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Beverly Neufeld, Director of the Equal Pay Coalition-NYC and Linda C. Hartley, President of Hartley Consulting, Inc. and a former president of WID New York, at one of many visits to the New York State Capitol advocating for equal pay legislation. ~Photo by Marilyn Abalos “EQUAL PAY for equal work is a fundamental civil right. Over the past four decades, America has made enormous progress toward ensuring that all of its people have an equal chance to enjoy the benefits of this great Nation. Bi-partisan civil rights bills have been enacted to expand and strengthen the law to ensure fair pay for all workers. Despite these advances, civil rights is still America’s unfinished business.” ~Senator Edward Kennedy during introduction of the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, 2009 New York State has failed to make pay equity a reality for women despite strong advocacy efforts since the 1990’s. Nearly every year since then, the New York State Assembly has passed bi-partisan legislation to reduce the pay gap between men and women, and every year the New York State Senate either votes against legislation, refuses to allow a vote, or worse.

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BACKGROUND In 2008 the NYS Senate passed what it called “equal pay” legislation to “study” the issue, with no funding for a study. (We/women advocates sent all the Senators existing studies in response.) So elected officials were able to return home to their constituents claiming they passed “equal pay” legislation. In 2013 we came the closest ever to meaningful pay equity legislation as part of Governor Cuomo’s 10-point Women’s Equality Act (WEA), which was passed by the Assembly. The NYS Senate refused to bring WEA to a vote. Instead, at the end of the 2013 legislative session the Senate created and passed 9 separate bills—excluding only the 10th point on reproductive health from the package—and sent them back to the Assembly. As the session ended, the Assembly did not act on the 9 separate bills. Senators went home claiming they “passed a historic package of bills ensuring equal pay” and other protections, successfully avoiding a yay or nay vote on reproductive rights: http://nysenategop.net/pages/nys-republican-women/senate-approves-historic-womens-equality-agenda/ NONE of these bills became law. This spring, the Assembly again passed all 10 points of the Women’s Equality Act while the Senate refused to bring WEA for a vote, passing again 9 separate bills, again excluding the 10th point on reproductive health. Senate leaders say they have an insufficient number of pro-choice votes to pass all 10 points, despite recent polls showing 84% of New Yorkers support the full WEA package. Assembly leaders opposed dividing up both WEA and the state-wide Women’s Equality Coalition behind the bill, stating “9 is not enough”, refusing to “horse trade” one women’s right for another. So women’s equality continues to take a back seat while other progressive bills—most recently medical marijuana, gun safety and same-sex marriage—succeed in becoming law. THE PAY GAP FOR WOMEN IN DEVELOPMENT In the latest AFP salary survey, “Male fundraisers in the United States reported an average salary of $102,710 in 2012. Women earned $76,126 on average. With the exception of 2005 when the salary gap diminished slightly, the gap in the U.S. has consistently been $20,000 or more during the 13 years in which the survey has been conducted.” http://www.afpnet.org/Audiences/ReportsResearchDetail.cfm?itemnumber=17412 The difference of $20,000 in just one year, compounded at 7% interest over a 30-year career, totals $152,000 in lost wages. A loss of $20,000 every year for 30 years at 7% interest totals over $2 million.

