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For Immediate
Release
4/8/08
Contact:
Carol Maravic
(717) 787-6725
 
Senator Orie Leads Harrisburg Rally Calling for
Equal Pay for Women
Senator Jane Orie (R-40) joined legislators and a number of prominent
statewide women's organizations at a 2008 Pennsylvania Equal Pay Day Rally today
at the State Capitol. A crowd of supporters were also on hand at the event to
show their support for closing the wage gap.
Orie is sponsor of a Senate Resolution marking April 22 as Equal Pay Day in
the Commonwealth. April 22 is also the National Equal Pay Day.
"Equal Pay Day is an annual reminder of the shameful fact that it takes the
average woman nearly four months into the following year to catch up with what
men earned the previous year," Orie said. "Weekly, women have to work until
Tuesday of the following week, to earn what a man earned in the prior week."
Current statistics show that women in the workforce have continually
encountered the problem of lower salaries than men for equal work. Despite
legislation on both the federal and state levels banning discrimination,
differences persist between genders.
At the time of the EPA's passage, women earned just 58 cents for every dollar
earned by men. By 2006, that rate had only increased to 77 cents, an improvement
of less than half a penny a year.
Orie has introduced a concurrent resolution calling for a comprehensive study
of the wage gap in Pennsylvania, the reasons it exists, differences between
industries in the Commonwealth, and whether policy or legislative measures are
needed to remedy the problem.
"Fulltime working women nationally earn 80% or less of what their male
counterparts earn according to a study by the American Association of University
Women," Orie said. "The wage gap hurts women, their families and children – and
it is something we must do something about – because it flies in the face of
fairness."
Among those attending were Lt. Governor Catherine Baker Knoll, Senator
Shirley Kitchen, Senator Mike Stack, Senator Christine Tartaglione, Senator
Connie Williams and Representative Katharine Watson. Also in attendance were
Sandy Vito, Acting Secretary, Pa Department of Labor & Industry; Mary Weeks,
President Pennsylvania Federation of Business and Professional Women, Inc;
Maryann Haytmanek of PA Women Work; Petra Michell, President & CEO, Catalyst
Connection; and Elizabeth Gregg, Vice President & Founding Member, Indiana
County Commission for Women.
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