DeLauro: Senate Republicans Block Equal Pay for Women

Washington, DC – Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (CT-3) released the following statement in response to the cloture vote taken by the Senate on the Paycheck Fairness Act, which failed 58-41. First introduced by Congresswoman DeLauro in 1997, the Paycheck Fairness Act would strengthen the Equal Pay Act and help ensure that women are paid equally for their work. The legislation was passed with the first vote taken in the House of Representatives this Congress, and has the support of President Obama.

"This is a sad day for working women in America, and I am extraordinarily disappointed in my Senate republican colleagues. The failure of this vote means that America's women will continue to live as second class citizens, making just 77 cents on the dollar as compared to men. This is a matter of basic fairness, of ensuring equal pay for equal work. And it is not just women who are affected by this blatant pay inequity. In these difficult economic times, more and more families are relying on women as breadwinners, and our entire economy is impacted.

"The Paycheck Fairness Act is a modest, common-sense reform that closes numerous longstanding loopholes in the Equal Pay Act and stiffens penalties for employers who discriminate based on gender. Through pay justification, prohibiting retaliation concerning salary information, and enforcing punitive and compensatory damages, it brings equal pay law into line with other civil rights law, and provides to victims of sex-based discrimination the same standards for lawsuits and options for damages that are already afforded to victims of race-based discrimination. In other words, it would finally let the Equal Pay Act fulfill the function it was designed for: Ensuring that workplace inequity ends.

"Nonetheless, I applaud Senators Dodd and Mikulski for their work in bringing the Paycheck Fairness Act this far, and I am deeply grateful to groups such as the American Association of University Women and the National Women's Law Center for their continued support and dedication. I look forward to reintroducing the bill in the next Congress and continuing to fight for the day when all of America's workers are paid equally."