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By Karoun Demirjian (contact) 
Wednesday, June 6, 2012 | 2 a.m.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., attends the Memorial Day Ceremony at the Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Boulder City on Monday, May 28, 2012.
Dean Heller
Sun Archives
Rep. Shelley Berkley made a rare trip across the Capitol on Tuesday to stand watch as Senate Democrats tried to pass equal pay legislation. The vote, which failed as expected, was designed to carry more weight on the campaign trail anyway.
The Paycheck Fairness bill — which would make it easier for workers to fight pay discrimination, seek redress and be protected from retaliation — has been kicking around Congress since the start of the Obama administration. Primary beneficiaries of the legislation would be women, especially minority women.
But it’s become a sore sticking point between the two parties, never garnering a single Republican Senate vote.
The fight, which erupts each election year, plays into Berkley’s campaign narrative against Sen Dean Heller, the Republican she is trying to unseat.
Berkley and other female Democrats from the House spent much of the day stumping for the Paycheck Fairness Act. As she watched from the back of the Senate chamber, Heller joined other Republicans in voting against the bill.
“There is no excuse for anybody voting against this,” she said. “This is more than a woman’s issue; this is a middle-income family issue. This is not the 1950s. We’re not talking about women who have a little job that at the end of the week they fill their cookie jar with extra money for the kids. These are the mainstay breadwinners. It’s their paycheck that is paying the rent, putting food on the table, putting clothes on their children’s backs and putting gas in the car.”
Berkley voted for the bill as a member of the House in 2009 — something she won’t get a chance to repeat this year, as the Republican-led House is unlikely to pick it up. Heller voted against it then as he did now.
“Unfortunately, the only winners under this legislation would be trial lawyers,” Heller said Tuesday morning, calling the Paycheck Fairness measure a vote “designed for press releases.”
“Legitimate cases that could be addressed under the current system would be lost in a flood of lawsuits,” he said. “These changes would mean much harder times ahead for Nevada’s unemployed and underemployed, so many of whom are women.”
Sen. Harry Reid actually praised Heller for his remarks afterwards — sort of.
“He is the only Republican ... who came to say a word about pay equity,” Reid said. “All due respect to my friend Dean Heller, he would have been better off if he had said nothing.”
As the gender equality issue works its way onto the campaign trail, Heller began pushing his own alternative to the Paycheck Fairness act — the End Pay Discrimination Through Information Act.
Heller’s bill also offers protections from retaliation for women who try to find out if they’re being paid unfairly. He said his bill would limit frivolous discrimination lawsuits, while Democrats argue it would hamper women from seeking redress through the courts. Heller’s bill would also prevent the government from collecting salary information and disbursing grants to help women better negotiate higher salaries.
Democrats attacked Heller’s bill with the same harshness he directed toward their legislation.
“A watered-down, hollow version of the Paycheck Fairness Act doesn’t cut it for the women in this country,” Berkley said. “You’re either for pay-equity or you’re not, and introducing election-year pieces of legislation that have no prayer of passing, just so you can stand behind them and use them when you’re running for office, doesn’t help the situation, and doesn’t repair the damage of pay discrimination.”
“I truly wish today’s discussion was about leveling the playing field ... but years-old legislation mired in politics won’t get us any closer to either ending gender discrimination in the workplace or ensuring that all women who want to, have a job,” Heller said. “This proposal couldn’t pass when Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress, yet here we are today voting on the same measure again and again, and those who are actually victims of workplace discrimination are only getting lip service from Washington.”
The debate is framed by statistics recycled in stump speeches dating back to 2008. The U.S. Census data from that year found women, on average, are paid 77 cents on the dollar earned by an average male.
The gap is even broader for minority women. Black women make 62 cents on the dollar, while Hispanic women make 51 cents.
In Nevada, the breakdown by sector is sometimes even more dramatic, according to statistics from the Joint Economic Committee.
While Nevada female health care practitioners, computer engineers, and finance sector types make about 75 cents on the dollar earned by men in those same sectors, women in the sales industries make 58 cents on the dollar. Women in legal professions make even less — 40 cents on the dollar.
The gender pay gap also appears to be reflected in Berkley’s and Heller’s offices. In the past six months, women in Berkley’s office made about 71 cents for every dollar a male employee made, while women in Heller’s office made about 74 cents for every dollar that a male employee made.
That doesn’t mean either Berkley or Heller would be subject to censure under the Paycheck Fairness Act if it passed.
The rule of paycheck fairness is equal pay for equal work. Berkley and Heller pay comparable salaries to their male and female staffers in similar positions. But in each office, there are more men at the top. Both employ more women on their congressional staff than they do men.
