US District Court Orders Compensation Information

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has ruled that United Space Alliance LLC must supply the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs with compensation information requested for a review of the company's Cape Canaveral, Fla., facility. The ruling upholds a Feb. 28 decision by the department's Office of Administrative Law Judges.

"Workplace discrimination is not universal, but it is far too common — and the people who suffer most are the American workers," said OFCCP Director Patricia A. Shiu. "At OFCCP, we are charged with identifying which federal contractors discriminate in their hiring and pay practices, and which are abiding by the law. We cannot serve our mission to protect workers if companies refuse to give us access to the records they promised to keep and share with us when they signed their contracts."

Bloomington League of Women Voters Pay Equity Reference Materials

Hello to attendees of the talk Patty Tanji gave on Nov. 1, 2011. As promised here are the links and documents referenced.

1. For the StarTribune Minneapolis Public School Article and the Pay Equity Coalition of Minnesota’s response:

http://womenpayequity.blogspot.com/2011/11/markets-pay-rates-are-not-system-of.html

2. The St. Louis Fed’s article regarding a dip in the 2nd quarter wage gap numbers with reasons for the wage gap. We caution the use of the word ‘choice’ in terms of employment. Women choose to be nurses, teachers, administrators rather than executives and engineers. Yes….to a certain extent. I often call this rationale for paying women less than men the ‘let them be plumbers’ argument.

http://stlouisfed.org/publications/re/articles/?id=2160&utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=SM&utm_campaign=Facebook#1

3. Stereotypes: Excerpts from Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink can be found by clicking here

4. Catalyst research on the gender wage gap from Current Population Survey 2009 can be found by clicking here

5. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Women’s Earnings by Industry 2009 is here.

Thanks everyone! Email me at ptanji@aol.com if you want a paper copy of any of these reports mailed to you the traditional method.

In gratitude,

Patty

Markets Pay Rates Are Not a System of Values or Worth

The Minneapolis School Board had a $165,000 compensation study done recently that has proven to be controversial.  The results of the study indicated that some of the good folks (teachers were excluded) in the Minneapolis school district like clerical and food service (mostly women) were being paid 'over market rates' while others were being paid 'under market rates'. The October 27, 2011 Star Tribune article is here: 

http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/132755748.html

Here's the Pay Equity Coalition of Minnesota's response:

The whole point of the pay equity law was to challenge the notion that pay should be set "according to the market" - which really just means paying what everybody else pays, but is far from scientific or objective and invariably incorporates historic bias against all marginalized groups.