The “Equal Work, Equal Pay” mantra is a throwback, not to mention completely explainable.
Women take different jobs than men, have a different work-life balance, and take time off to have and raise children.
Yet, they still expect to earn the same amount of money.
Think of it as two weightlifters. One lifts 100 lbs, the other lifts 300 lbs. Yet they get awarded the same exact medal. Unfair, right? One of them lifted more!
Men get compensated accordingly for the more heavy lifting and skilled work they do. That’s not sexist, that’s a fact of life.
But not according to our Labor Department:
“A strong American middle class hinges on ensuring equal pay,” said acting Secretary of Labor Seth D. Harris. “As President Obama has made clear, everyone – including the wives, mothers, sisters and daughters among us – must be paid fairly and without discrimination. These new standards will strengthen our ability to ensure that women and men are fully protected under our nation’s laws.”
I like the little end part about men thrown in there to make this not sound completely nuts.
What the hell else is the government left to do? It’s already illegal to discriminate on gender when it comes to hiring. It’s illegal to discriminate on gender when it comes to pay.
They’ve done all they can do. Why must they try to do more?
OFCCP will supplement the guidance with frequently asked questions, technical assistance, webinars, and other resources and materials to ensure that contractors have ample information about how to comply with the law.
“Today, we are lifting arbitrary barriers that have prevented our investigators from finding and combating illegal pay discrimination,” said OFCCP Director Patricia A. Shiu, a member of the President’s National Equal Pay Task Force. “At the same time, we are providing clear guidance for contractors to facilitate their success when it comes to providing equal opportunity to all of their workers.”
The new approach described in the notice will enable OFCCP investigators to better examine practices and available evidence to uncover discrimination and evaluate contractor compliance with Executive Order 11246. That longstanding executive order requires federal contractors to comply with antidiscrimination obligations, including prohibitions against pay discrimination. Prior to this action, OFCCP was constrained by a methodology adopted in 2006 that made it harder for the agency to exercise its full legal authority because it required use of the same narrow formula to review all contractor pay practices, regardless of the industry, types of jobs, issues presented or available data. Now, OFCCP will be using its legal authority to hold contractors to the same legal standards – enshrined in Title VII, the landmark civil rights law – that courts and other federal agencies already apply to these businesses to prohibit job discrimination.
So they’re just trying to tighten their own authority, as if the government is too stupid to flex the authority they currently have to get the job done.
If they haven’t been able to get the job done by now, take them off the case. They’re too damn incompetent. It’s already illegal to discriminate on the basis of gender. Wasting resources to solve a solved issue is a flagrant display of government inefficiency at work.
