CHARLESTON, W.Va. – March 24 is Equal Pay Day- the symbolic date women have to work to in order to earn what men earned in the previous year. Four efforts to address the wage gap are in the legislature, but time is running out.
Senate Bill 43, Senate Bill 288, House Bill 3247 and House Bill 2121 have been proposed, but none have been assigned to a committee.
Mon County Delegate Barbara Fleischauer is the lead sponsor for House Bill 2121, the Katherine Johnson and Dorothy Vaughan Fair Pay Act of 2020 and held a virtual round table discussion Wednesday.
“They have to get on a committee by the end of this week,” Fleischauer said,” The session ends on April 10, crossover day is March 31 so we are really at a critical point right now.”
Data shows women in West Virginia make 74-cents for every dollar a male makes and for black women that figure drops to 63-cents.
President of the West Virginia NAACP, Owens Brown said women are struggling, and have been struggling for decades despite the impact of their contributions to society.
“In 2021 women in West Virginia are still struggling for fair wages,” Brown said,” The same as Katherine Johnson and Katherine Vaughan did 68 years ago.”
Katherine Johnson and Katherine, or Dorothy Vaughan were depicted in the movie Hidden Figures that told the story of their important role in the space program and the confidence flight crews had in them.
“They were geniuses from West Virginia and they were not paid fairly,” Fleischauer said,” And they helped our country land a person on the moon, it’s so insulting.”
State senator Mike Caputo has been a supporter of labor for many years and he encouraged those in favor to contact their elected officials to ask for support.
“I wish we could quit having an Equal Pay Day, wouldn’t that be nice?” Caputo asked,” Wouldn’t it be nice if we could do away with that because everything was the way it’s supposed to be and women were getting paid equally as men?”
House Bill 2121 was sent to the House Workforce Development Committee February 10. Senate Bills 43 and 288 are both in the Senate Workforce Committee and House Bill 3247 was received by the House Judiciary Committee March 16.