Just what is comparable worth, you might ask? It's not as simple as equal pay for equal work. This wasn't about a man and woman who were both accountants being paid different wages, Earlyse Swift said. It was more complex than that. Unfortunately, jobs traditionally occupied predominately by women were paid much less than those traditionally by men, and a 1974 study confirmed this revealing "a 20 percent disparity between the average wages of traditionally male and female job classifications." In fact, the study found a woman in the 'Secretary III' role earned $723 less per month than a male Carpenter, though the knowledge, skill, risk and "value added" were deemed to be comparable using independent evaluative criteria. How did the public react to the study? At first, people were surprised. But then, 'it was hard to over come and make up for the stereotypes,' Senator Fraser said. "There used to be an attitude that 'women don't need the money," and women's good work was taken for granted.
Frustrated at the lack of change, over 80 women's groups including the League of Women Voters, Washington State Nurses Association and many others banded together in 1979 to form Washington Women's United. This group mobilized to address the issue of comparable worth through public education and legislative action. The group worked extensively to educate elected officials and others, but traction was slow to build, and then governor Dixy Lee Ray publicly opposed comparable worth efforts, in spite of the fact that she was Washington's first female governor. Ray was so outspoken on the issue that she said comparable worth 'was like comparing apples with oranges and a can of worms.'
Then, in 1981, the Washington Women's Federation (an affiliate of the powerful labor union American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees) filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) lawsuit "when the state legislature acted slowly and inadequately to eliminate the difference." "In 1983, a federal court found the State of Washington guilty of discrimination and required the state to implement a comparable worth program." Following this, then-Representative Jennifer Belcher and her colleague Rep. Shirley Galloway quietly passed a budget amendment for $1.5 million in the wee hours of the morning during the third lock down special legislative session while many of their colleagues slept. Then, the real work began to reconcile the gap. Unfortunately, the legal case was "reversed on appeal, and settled out of court when the state agreed 'voluntarily' to bring the wages of 'women's occupations' into line with 'men's occupations." Finally, in 1984, the legislature was able able to pass a bill establishing the the Joint Select Committee on Comparable Worth, which included many female elected officials from the House and Senate, as well as a few representatives of other stakeholder groups such as Washington Women's United. Job descriptions were evaluated based on a matrix of criteria and scored independently. Hundreds of job classifications were reviewed and updated, and while pay for jobs which might be considered 'overpaid' based on the scientific evaluative criteria were left alone, pay rose slowly and surely for those found to be underpaid.
As the hour-long presentation wound down, former Representative Belcher reflected by asking the question: "so where are we now?" The panelists intuitively know women are better off than they were before, but none could conclusively say the disparity was gone within state government. "We know it's better now," said Earlyse Swift. But this left me wondering just how much better it is? What about sectors other than government? How much more work lies ahead to achieve the spirit of the comparable worth movement?
Given the our recent Master of Public Administration Program research on women and leadership through The Evergreen State College, I can't help but think of the severe under-representation of women in leadership that still persists today. In spite of great progress, women still aren't emerging as leaders or achieving leadership positions at the rate of men. Though our state has a remarkable record for electing women to office--a decade ago, Washington boasted more women elected officials than ever before and many more than most states--the past 10 years are another story entirely. Fewer women hold office than men by leaps and bounds in our state, and unfortunately, fewer women emerge as CEOs in other sectors. This leaves me asking several questions: is the work of comparable worth done, or is there more to do? If there is more to do, who will do it? What can you and I do to improve the status of women in leadership?