In addition to being Earth Day today also serves as Equal Pay Day. Senate challenger Rick Dollinger is taking the opportunity to challenge local Senate incumbent Joe Robach (R,C,I,WF) on his stance over the New York state Fair Pay Act legislation that has been debated in the legislature recently via a public demonstration at Robach’s district office:
“Joe’s flip-flopping is both condescending and wrong – it’s classic Albany politics,” said Rick Dollinger. “It takes a lot of nerve to duck an issue by passing a study bill and then claim to be a champion, but it’s hardly surprising.”
Below is a repost of my article from last week which includes an overview of the Senate debate, Robach’s alternative bill and the truth about pay gaps between men and women. Reposted for Equal Pay Day and all you knuckleheads who did not read it the first time.
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My wife is pregnant with our second son and is due end of May/early June and she still, bless her, is working four days a week despite the fact she’s as large as a house.
She makes less money than I do despite the fact that I could not even fathom working, much less actually doing so effectively, in her current condition.
A strange, and as of yet unexplained, introduction I know. I swear it will pay off in the end.
Much ballyhoo recently around debate in the New York state legislature over Senate bill 3936, the so-titled New York state Fair Pay Act. The legislation is at first a noble and wholly right bill seeking to bring the pay scale for men and women in the workplace into equity with one another.
Capitol Confidential had a nice little series starting on Monday when Irene Jay Liu was hassled as she attempted to take video of the Senate floor debate as local Senator Joe Robach (R,C,I,WF), that’s WF as in Working Families, argued for S.7521 - the GOP counterpart to 3936.
CapCon returned to the Chamber on Tuesday to film the beauty of our legislature in action:
I came and taped what is a time-honored tactic used by Senators who don’t want to go on record as voting against something: leaving the chamber when another lawmaker calls for a motion to petition, which if approved, would move a bill out of committee to the floor for a vote.
The catch is, it takes a simple majority of the 62 senators in what is essentially a non-role call vote to move to petition. So if lawmakers don’t like the measure being petitioned, but fear it may look bad to oppose it, they can simply leave the chamber when the motion comes for a vote. Thus Tuesday’s near-empty chamber.
The strangeness continues as Robach’s opponent bill passed the Senate by a unanimous vote. And this is where I saw the first hint of that ugly beast known as politicization of an issue for personal gain in an election.
I battled the monster during the SCHIP debate and it appeared the Beast had again returned to feed.
The reason the Dems had to vote for Robach’s bill was the same reason the GOP could not be seen voting against bringing 3936 out of committee. Imagine the following two scenarios if the opposite had occured in the aforementioned instances:
1. GOP Senate candidate X: “My opponent did not vote to increase penalties on companies who discriminate against women/minorities in the workplace. Vote for me and I will fight for equitable wages!”
2. Dem Senate candidate (say Rick Dollinger): “Joe Robach did not vote for equitable pay between men and women/minorities in the workplace!”
When a bill becomes so political I have found it is likely a stinker so I began to dig.
S.3936 seeks to pay women, men and minorities equally:
IN JOBS THAT ARE DISSIMILAR BUT THAT REQUIRE EQUIVALENT COMPOSITES OF SKILL, EFFORT, RESPONSIBILITY AND WORKING CONDITIONS
All right. Basically, paying a woman the same wage for a job as a man who does a different and likely completely unrelated job and using the government to establish a scale for how this should then be done while administering and enforcing the legislation.
Now even if I agreed with this illogical and socialist idea, and giving the government arbitrary control over wage scales is socialist, my first question would be who is going to decide what job is equal to another and how would he or she do that? Don’t look to the bill for answers to that question, it doesn’t have any.
However, as an issue that has been beaten around since the mid-80’s, models from so-called comparable wage advocates have included a point system where different values are assigned to aspects of one’s job like the amount of education needed for the position, the degree of hazard or risk of injury faced, managerial duties and so on.
Despite the fact that such a point system would be completely subjective, imagine the hostility created in our society.
Successful white male: “Hey (insert minority or female name here), what’d you get for a Life Score (see, the company that New York state would outsource the scoring system to would call it Life Score)? Oh, only a 47? Too bad you didn’t go to a four year college and now oversee a staff of 23 people like I do, you would’ve scored much higher! Later (insert minority or female name here)!
See? Kind of just beating the proverbial dead horse.
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