Fight for women’s wages now, NYC

At the Oscars, the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements — and Frances McDormand’s acceptance speech — shone powerful spotlights on the pervasive power of sex discrimination. This must open the door for broader conversations about the systematic undervaluing of women in the workplace, in sectors throughout the U.S. economy.

While pay inequality is a decades-old problem, the recent news coverage has sparked a game-changing moment. Just as harassers and abusers are being exposed, we must expose the racism and sexism at play in the systemic wage losses for women, and women of color in particular.

There are nearly 400,000 more women than men in New York, so it’s safe to say that without women in the workplace, our city would collapse. Yet women remain shortchanged by wage inequality.

According to an analysis of the gender wage gap in New York City’s workforce conducted by Public Advocate Letitia James, women in the five boroughs lose $20 billion every year. Overall, white women working full-time earn only 84 cents on the dollar when compared to men. The plight of working women of color is even starker. The average African-American woman makes only 55 cents for every dollar a white man earns, and the average Latina earns only 46 cents for every dollar.

Things may be improving, but only at a snail’s pace. If we continue at our current rate, New York would not close the wage gap until 2049. For women of color, the rate of change is even worse. Black women will wait until 2124, and Hispanic women will have to wait until 2248 to see equal pay.

New York cannot be America’s fairest big city, which is the goal Mayor de Blasio has rightly set, with that kind of pay disparity.

This isn’t just about dollars and cents; it’s also about equal representation. Hollywood executives have said they will achieve equity within the industry by 2020 with their 50/50 campaign. The goal is to reimagine leadership to reflect the industry, as well as their audience, because equal means equal.

Here in New York City, we have done something similar with our 21 in ’21 initiative, which has the ultimate goal of electing at least 21 women to the 51-member City Council, which currently has just 11 women serving in it, by the year 2021. Just as we will with pay inequality the 21 in ’21 campaign will right the imbalanced structure of our government.

But most of all, we need to see legislative change. I have introduced legislation that would require gender and race wage data for the public sector and city contractors be made available and transparent to the public.

Data would be collected annually by all city agencies and given to the Department of Citywide Administrative Services. If the data shows that wages are discriminatory, the city must explain why, develop ways to correct it — or be subject to penalties.

Transparency in wage data is the only way we will be able to engage in proactive solutions to correct the injustice women in the public sector face, and hold employers accountable for discriminatory patterns of wage suppression. There is strength in numbers. For the first time, we would have the supporting data needed to prove patterns of pay inequity and subjective promotions based on sex, gender, and race. Once we know where inequality exists, we can finally work to correct it. Nearly the entire City Council, as well as the public advocate, has signed on to support this bill, yet it hangs in limbo. This bill could expose a years-old problem of a misogynistic pay practice that our administration has inherited.

In order to be the fairest big city in America, we must seize the moment. The time is now. I am demanding this legislation be brought to the floor and for the mayor to sign it after its inevitable passage.

The passage of this historic legislation would send a signal across the globe that New Yorkers take pay inequality seriously. Long before the hashtags, Bronx native Tarana Burke, senior leader at Girls for Gender Equity, became known for saying “Me Too.” New York owes it to women of color like her to make a commitment to closing the pay gap. Given the correct tools and policy, we can bring justice to all workers. Time is up for wage inequality.