BILL NUMBER: AJR 47	INTRODUCED
	BILL TEXT


INTRODUCED BY   Assembly Member Block
   (Principal coauthor: Assembly Member Bonnie Lowenthal)

                        AUGUST 13, 2012

   Relative to employment.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   AJR 47, as introduced, Block. Compensation: gender pay equity.
   This measure would urge the Congress to reintroduce and adopt the
Paycheck Fairness Act to help close the gender wage gap.
   Fiscal committee: no.



   WHEREAS, Forty-nine years after the passage of the federal Equal
Pay Act of 1963 and forty-eight years after the passage of Title VII
of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, American women continue to
suffer disparities in wages that cannot be accounted for by age,
education, or work experience; and
   WHEREAS, According to the U.S. Census Bureau, year-round,
full-time working women earned only 77 cents for every dollar paid to
their male counterparts, indicating little change or progress in pay
equity; and
   WHEREAS, In 2010, women in California with a high school diploma
were paid only 73 cents for every dollar paid to men with a high
school diploma, and women in California with a bachelor's degree were
paid only 74 cents for every dollar paid to men with a bachelor's
degree, which indicates that the wage gap persists at all levels of
education; and
   WHEREAS, Women have struggled to regain jobs in the economic
recovery and continue to face high levels of long-term unemployment,
even as their families rely on them more heavily for financial
support; and
   WHEREAS, The unemployment rate for women in California in 2011 was
11.4 percent, a 6.2 percentage-point increase since the recession
began in December of 2007, and 45.1 percent of jobless women workers
in California had been looking for work for 27 weeks or more; and
   WHEREAS, Wages overall are stagnating and the wage gap has barely
budged over the last 10 years; and
   WHEREAS, While Congress and the President have taken initial steps
to improve the laws that govern pay discrimination by passing the
federal Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, there is more that must
be done to realize the decades-old promise of fair pay for equal
work; and
   WHEREAS, The Paycheck Fairness Act, a bill that would give women
more protections against wage discrimination, failed to clear a
procedural hurdle in the U.S. Senate in June 2012 for the second time
in two years; and
   WHEREAS, The Paycheck Fairness Act would have built upon the
federal Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 by protecting workers
who inquire about pay disparities from retaliation and punish
employers who engage in paycheck discrimination; now, therefore, be
it
   Resolved by the Assembly and the Senate of the State of
California, jointly, That the Legislature, fully supporting the
efforts to ensure pay equity and to protect employees who seek
information about pay without fear of retribution, urges Congress to
reintroduce and adopt the Paycheck Fairness Act to help close the
gender wage gap; and be it further
   Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies of
this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution, to the
President and Vice President of the United States, to the Speaker of
the House of Representatives, to the Majority Leader of the Senate,
and to each Senator and Representative from California in the
Congress of the United States.