Womenstake, NWLC's Blog

It’s been fifty years since the Equal Pay Act of 1963 made clear that women should receive equal pay for equal work, but women are still paid less than men in nearly every occupation.

And because employee salaries are often kept secret, it is difficult for women to find out when they are being paid less than their male colleagues, and therefore difficult to challenge pay discrepancies. In fact, over 61 percent of private-sector employees report that discussing wages is either prohibited or discouraged by their employers. Employer policies and practices that prevent workers from discussing their pay mean that a woman worker could be paid less year after year than the man across the hall doing her same job and never know it.

One week ago today, New Jersey took a huge step toward solving this problem when Chris Christie signed into law a bill prohibiting retaliation against employees who disclose salary information for the purpose of investigating whether pay decisions are being made unfairly. Effective immediately, the new law prohibits employer retaliation against employees for discussing information such as job title, occupational category, rate of compensation, and employee benefits.

For years, I’ve been enamored of the image of “Rosie the Riveter” – maybe it’s that we’re both redheads, but more likely it’s because she symbolize the breaking down of gender barriers, and new access for women to traditionally-male, higher-paying jobs.

That process of breaking down gender barriers is still very much in progress. Last week, the EEOC filed a lawsuit against Vamco Sheet Metals, Inc., a company that manufactures and installs sheet metal in New York. The lawsuit alleges that all of the women working on Vamco’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice construction project were fired for “pretextual reasons” – in other words, for fabricated or trumped-up charges designed to hide discriminatory sexist motive. And while Vamco has finished its work on this particular project, the EEOC is hoping to protect women who want to work on Vamco’s construction sites in the future with an injunction.

Here’s a little story about an inspiring group of workers to help jumpstart your week after the long Labor Day weekend.

Last week I spoke with folks from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) – an awe-inspiring group making extraordinary progress on behalf of tomato pickers in Florida. Here is what I learned:

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) have brought together 11 of the major food retailers that buy tomatoes to agree that they will only buy from growers who sign a Fair Food Code of Conduct that includes complying with health & safety, wage and hour, sexual harassment and other labor and employment laws, and in many cases that they will adhere to standards beyond what the law requires. This put pressure on the growers to sign the Fair Food Agreement, and in 2010, 90% of Florida’s tomato growers joined the program. Participating tomato growers show a video to tomato pickers when they are hired that explains their rights under the agreement, and workers can call a 24-hour complaint hotline when their rights are violated!