Today in Herstory: President Kennedy Signs the Equal Pay Act into Law (10 june 1963)

[niyad]

Today in Herstory: President Kennedy Signs the Equal Pay Act into Law

June 10, 1963: Almost two decades of effort by women’s groups paid off today when President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act.

Nineteen ceremonial pens were used, which he gave to those who had worked hardest for the bill’s passage. He called the practice of paying women less than men for the same work “unconscionable.” The new law will take effect next year, be enforced by the Labor Department’s Wage & Hour Division, and apply to workers presently covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act.

To establish that an employer has violated the law, it must be shown that different wages are being paid to men and women, that the employees are doing substantially equal work on jobs requiring the same skill, effort and responsibility, and the jobs are performed under similar working conditions.

Twenty-two States already have equal pay laws on their books, but discrimination is still widespread. In one recent survey of employers, about a third admitted they had separate pay scales for male and female office workers. Since the Fair Labor Standards Act and Equal Pay Act do not cover all workers, and the law does not deal with equal pay for “comparable” work, and does not ban any form of gender bias by an employer except in regard to salary, the battle for total equality and equal opportunity in the workplace is not yet over. But women’s groups justifiably hailed today’s development as a major advance toward workplace equality for women.



President Kennedy told those who were invited to the White House to witness the signing of the bill:

I am delighted today to approve the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which prohibits arbitrary discrimination against women in the payment of wages. This act represents many years of effort by labor, management, and several private organizations unassociated with labor or management, to call attention to the unconscionable practice of paying female employees less wages than male employees for the same job. This measure adds to our laws another structure basic to democracy. It will add protection at the working place to the women, the same rights at the working place in a sense that they have enjoyed at the polling place.

. . . .

******INFLATIONARY NOTE: $5,000 in 1963 = $38,660 in 2015; $800,000 = $6,185,595; $8,000,000 = $61,855,948

http://feminist.org/blog/index.php/2015/06/10/today-in-herstory-president-kennedy-signs-the-equal-pay-act-into-law/

[Novara]

1. Yet it took the Lily Ledbetter Act

To get around a fucking statute of limitations in order to sue. Forget about equal pay. Until the Lily Ledbetter Act, if the clock ran out before you found you were unfairly underpaid, you had absolutely no recourse. Yet still it isn't equal pay.

[niyad]

2. and they will still find ways around it.