense of what life was like before the women’s movement,” says Nina Rothchild, who was head of the Legislature’s Council on the Economic Status of Women, then commissioner of the Department of Employee Relations. “The triumphs of that time, I guess, are too long ago for people under the age of 50 to have been very aware of.”
As recently as 2012, legislators tried to eliminate pay equity requirements for local units of government. They again attempted to document compensation differences between state employees and their private-sector counterparts.
Mandatory salary comparisons like that can become a back-door way to eliminate pay equity, Rothchild says. “If you’re comparing salaries with the private sector, you’re going to compare them with a discriminatory system,” she argues. “You’re simply perpetuating it.”
“The biggest single reason some state salaries are out of sync with the market is that we have pay equity,” says Peter Benner, former executive director of AFSCME Council 6. “For the people AFSCME represents, a return to the market means undoing pay equity and a return to getting screwed.”
This article is adapted from the March-April 2013 edition of AFSCME Council 5’s Stepping Up magazine.
For more information
Attend the free Untold Stories program:
Equal Pay for Equal Work
Wednesday, April 24, 7 p.m.
Highland Park Library, Village View Room
1974 Ford Parkway, Saint Paul
Fifty years ago, the federal government passed the Equal Pay Act, requiring that women be paid the same as men if they’re doing the same job. Thirty years ago, Minnesota went further. The state implemented landmark legislation to erase the pay gap between men and women in the public sector. It succeeded! Our panel talks about how it happened, and why it hasn’t happened more often. Featuring Nina Rothchild, head of the state Department of Employee Relations when the law was implemented; Bonnie Watkins, of the Pay Equity Coalition of Minnesota; and Peter Benner, of AFSCME, which pushed the legislation, then made sure it worked.