Let’s Look at the Issues

Some people were shocked this week when NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer issued a study that showed that the average woman in the five boroughs earns only 82 cents for every dollar her male counterparts earn. And New York has it better than the rest of the country. Nationwide, women make only 77 cents on the dollar compared to men’s earnings. In other words, women have to work more than 15 months to earn what men earn in a year. They have to work 98 more days than a man, on average, to earn the same amount of money, and this fact was recognized this week on the 98th day of the year, April 8. It’s called Equal Pay Day.

President Obama recognized Equal Pay Day by issuing an executive order requiring contractors that do business with the federal government to pay men and women equally for the same work. It is not an insignificant directive. Millions of women will benefit from Obama’s executive order.  

That 21 cents on the dollar pay gap between men and women adds up over time—$11,607 a year for women working full-time—and that’s more than $440,000 over a lifetime! Bridging the annual difference would make a huge impact on the lives and families of millions of working women.

How bad is the pay gap in real dollars and cents? Well, for starters, a new study by the National Partnership for Women and Families finds that if the pay gap were eliminated, women who work in California could buy 59 more weeks of food per year. That’s not all. The study shows that Ohio’s working women could afford nine more months of mortgage and utilities payments, and working women in Georgia could afford 10 more months of rent.

The difference in pay between men and women creates other problems. Because women are paid less, they have less money to save for the future. Women, on the average, also receive smaller pensions than men. In fact in the last year this statistic was measured, women’s private-pension benefits were less than half those of men! Women, on the average, receive $3,000 a year in pension benefits, compared to $7,800 a year for men.

There’s more bad news. Considering the growing number of families in the U.S. where the head of the household is a woman, these statistics show that children are hurt just as much by the pay gap.

The statistics are even worse for women of color. African American women earn only 64 cents and Latinas earn only 54 cents for every dollar that white men earn for the same job!

When pay discrimination between women and men is classified by career, it shows how widespread and unfair the problem is. Women doctors earn about $500 less per week than male doctors. Women secretaries receive about $100 less per week than male clericals. The 95% of nurses who are women earn $30 less per week than the five percent of nurses who are men. Women lawyers earn nearly $300 less per week than male lawyers. Women accountants earn $200 a week less than men in the same job.

The same is true in the non-union hotels and restaurants, where pay discrimination is rampant. Room attendants, laundry workers, cleaners, food servers, bartenders and cashiers are all positions in non-union hotels and restaurants where women are paid less than men. These aren’t our statistics, they are statistics that were gathered by the U.S. Government. And they are clear proof that union membership makes a huge difference for women, as well as men.

There is other proof that union membership makes a huge difference for women, and it can be found right here in the Hotel Trades Council. As we have reported in Hotel Voice many times in the past, there was a long period of time when room attendants in our Union were paid less per week than their male counterparts who are called housemen. It took a long and difficult fight by our Union that included arbitrations, federal lawsuits, rallies and other steps, but it finally resulted in the equalization of wages between room attendants and housemen in 1990. The wages of room attendants and other women in the housekeeping departments were raised that year and room attendants have since been paid for every extra room they clean. For room attendants who were 25 years old in 1990 and who expect to work until retirement age, this battle the Union fought on their behalf will mean a difference of at least $50,000 in pay. But while we can all celebrate our own Union’s successful fight for equal pay, we must not forget that even today there are millions of non-union women in the United States who suffer pay discrimination every week. Especially now, when women are increasingly becoming the sole breadwinners for their families, pay equity is no longer just a matter of simple fairness, it is the key for many families to survive.