Kirk Against Paycheck Fairness

Mark Kirk voted against the Paycheck Fairness Act (PCFA), a bill designed to ensure equal pay for women, on July 31, 2008. (It was the second time in a year Kirk voted against equal pay for women, having voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2007.) The PCFA bill passed the House in a nearly straight party-line vote. All House Democrats and 14 Republicans voted for it.

Mark Kirk exposed his true priorities – i.e., the corporate interests represented by the Bush White House – and voted in lockstep with the vast majority of House Republicans against this important bill. Where was Mark Kirk when half the population needed some degree of fairness? Right by Bush’s side.

“Over the course of her lifetime, a female high school graduate will make $700,000 less than the young man she graduates with,” Connecticut Congresswoman Rose DeLauro, the bill’s sponsor, said before the House of Representatives. “A female college student stands to lose up to $2 million in the course of her career.”

The PCFA toughens the remedy provisions of the 1963 Equal Pay Act by allowing aggrieved women who sue to recover compensatory and punitive damages. It also prohibits employer retaliation against employees who investigate wage practices, strengthens penalties for Equal Pay Act violations, and creates a grant program to help women strengthen their negotiation skills.

In a recent letter defending his NO vote that he emailed to constituents, Kirk criticized the PCFA, saying it undermines a woman’s control of legal actions against her employer by automatically making her part of a class action law suit and requiring her to proactively optout to maintain the right to sue independently.

But Kirk’s letter failed to disclose the significance of the PCFA: The Act makes possible for the first time class action lawsuits for gender pay differences. It puts gender-based wage discrimination on an equal footing with wage discrimination based on race or ethnicity – for which full compensatory and punitive damages currently are available. It also makes it illegal for employers to retaliate against women who share salary information with co-workers, thus ending pay secrecy.

Exactly one year ago, he voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2007, a bill that clarifies the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to declare that a new unlawful employment practice occurs each time discriminatory compensation is paid.

With his votes against the FCPA and the Lilly Ledbetter Act, Mark Kirk has once again showed his constituents that his true top priority may not be their best interests.

There’s a better tomorrow for America. It begins on November 4th.