Working for Equal Pay

Are you mad yet?

Perhaps you are not willing to wait until 2076 for equal pay to creep into women’s lives? That’s actually how long it will take at the pace of the last 30 years.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Women can take control of their careers and their lives and make the pay gap go away.
The American Association for University Women offers these suggestions.

What You Can Do to Achieve Pay Equity

• Get a college education in a STEM-heavy  field. (Science Technology, Engineering, Math)
• Negotiate for your highest possible starting salary.
• Consider the impact that your decisions will have on your earning power:   whether and when to get married or have a family, and the division of labor at home.
• Develop a strong female negotiating style that will not backfire on you.  AAUW, in collaboration with the Wage Project, offers $tart $mart salary negotiation training for women entering the job market.
• Write letters to your legislators and local papers, blogs, and tweets are just a few examples.
• Join an organization like AAUW for a ready-made network of activists.

Employers Step Toward Equal Pay

• Paying workers fairly is legally and ethically necessary. (Fighting suits has cost companies many millions, including Home Depot, Novartis,  Smith Barney and WalMart)
• Fair pay can be good for the bottom line by improving  workers’ morale, reducing absenteeism, and improving performance.
• “Sunshine is the best disinfectant,”  so be transparent about salaries and pay rates. Only about half of employees are allowed to discuss wages and salaries. Transparency in government pay encourages equity.
• Use audits to monitor and address gender pay differences. (Minnesota requires a public-sector pay equity study every few years to eliminate pay disparities between jobs that require comparable levels of expertise. To see how they do it, visit Minnesota’s pay equity web page.