Issue Paper 8: International Women’s Day and Continuing to Advocate for Equal Pay

Happy International Women’s Day everyone! Women and their allies celebrate March 8th on the global scale. Many are calling 2018 "The Year of the Woman."

2018 marks the 100th anniversary of women first getting the right to vote. Many great strides have been made to bridge the gender parity gap, however for two decades our state legislature has refused to agree that women should make the same wages as their male colleagues. 

(Dorothy Day with her prison dress. In November 1917, Day went to prison for being one of forty women in front of the White House protesting women's exclusion from the electorate. )

(League of Women Voters members from across Indiana advocated for HB1390 in January.)

Sadly, House Bill 1390 did not make it this year. According to our census, our most common head of household in Indiana House District 3 are our single mothers. 

(Rep. Linda Lawson addressing an audience on International Women's Day 2018.)

If you consider that 51% of our families are only averaging 74 cents to the dollar, you can see how this gap affects funding for everything from our roads, to our schools, to our parks. 

Now think about how much money the majority of IN HD3 families can spend to support our local businesses. What does that 26 cent gap mean for all of us? 

(That 51% of our population is not even including our working single childless women, or our married mothers!)

The wage gap is not a partisan issue. It is not just a problem for women, nor House District 3, it affects all Hoosiers.

What made House Bill 1390 different than the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, and Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990? 

In a Right to Work State like Indiana, employers can choose to fire workers at will. This can include an employee who discloses his salary to a female coworker.  House Bill 1390 provided protection for coworkers to discuss their salaries without fear of losing their jobs, which would have led to more transparency of discrepancies in the Indiana workforce, thus allowing all Hoosier heads of households to better advocate for wage increases with their employers. 

According to the Indiana Institute for Working Families  “In 2016 in Indiana, the median earnings of full time male workers were $12,717 higher than the median earnings of full time female workers. This is a 26 percent wage gap. Even as the nation’s wage gap narrowed between 2015 and 2016, Indiana’s wage gap widened 2 percentage points. The Hoosier gender wage gap is now the 6th highest in the nation, not far behind Louisiana and Utah, which, at 30 percent, are tied for the highest in the nation. Within Indiana, there is considerable variation from county to county, with some counties in Indiana showing nearly a 40 percent gap, while others have gaps in the teens.”

(League of Women Voters members/ state representative candidates Jessica Renslow, Carolyn Jackson and Chris Chyung advocated for HB1390 in January.)

If elected, Jessica Renslow will fight to:

• Continue to advocate for equal pay for all working families.

• Promote business investment in INHD3 that is complementary to creating life-long communities. 

• Increase jobs and economic development by monitoring/ maintaining compliance of our local and targeted hiring programs. 

• Bring back the outreach and pride of the labor movement into our schools by facilitating mentorship opportunities to help bridge the disconnect between our educational institutions and our regional employers. 

• Advocate for entrepreneurial education and financial literacy across INHD3 via community partnerships with local financial institutions/ business incubators. 

(This vintage sash showcases the International League of Women Voters colors. Suffragettes traditionally wore purple and gold.) 

Renslow4Rep.com

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