Why Obama Is Ending Pay Secrecy For Federal Contractors

[warrior1]

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/04/06/3423399/obama-secrecy-salary/%E2%80%8B/


President Obama will announce this week that he is directing all federal contractors to lift ‘gag rules’ that discourage or outright ban workers from discussing their salaries, the AP reported on Sunday. The move, which he will announce on April 8, is part of an effort to eliminate the pay gap between male and female employees who hold the same jobs or do the same work.

April 8 is 2014′s Pay Equity Day, which marks the number of extra days into 2014 that the average woman has to work to earn as much as her male counterpart did in 2013. Obama will also announce that he is directing all contractors to provide data on the pay of employees by race and gender.

Obama has long said that pay fairness by gender is one of his policy priorities, and these directives are consistent with his general approach of circumventing Congress where he can to make the changes for a fraction of the population that he’d like to see enacted in law for everyone.

While it looks, on first glance, logical to collect data on where discrimination is happening, though, pay secrecy may not immediately stick out as the most important issue for enacting fair pay. But the issue is actually a driving factor in women’s inability to earn as much as the men they work with.


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[mopinko]

1. i remember gloria steinem talking about this very issue.

well over 30 years ago. about how such laws were hurting women, and how she urged them to violate them. she said it was THE most important information for working women to share, and that it did, after all, belong to them.

sorry folks, it may not be eleventy level chess, but the guy is a wily fellow.