The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights recently made a recommendation to federal civil rights enforcement agencies and Congress to reject the use of comparable worth as a method of addressing the wage gap between male and female workers. The commission criticized comparable worth as an ineffective and misguided concept. Comparable worth is based on the idea that men and women should receive equal pay for jobs that may not be identical but require similar levels of skill, effort, training, and responsibility. This concept was initially proposed due to the low salaries in fields predominantly occupied by women, such as teaching, nursing, and secretarial work.
The commission voted 5 to 2 in favor of opposing comparable worth, with Commissioners Mary Frances Berry and Blandina Cardenas Ramirez casting the two dissenting votes. They argued that comparable worth should be cautiously implemented, acknowledging any potential limitations, and that it can be a valuable tool for combating employment discrimination. Commissioner Francis S. Guess neither agreed nor disagreed, citing a possible conflict of interest as the commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Labor. Labor and women’s organizations immediately criticized the commission’s findings, asserting that comparable worth is necessary to address long-standing gender discrimination in the workplace. These groups argue that the standard of equal pay for equal work, which requires equal pay for the same job regardless of gender, does not address the challenges faced by many women in low-paying jobs where there are few male counterparts.
The commission’s recommendations were based on a draft report on comparable worth. This report was the result of two days of consultations in June where 16 expert witnesses presented formal papers and participated in panel discussions. The commission’s staff also analyzed additional materials over a nine-month period. The report states that the wage gap between men and women in America is partly due to factors unrelated to discrimination by employers. The report highlights the influence of women’s roles in childcare, which impacts job choices, career expectations, and labor force participation. The commission concluded that employers who are not responsible for wage gaps caused by discrimination should not be obligated to address them through comparable worth. The commission emphasized that pay disparities between different jobs seen as having comparable worth can be attributed to various factors, including merit, seniority, production quality, and collective bargaining. The commission also stated that job evaluation studies, which play a crucial role in determining job comparability, are inherently subjective and cannot prove the existence of gender-based wage discrimination. Courts that have considered wage discrimination claims based on comparable worth have overwhelmingly rejected it as a basis for complaints, according to Mr. Pendleton, the commission’s chairman. Some commission members argued that comparable worth would lead to a state-controlled economy by limiting the ability of employers and employees to negotiate wages.
In their dissenting opinion, Ms. Berry and Ms. Ramirez stated that if an employer’s reliance on historical or current job segregation contributes to the wage gap in a particular case, the employer should be held accountable for rectifying it. Ms. Berry criticized the commission members for coming to the meeting with a predetermined rejection of comparable worth and pay equity, rather than engaging in a discussion. Eileen Stein, chairman of the National Committee on Pay Equity, accused the commission of being nothing more than a tax-supported advocacy group that promotes the Reagan Administration’s anti-civil rights agenda and undermines the rights of all Americans to be free from workplace discrimination.