In two ways, the failure of HB 956 by state Rep. Julie Stokes proved helpful: it sidelined a bill whose supporters left open a door cracked for it to do what its sponsor did not want, and it exposed those who wanted that which its sponsor did not for the hypocrites that they are.
The bill would have read into
state law a portion of the federal Equal Pay Act. It attempted to prevent pay discrimination
on the basis of sex for equal work performed in a job, but a flaw
in its drafting that neglected a passage of the federal law instead opened
it up, at least in some cases, to make illegal discrimination between
individuals with similar work performed. That concept, comparable worth, was
behind other bills introduced this session, which were built upon a fiction.
Those other bills were argued
necessary because, when taking the average earnings of Louisiana females and
comparing them to males in all jobs, taking nothing else into consideration, women
earned about two-thirds of what men did. But this exercise is entirely laughably
apples to oranges, because it does not take into account a number of other
extenuating factors, such as lifestyle preferences, occupational choices, and
educational attainment. In fact, when looking at national data, when accounting
for differentials caused by these factors, the difference, when comparing men
to women actually in jobs requiring the same work and in the same circumstances,
goes to statistical insignificance. The presumed pay gap is a myth.
But you’ll never hear that
admitted by the advocates of comparable worth, who need to adhere to the fantasy
of a significant difference, because then they argue that (1) existing law
which defines discrimination occurs only when equal work under equal
circumstances has a differential is inadequate to the task because (2) there’s
a differential, so therefore the oxymoronic idea of “unintentional
discrimination” is occurring because of systemic errors the present paradigm
cannot address, therefore meaning (3) a switch to a new paradigm of “comparable
worth” is required to rectify the problem. Never mind that these advocates
cannot prove any linkage between the statistic and actions that cause it; to
them, a result invites imagining and assumption of the intent’s presence, even
if they can find no evidence of the actual intent that supposedly causes the
result.
Which tells us something about
the hypocrisy of these senators and of those special interests who argued against
it. Their priority first and foremost is for interests that believe the market
discriminates against women and for the big government allegedly necessary
to prevent that, at the expense of women themselves. They went against a bill
that would have written into Louisiana law prohibitions against equal pay for
equal work because they cared more about an agenda that would have empowered
special interests and government than about women’s empowerment. They defend
themselves with mealy mouths about how HB 956 doesn’t go far enough and
therefore distracts, but that’s just a ruse to fool the unaware into forgetting
that their preferred offerings are solutions that will bring them and their ideological
allies more power, and less for employers, on the basis of a problem that doesn’t
even exist. Squawking about “equality” for women merely serves as a ruse to
hide this larger motive, they have demonstrated.
Today in the Senate a comparable
worth bill is scheduled to be heard – SB
334 by state Sen. Karen Peterson.
A Senate majority would send an appropriate message by voting down the
discredited radical notion behind it aided and abetted by the hypocrisy that
has gotten it as far as it has come to date.
*NOTE: When the first piece addressing this bill was posted, the Legislature (reflecting a not-uncommon occurrence where it lags sometimes by days) did not have the updated version of the bill available on its website. The form in which it passed out of the House did in fact have the proper language to obviate a comparable worth argument, which at that time was unavailable to me but also which I did not recheck in the writing of this post, leading to the erroneous information now struck through in the original version of this post.
*NOTE: When the first piece addressing this bill was posted, the Legislature (reflecting a not-uncommon occurrence where it lags sometimes by days) did not have the updated version of the bill available on its website. The form in which it passed out of the House did in fact have the proper language to obviate a comparable worth argument, which at that time was unavailable to me but also which I did not recheck in the writing of this post, leading to the erroneous information now struck through in the original version of this post.
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