Monday, January 31, 2011

Maybe it's just me


But I can't help but notice that over 80% of the sponsors of House File 7, which repeals Minnesota's Local Government Pay Equity Act, are male legislators who have hired female legislative assistants. The purpose of this groundbreaking 1984 law is "to eliminate sex-based wage disparities in public employment in this state" by requiring that those doing comparable work be paid comparably. Used to be that a governmental employer could classify women as one job title at a lower rate of pay and men as another, paying much more -- even if the job duties were identical. This proposal does away with that small step toward pay equity. And as you might expect, it's a GOP proposal by primarily men. Men whose legislative offices are run by women.

But you just have to wonder how those women are going to react when their job titles are changed to "administrative assistants" and their pay cut 20%? After all, administrative assistants - primarily women - aren't as valuable as legislative assistants, important jobs held by men. Going to make for some uncomfortable staff lunches, I'd bet.

Let's hope this idiotic, sexist, backwards legislation goes nowhere.

Pictured: Representative Steve Drazkowski (R-Mazeppa) telling his Legislative Administrative Assistant that besides that cut in pay, she's going to have to start fetching coffee for all the men in the office.

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