Equal Pay Day 2015

Today is Equal Pay Day.  Why, you might ask, an Equal Pay Day?

As we mark Equal Pay Day on April 14, it's important to recognize that gender discrimination in pay isn't just a workplace issue. When women make only 78 cents to every dollar men earn, it has a lasting impact over a woman's lifetime. It's easy to see why women don't have the same kinds of savings to retire on. In fact, women are almost twice as likely as men to retire into poverty.

We need to remember that the effects of women earning less than men in the workplace go beyond a reduced paycheck -- there are also significant impacts on retirement security.

A few officials across the country are already beginning to lead on this issue, and we'll need more to follow. Last year in Minnesota, the [Democratic] governor signed the Women's Economic Security Act into law, which is designed to ensure that women and men are paid equally for their work and receive the same workplace protections, including in retirement. The law requires the state to explore retirement savings options for employees who don't have them. 

While there are isolated efforts like Minnesota's, two-thirds of state governments are Republican- controlled, so a more comprehensive, national approach is clearly needed.  Given attempts, for example, by right-wingers to whittle away pension funds and retirement protections as part of politically-motivated "budget balancing" schemes,  this needs to be addressed as a major issue by the Democratic Party.  As with everything else, "fairness" is a difficult concept for sociopath Republicans to grasp, so we're talking about an evolution, starting with the 2016 elections.

BONUS:  Here's where candidates stand on equal pay.

Quotes Of The Day

-- Former President Bill Clinton was asked about comments by Sen. Lindsey "Hush My Huckleberries" Graham (R-Secessionland) saying Republicans would make Hillary Clinton "own Obamacare" if she's elected President.  Having been served up this fat one by Huckleberries, President Clinton swung for the fences:

“This bill [Obamacare] has already produced a lot of good results,” Clinton explained. “Look, they are desperate for this bill to fail. Because, if it’s not a failure, everything they’ve been telling us since 1980, ‘big government’s bad,’ is wrong.” 

He continued, “They so badly want it to fail. Can you remember a time in your lifetime when a major political party was sitting around just begging for America to fail? I don’t know what’s going to happen. I would be shocked if it fails. I just think when all these dire predictions don’t come out, if they don’t, I believe that pretty soon, within the next several years, it will be like Medicare and Medicaid. It will be a normal part of our lives and people will be glad it’s there.”

(Reports are that Huckleberries is still icing his "berries," kept in a secret location known only to Sen. John "Walnuts" McCain.)

-- Actress Patricia Arquette made an impassioned plea for equal pay and equal rights for women in her speech accepting the Best Supporting Actress Oscar last night:

“To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation. We have fought for everybody else’s equal rights. It’s our time to have wage equality once for all. And equal rights for women in the United States of America.”

-- Also at the Oscars, singer/songwriter John Legend addressed the struggle that didn't end with Selma in his speech accepting the Best Original Song award:

“We know that the Voting Rights Act that they fought for 50 years ago is being compromised right now in this country today. We know that right now, the struggle for freedom and justice is real. We live in the most incarcerated country in the world. There are more black men under correctional control today then were under slavery in 1850. We are with you, we see you, we love you and march on,” he concluded.

-- Finally, Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone on Rudy "Noun, Verb, 9/11" Giuliani and love for America:

I feel sorry for Rudy that he can't love this country the way it is. I love America even with assholes like him living in it. In fact, I'm immensely proud of our assholes; I think America has the best assholes in the world. I defy the Belgians or the Japanese to produce something like a Donald Trump. If that makes me an exceptionalist, I plead guilty.

Love it all.

The Republican War On Women - Equal Pay Edition

Surprise, surprise!

As expected, Senate Republicans filibustered legislation on Monday aimed at helping women fight for equal pay in the workplace, a vote held by Democrats to attack the GOP ahead of the 2014 midterm elections. 

The vote was 52 for, 40 against, falling short of the 60 needed to defeat a filibuster. [snip] 

The Paycheck Fairness Act was introduced by Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), and would prohibit employers from retaliating against employees who talk to coworkers about their salaries. It would also require more data collection of employee salaries from businesses.

Senate Democrats can be expected to set up more of these pre-election "symbolic" votes to demonstrate just how far right the Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid Party has careened. Whether the message from this and other contrasting votes will sink in with enough voters over time to make a difference remains to be seen.  Certainly, in the Republican-gerrymandered House of Representatives, it may take up to a generation to restore a Democratic majority. But, as they say, the truth bears repeating.

The Republican War On Women - Peach State Primary Day Edition

As we note below,  today is primary day in many states, among them a hotbed of crazy - the State of Georgia.  Each candidate running for the Republican Senatorial nomination has made his or her* own contribution to the Republican War on Women.  However, one candidate stands alone in his personal bidness experience with the challenges women face in the working world:

With Republicans trying to avoid a repeat of 2012's Todd Akin disaster and retake the Senate, the Georgia GOP establishment was happy to see David Perdue, a self-funded businessman, leading in the polls ahead of Tuesday's Senate primary. Compared to gaffe machines such as Rep. Paul Broun, who has pushed personhood for zygotes, and Rep. Phil Gingrey, who defended Akin's "legitimate rape" comment, the former Dollar General CEO seemed unlikely to introduce fraught gender issues into the general election—where Michelle Nunn, the likely Democratic nominee, is polling well against the GOP field. 

But Perdue's record on women's issues—specifically, whether women are entitled to equal pay for equal work—is far from clean. In 2006, three years into Perdue's four-plus years as Dollar General's CEO, federal investigators at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that female store managers who worked for the company he ran "were discriminated against," and "generally were paid less than similarly situated male managers performing duties requiring equal skill, effort, and responsibility." A year later, separate from that investigation, thousands of female managers who were paid less than their male counterparts joined a class action suit against the company—which Dollar General eventually settled, paying the women more than $15 million.  (our emphasis)

* The one female candidate on the Republican side is Karen Handel, who burnished her credentials as a wingnut warrior when, as an official of the Susan G. Komen fund, she used her influence to defund grants to Planned Parenthood.  Following a firestorm, the nice lady was forced to resign in April 2012, hence her appearance in the Senate race, however briefly.

Today's Cartoon - Republican Female Voter Outreach Edition

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(Matt Davies, via gocomics.com)

Equal Pay Cartoons of the Day

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While President Obama signed an Executive Order this week on "National Equal Pay Day" that will make progress on the equal-pay-for-equal-work issue with respect to Federal contractors, the Republican Congress strongly opposed any national legislation that would give transparency to pay disparity on the basis of gender.  Their "War on Women" continues.

(cartoons:  top, Nick Anderson, bottom, Clay Bennett, via Gocomics.com)

Cartoon of the Day

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The right wing majority on the Supreme Court voted earlier to deny female employees of Walmart the right to sue in a class action suit that showed Walmart's gender discrimination in promotion and wages. Yet another reason to elect Dems in the future, so that appointments to the Court tip the balance back.