America's Small Business Tax Relief Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, the bill my colleague from Nebraska is asking to bring to the floor falls far short of closing the wage gap. I want to speak for a few minutes about why. At the end of my remarks, I have a unanimous consent request.

If we really want to offer working women solutions for wage discrimination, we should instead pass Senator Mikulski's Paycheck Fairness Act because today women across the country make just 79 cents for every $1 a man makes. This is an issue that Democrats have been focused on for years. I am glad at least some Republicans finally recognize there is a wage gap problem, and I welcome their support for fixing this systemic problem. Unfortunately, the Republican proposal that is offered today will not provide the solutions working women need.

Many companies prohibit workers from discussing their pay. So if a woman talks with her male colleague about their salary and discovers there is a wage gap, her employer could fire her or retaliate in some other way. The Republican bill would make it illegal for an employer to retaliate against workers for discussing salary but only when those conversations are for the express purpose of finding out if the employer is providing equal pay for equal work.

Nonretaliation is only one small part of the wage gap problem. It doesn't provide nearly enough protections to actually make a difference in closing the pay gap. In today's workplace, many workers find out about pay discrimination by accident. Maybe they see a spreadsheet that was left on a copy machine or maybe a male colleague's salary comes up in casual conversation, but in these circumstances, any worker who attempts to address the problem would have no protections from retaliation under this bill. The only way to qualify for these limited protections is if a woman uses the magic words that pass a legal test when discussing equal pay with her colleagues.

It is even worse than that. This bill can give workers a false sense of security that their conversations about equal pay are protected, when instead women can still be reprimanded or, worse, lose their jobs altogether for finding out their male colleagues earn more than them. So this Republican bill wouldn't even solve the one narrow problem it is trying to address.

Thankfully, we do have a bill that would address the wage gap. It is the Paycheck Fairness Act that Senator Mikulski has championed. The Paycheck Fairness Act would make it unlawful for employers to retaliate against workers for discussing pay, period. It wouldn't involve a complicated legal test like the Republican proposal, and the Paycheck Fairness Act would help close the wage gap in so many important ways.

If a woman finds out her male colleagues are paid more for the same work, the Paycheck Fairness Act backs her up. It would empower women to negotiate for equal pay, it would close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act, and it would create strong incentives for employers to provide equal pay.

I want to make one thing very clear. The Republican bill being offered today has zero Democratic cosponsors. It is not bipartisan. By contrast, before Republicans politicized equal pay for equal work, the Paycheck Fairness Act actually passed the House of Representatives in both 2008 and 2009 with bipartisan support. Unfortunately, since then, some Republicans have decided to make the wage gap about politics and blocked it in the Senate. So today I am glad Republicans do agree with us that this is an urgent problem. We need real solutions to address it.

862, the Paycheck Fairness Act; that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that the bill be read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

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