Introduced By: Representatives Henseler, Cambio, Benson, Coelho and Garvey
Date Introduced : April 7, 1998
WHEREAS, Women have entered the labor force in large numbers over the last decade, Rhode Island State Government has affirmed gender wage gaps in at least two major studies of the state's job evaluation and classification systems, and that the most recent study indicates that not only is the wage gap persistent, but that the gap has widened; and
WHEREAS, Despite some improvement in narrowing the gap on the national level, as of 1990, Rhode Island women earned 66.3 percent of what men earned, while according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' 1990 report, earnings for women nationally were reported at 71.2 percent of men's earnings; and
WHEREAS, Most research on this subject has concluded that much of the wage gap is attributed to sex and race based wage discrimination; and
WHEREAS, The National Conference of State Legislatures urges all states to move toward the establishment of equitable compensation relationships between female and race dominated classes and further to establish pay equity through the enforcement of existing laws and the enactment of laws to guarantee equal pay for work of equal value; and
WHEREAS, The Rhode Island House of Representatives supports the principle of pay equity for public employees and encourages the administration to work towards ensuring equal pay among job classes with similar levels of responsibility, knowledge, skill level and effort; and
WHEREAS, The House of Representatives also supports all efforts to attain and implement accurate and unbiased job evaluation systems and pay setting processes to foster equity for all jobs; and
WHEREAS, The House of Representatives also supports the use of unbiased job evaluation systems which evaluates jobs on gender and race neutral factors such as responsibility, knowledge, skill level and effort to distinguish between legitimate differences in wages and wage differentials which are due to sex and race discrimination and occupational segregation; now, therefore be it
RESOLVED, That this House of Representatives hereby declares April 7, 1998 as "Rhode Island Pay Inequity Awareness Day" and urges all Rhode Islanders to join in urging all the other states in our nation to move toward the establishment of equitable compensation; and be it further
RESOLVED, That the Secretary of State be and he hereby is authorized and directed to transmit duly certified copies of this resolution to the Director of the Department of Administration's Division of Human Resources and the chair of the Legislative Commission on Pay Equity.
