Union leader backs wage disparity study

Monday, March 26, 2001 | 10:35 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Women earn 28 percent less than men in comparable jobs, says a national union leader who testified today at the Nevada Legislature in support of a bill regarding a study into pay disparity in state government.

Linda Chavez Thompson, executive vice president of the AFL-CIO, said "women work for free one week every month," and a 25-year-old female will earn $500,000 less than a man in a lifetime because of the wage gap on the national scene.

Thompson appeared before the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee to support of Senate Bill 85, introduced by Sen. Maggie Carlton, D-Las Vegas.

Alicia Smalley, lobbyist for the National Association of Social Workers, said during a news conference that females comprise 80 percent of the state's social workers. This group had a 24 percent turnover rate, the highest in state government. But Gov. Kenny Guinn, Smalley said, did not recommend social workers receive an extra pay increase, as he did male-dominated occupations -- for example, correctional officers, parole and probation officers and engineers, which had lower turnover rates.

Washoe County recently recognized the disparity by giving social workers a 6 percent pay raise, in addition to the wage boost given other workers, Smalley said.

Carlton's bill originally called for a study into pay disparity in both state government and private industry. She said she has narrowed the focus. "We cannot ask private business to clean up their houses if the state does not," she said.

The scope of the study for both private and state government would be too large, she said. And if discrepancies are found, Carlton said, "We can do something about that from this (the legislative) building."

But Carlton agreed that women in private industry are paid less. For instance, she said, maids, an occupation dominated by women, are paid less than porters at Las Vegas hotel-casinos.

Thompson, national chairwoman of the National Committee on Pay Equity, said salaries are lower in occupations in which women usually hold most of the jobs. For instance, she said school teachers receive lower pay. In the same professions, she said women tend to be hired at a lower salary than are men.

Minority women are worse off, Thompson said. Black women earn 49 percent less than their male counterparts, and Latino women take home 53 percent less salary.

"Because (certain) jobs are held (mostly) by women, they are not paid as much," Thompson said.

Carlton estimated her study would cost less than $10,000, and the results would be reported to the 2003 Legislature.