Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., in stumping for her own reelection and the Paycheck Fairness Act pending today, portrayed her Republican opponents as sexist based on their opposition to the legislation.
McCaskill argued that a vote against the Paycheck Fairness Act contributes to gender discrimination in corporations and prevents women from receiving promotions that they deserve. “All three of my opponents are pretty extreme,” McCaskill said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe while noting that the Republicans (in the midst of their primary campaign) oppose the bill. “Corporate governance is a huge issue here, too. We don’t have women on these corporate boards . . . It’s very hard to break through when you have attitudes of elected officials that equal pay for equal work is something that they can’t bother with.” She then added that it was “outrageous” that “these Republicans, and the ones I’m running against” can’t even support equal pay for women.
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McCaskill never acknowledged that one of her opponents is a woman, or that an opponent might have a reason for opposing the bill beyond mere sexism.
Sarah Steelman, one of the Republican candidates against McCaskill, criticized the Paycheck Fairness Act in a statement to the Kansas City Star. “President Obama and Majority Leader Reid have stated several times that the Lily Ledbetter Act (sic) equalized pay for Women in America, so it seems to me that this bill is just political posturing intended to deflect attention from the horrific employment numbers and faltering economy,” she said.
The 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1963 Equal Pay Act also ban gender-driven pay disparities. “I’ve been in the workplace for 30-plus years here, and the whole issue is there are systems in place for those issues of discrimination,” John Brunner, another Republican challenger to McCaskill, said to explain his opposition to the legislation. “I believe these issues are fully covered.”
But why not vote for the bill, no matter how redundant, rather than be on record opposing something as universally popular as pay equality for women? “The bill ought to be called the ‘Trial Lawyer Paycheck Act,’ since it is a recipe for a class-action boom,” The Wall Street Journal explained in its denunciation of the legislation. “The law automatically lists women as plaintiffs in class actions when lawyers sue employers, thereby requiring female employees to opt-out of litigation with which they don’t agree. Businesses would be treated as guilty until shown to be innocent, having to prove in court that their pay practices aren’t the result of workplace bias.”
Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., who completes the trio of McCaskill challengers, believes that the bill “is more government intrusion into the marketplace,” campaign spokesman Ryan Hite told the Kansas City Star.
“To the extent there remains a male-female wage gap, it is mostly a function of occupational and lifestyle choices,” The Wall Street Journal said, noting that “women have tended to gravitate to professions (teachers, secretaries) that are often not as highly paid as male-dominated industries” and that they tend to leave the work force earlier.
McCaskill seems to know this; she did, after all, acknowledge that the problem wasn’t pay discrimination but the job placement. She suggested that corporate governance boards, fortified by Republican sexists, were keeping women out of high-paying jobs (though she didn’t explain how this bill will change that).
Senate Democrats have a pay gap problem of their own. “Of the five senators who participated in Wednesday’s press conference [on the Paycheck Fairness Act] —Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., Patty Murray, D-Wash, Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich, Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. —three pay their female staff members significantly less than male staffers,” WFB observed in May. The pay gap ranged between seven percent and 41 percent.
Read more here: http://midwestdemocracy.com/articles/no-need-expand-pay-laws-say-gop-senate-contenders/#storylink=cpy
Read more here: http://midwestdemocracy.com/articles/no-need-expand-pay-laws-say-gop-senate-contenders/#storylink=cpy”The bill ought to be called the ‘Trial Lawyer Paycheck Act,’ since it is a recipe for a class-action boom,” The Wall Street Journal explained in its denunciation of the legislation. “The law automatically lists women as plaintiffs in class actions when lawyers sue employers, thereby requiring female employees to opt-out of litigation with which they don’t agree. Businesses would be treated as guilty until shown to be innocent, having to prove in court that their pay practices aren’t the result of workplace bias.”
Read more here: http://midwestdemocracy.com/articles/no-need-expand-pay-laws-say-gop-senate-contenders/#storylink=cpy