College grad unmarried women make 117% of of wwhat men make. Why can't the men sue
Interesting, seeing that three of the high-profile female Senate Democrats who rolled out this proposal pay their female staffers less than their male staffers.
Senator Patti Murray (D., WA), who has repeatedly accused Republicans of waging a "war a women," is one of the worst offenders. Female members of Murray's staff made about $21,000 less per year than male staffers in 2011, a difference of 35.2 percent.
A significant "gender gap" exists in Senator Dianne Feinstein's (D., CA) office, where women also made about $21,000 less than men in 2011, but the percentage difference--41 percent--was even higher than Murray's.
And Senator Barbara Boxer's (D., CA) female staffers made about $5,000 less than her male staffers, a difference of 7.3 percent.
Hypocrites much?
BTW, same thing in white house staff.
An idea who's time has come? I used to think so but upon further evaluation, I came to the conclusion this is just another nutty, leftist idea. Alex Rodriguez is a 3rd baseman. Should all major league 3rd basemen be paid as much as he earns? How about LeBron James? The guy is an NBA center. Should all NBA centers made oodles of money like he does? No way. Then there are Aaron Rogers & Tom Brady. Are other NFL QB's being "discriminated" against because they make far less? Puleeeze! Performance, skill, experience & productivity are the key to any employees worth, not some arbitrary rule that takes none of that into consideration. Gender, color, race or religion should have no place in determining the worth of an employee and females, as well as males, must be able to be rewarded for what they actually contribute to the welfare and bottom line of the company. To do otherwise is not only Communistic in nature, but self-defeating.
One of my very first jobs was in the Insurance Industry. I handled all Commercial insurance including Business Interruption and writing Umbrella Policies. Commercial insurance is a whole lot more complex than simple homeowner and auto insurance and yet my co-worker, hired at the same time as I was, handled only that personal homeowner and auto insurance and was paid 2x what I was paid - the reason, I was told, for the difference in pay is that since he handled ONLY Personal Insurance and not both Commercial AND Personal (as I did) he was considered a "Specialist". I countered with the question "If you have 2 employees, 1 who knows BOTH Commercial AND Personal Insurance and 1 who ONLY knows Personal Insurance and if you had to get rid of 1 employee which one would you keep? The one who can handle ALL Insurance types or the 'Specialist' who can only write Personal Insurance?" Their answer was they'd keep the one who can handle BOTH types of Insurance.... duh, that would be ME.... so much for being a 'Specialist'... it was really all about being a 'Man'. True story.
"Gender, color, race or religion should have no place in determining the worth of an employee and females, as well as males, must be able to be rewarded for what they actually contribute to the welfare and bottom line of the company."
That's exactly what this bill is supposed to be about. People getting equal pay for doing the same work regardless of gender or race.
If you think that it is currently equal, you're sorely mistaken. I have seen enough personally that it's pretty obvious there is still some significant gender and race-based issues in pay.
The argument about trial lawyers winning is just stupid. That's like saying that we shouldn't make shooting people illegal because the only people who would win are the police.
We have to discount anything a politician says or does 6 mo prior to the election. Having said that just look at Berkley's record and u will see that she hasn't done to much for Nevada. She did help her husband with the medical industry by giving him an edge for new meds. One positive she laid the groundwork for a new and beautiful VA hospital. Unfortunately after 8+ yrs it's still not done. Do u still want the government to take care of our medical needs?
If anyone doubts the real motivation behind the scene on this Fair Pay legislation, one should go read this link about the ADA and how it has been used to milk money from retail businesses over the last two decades.
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2011/jun/...
This Fair Pay legislation is supported by the same Lobbyist crowd that spent the last 20 years using the ADA, a seemingly noble minded piece of legislation, for money from businesses. It's a trial-lawyer employment bill. The largest donor to the dumbocrat party, btw. Surprise, surprise!
There are a number of studies out there that show that when you factor in things beyond just gender, that pay is relatively equal in most instances. But too many people like to point to situations where a male and a female both have job title X and since he makes more, it must be discrimination. In some cases it may be that but in many cases it is not. Many of the supporters of the bill on Capital Hill have larger than average pay disparities between men and women on their own staff. Are they saying that they are unable to remedy that without a law to mandate it? Or is there some legitimate reason why some staff members make more money than others? We should not have discrimination and we have laws that state that. Do we need yet another one to muddy the waters?
Heller and the Republicans are both racist and sexist. They are into vaginal probes by the government forced on women.
People are paid what the business believes they are worth to them. When hiring anyone, you have to factor in education, experience, maturity, personality (talking to clients/customers), and stability. If you think you're not being fairly paid, go look for a new job. The government has absolutely zero right to tell private employers what they must pay people.