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WID NEW YORK and EQUAL PAY COALITION-NYC As a former president of WID and representing WID on the board of New York Women’s Agenda [NYWA], I wrote the equal pay policy statements for WID and NYWA in 2000, launching NYWA’s decade-long focus on advocating for pay equity legislation in NYC and Albany. NYWA formed the Equal Pay Coalition-NYC [EPC-NYC] with a core group of NYWA board members and key women’s organizations, including WID. We organized NYC’s first the Equal Pay Day Rally in 2006. Collaborating with our upstate sister coalition, NYSPEC, we organized press conferences, rallies, forums, legislator meetings, and fundraising initiatives. We worked with NYC and NYS elected officials to help shape legislation, testified at council hearings, wrote letters to the editor, and created a news presence in local newspapers, TV and radio, on blogs and in social media. This spring a new initiative was launched to shine a brighter light on economic inequality: NYS POWHER http://www.nyspowher.org/, supported by the New York Women’s Foundation and founded by Bev Neufeld, former president of NYWA and founding director of the EPC-NYC. WID is now one of more than 50 member organizations of the EPC-NYC with a seat at the policy table with the Governor and leading legislators. We have tangibly shifted the dialogue around economic fairness for women. Legislators are seeing this is an imperative not only to satisfy public opinion, but also as an economic essential for families and New York. THE FACTS In 1963 President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law. At the time women were paid 59¢ to the dollar men earned, and pay discrimination was legal. In 2014, 50 years later, the U.S. gender pay gap is 77¢ to the dollar for all women and has not increased in a decade. In New York City the gap is 82¢ to the dollar, perpetuating what President Kennedy called “the unconscionable practice” of paying women less. http://comptroller.nyc.gov/newsroom/unequal-pay-stringer-finds-gender-wage-gap-still-a-factor-for-full-time-female-employees/ In New York State the gender wage gap varies by U.S. Congressional District: http://www.aauw.org/resource/gender-pay-gap-by-state-and-congressional-district/ For women of color the gap is far greater; from the National Women’s Law Center: http://www.nwlc.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/final_nwlc_equal_pay_report.pdf “For some women of color the numbers are especially shocking: African-American women working full time, year round are typically paid only 64 cents and Hispanic women are typically paid only 55 cents for each dollar paid to their white, non-Hispanic male counterparts.” “Today, women are primary breadwinners in more than 41 percent of families with children. In another 23 percent of families with children women are co-breadwinners,

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bringing in between 25-50 percent of family earnings. Families that are low income are the most likely to have female primary breadwinners, and these families can least afford the wage gap.” Age, education and compounded interest all play a role in the cumulative effects of the pay gap. Here are more sobering facts from the new NYS POWHER website, an excellent source of information on equal pay: http://www.nyspowher.org/learn/equal-pay/ “There is a wage gap in almost all occupations and it grows with age. Younger female workers are paid about 90 percent of what men are paid, but after age 35 the gap increases and women make 75–80 percent of what men are paid. The pay gap exists no matter what the level of education, and grows the higher the degree.” “The pay gap means loss of much needed earnings. On average, NY women lose over $8,500 per year, and between $450,000 to a $1,000,000 over the course of a career.” WHAT YOU CAN DO Change comes from outside Albany, not from within it. It is up to us to bring the change, insisting our elected officials deliver in representing all of the people of New York. Are you ready to do something? You can make a difference as a citizen of New York and a member of the nonprofit community, to help yourself, your colleagues, your mothers, sisters and daughters, and all of the women and families of New York. First, know what is being proposed in Albany: “The Women’s Equality Act (WEA) will strengthen New York equal pay laws for women by making it tougher for employers to get away with paying women less, outlawing wage secrecy policies and preventing employer retaliation, and increasing damages available to a prevailing litigant to 300% of unpaid wages. The anti-retaliation measures of WEA parallel the new protections afforded the employees of federal contractors in President Obama’s Equal Pay Day Executive Order.” Second, check out what is “Illegal, or Just Sleazy” when it comes to discrimination against women and New York law: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqXnqtIjKjQ

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Third, in 5 minutes or less:

ü CALL your state senator http://www.nysenate.gov/senators Thank your senator if she/he supported WEA, but say she/he is accountable to all New York women for delivering legislation that becomes law. This is an election year; no more passing grades for “effort”.

ü Sign a petition to Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Co-Leaders Dean

Skelos and Jeff Klein: http://www.change.org/petitions/new-york-legislature-we-need-laws-as-strong-as-new-york-women

ü Send the petition to 100 friends, potentially multiplying the number of people

who sign the petition by 5,000. Tell Sheldon Silver, Dean Skelos and your New York State Senator that New Yorkers are counting on them to align New York with the modern economy, one in which 64% of women with children are primary breadwinners or co-breadwinners, comprising 54% of NYS voters. Let’s get this done so the women of New York, empowered with hard-won economic equality, can move on to saving the planet! Linda C. Hartley President, Hartley Consulting, Inc. Strategic Resource and Board Development www.hartleyconsulting.com Founding Member, Equal Pay Coalition–NYC Former President, Women In Development, New York June 30, 2014