Unions cited as one way to address issue
By Kelley Coures
Special to The Courier & Press
The year John F. Kennedy was elected president, 1960, women accounted for about 35 percent of paid workers in the U
Unions cited as one way to address issue
By Kelley Coures
Special to The Courier & Press
The year John F. Kennedy was elected president, 1960, women accounted for about 35 percent of paid workers in the U.S. (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics).
In 1963, when Congress passed the Equal Pay Act, those women in the workforce averaged 59.8 cents in earnings for every dollar earned by men. According to the Government Accounting Office (GAO) by 2010 (when 46 percent of workers were female) women overall were averaging 77 cents for that dollar, slow but significant progress. However, that number belies some additional margins: Black women earned only 61 cents and Latino women earned only 52 cents, lower than the total average in 1963. This wage disparity, called the "Earnings Gap" is costly to women, and their families, and local YWCA CEO Erika Taylor is hoping to help change the status quo.
YWCA organizations across Indiana are joining the national observance of "Equal Pay Day" Tuesday. At the local YWCA headquarters on Vine Street Downtown, will host Mayor Lloyd Winnecke as he proclaims the date "Equal Pay Day" at 2 p.m.
Taylor hopes that with the proclamation and focus on the wage gap, her organization and several others can begin to close the gap in Evansville. Taylor says she is partnering with the Southwestern Indiana Chamber of Commerce, Black Women's Task Force, the Junior League of Evansville, ANEW, the Human Relations Commission, and professional sororities Alpha Kappa Alpha and Delta Sigma Theta, to lobby local businesses, executives and others, to focus on wages of female workers to try and identify areas for improvement.
Taylor says she would like to see a local study, perhaps sponsored by the Chamber, enlisting the School of Business at the University of Southern Indiana to examine local wages and see how the Evansville area stacks up in comparison to the state of Indiana. No hard data is currently available, says Taylor, and that would be a solid beginning point in closing the gap for women workers.
According to that GAO study, more than $9 billion annually is lost to women workers in the state's wage gap with men. Quoting the study: "In Indiana, on average, a woman working full time earns $31,762 per year, while a man working full time is paid $43,631 per year. This creates a wage gap of $11,869 between men and women."
What are the reasons behind this gap?
The information provided by the YWCA says there are several reasons women earn less:
Secrecy — women and minorities are unaware they are being paid less, as wages are generally confidential information in most companies;
Women's jobs, or those identified as mainly held by women, pay less overall;
Stereotypes — the old belief that men have to earn more to support families is unraveled by the awareness that nearly 12 percent of all households in Indiana are headed by women (according to the 2000 census), and 22 percent of minority households have a female as the only wage/income recipient, causing further complications for Hoosier families.
Kathy Boyd, owner of Boyd Electric, says she has experienced inequality of pay first hand. Before her schooling to become an electrician, Boyd says, she worked as a press operator in a printing company.
"I was one of the best operators they had, and the only female, and I made less than the men around me," says Boyd. She never filed a complaint with any agency or governmental unit, she says, "Because then you lose your job."
Becoming a member of the electricians union, Boyd says, was the moment she discovered equal pay.
"Unions guarantee equal pay for members who do the same work regardless of gender, race or any category," says Boyd, "and that's why the Indiana Right to Work law is wrong. Unions are one way to close that wage gap."
Boyd was the winner of the 2012 Small Business award presented by the Chamber last month.
Sherrianne Standley, retired Vice President of the University of Southern Indiana, says she experienced wage discrimination early in her professional life.
"I entered the workforce in 1967 after graduating from college, and was hired into a profession very much dominated by men: public relations," she says. Standley says that sometime later, the director to whom she reported (and who earned twice her salary) was laid off due to economic conditions, and she was offered his job — at her then present salary. When she suggested she should be paid more for the additional responsibilities she would inherit, she was told "We can't pay you what we paid him, he had a family to support!"
Standley was more complimentary about her longtime employer, now the University of Southern Indiana. "USI has really been out in front in terms of equal pay. Ray Hoops (retired USI President) was "adamant" she says, "about equality for all employees doing the same work."
What are some solutions to the problem? Taylor points to the suggestions by the national YWCA materials she has distributed in anticipation of Equal Pay Day. The recommendations are:
1. Maintain affirmative action programs to be sure jobs are open to women and minor