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Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20140408

the value of spectrum is raising ahead of the incentive auction so for a variety of reasons a number of companies have consolidated and bought stations across the county. sinclair broadcasting has been aggressive in terms of snatching up the smaller broadcasters. >> host: how many television stations does sinclair broadcasting own across the country? >> guest: i believe something in excess of a hundred stations. they have a number of joint sales agreements and they will likely be effected by this. in some cases, they can get waivers if they can prove they are necessary to keep them afloat but in most cases they will have align and hire people or figure out how to go. we may see them sold. >> host: can sinclair broadcasting own an abc and an nbc in the same city? >> guest: that is against the rules. you can only one one station in the large mack market. you are only allowed to own one out of the abc, nbc, fox, and cbs station in every market. when sinclair made an agreement to buy a number of stations, when they buy a package of stations sometimes they have a station in that market. that is an issue in the all britain case. and before they would set up a sidecar deal. they would find someone who would be the owner but everything was handled by the larger company like sinclair. because this has been banned they will have to restructure and in some craases see the station sold. >> host: the national administration said this will not be served by this decision. what is going to happen next? can there be an appeal? does this take effect right away? >> guest: most people expect a lawsuit and they will argue the fcc is making an arbitrary distinct here and in the past th the fcc greenlighted these transmissions. however, tom wheeler has a ba background in the cable industry so it isn't surprising to many he has taken this action. the fcc took another action tat their most resent meeting where they banned stations from teaming up and negotiating with cable providers and satellite for money. the cable companies are com plaining and tom wheeler responder. >> host: and gautham nagesh what is the timing for the unwinding of the sidecar? >> guest: they have two years. but they have waivers they can show that show they can not serve the public and smaller stations may get waivers approved. if the station is owned by a minority or shows it boosted diversity in the media they might be able to get a waver in that instance. that is available for armstrong williams who owns two stations that have joint sales agreements with sinclair. for other stations, they will have to unwind the agreements and the language of the commissioners indicate that most applications will be denied. they will do so in 90 days so we will have a good idea of what will happen in the next few months. >> what is the significance this was a partisan vote? two democrats in favor and two republicans against it. >> guest: i think that is reflective of the philosophy and the arguments that have been made by the broadcasters. it isn't necessarily a partisan issue per se but it has become one because the broadcasters have been aggressively lobbying against the changes. this is a blow for the largest companies that have accumulated the stations. it is going to be expensive. commissioner clyburn was sympathetic to the concerns especially for the minority stations and that is why the waivers are approved. the democrats backed wheeler and that is not surprising given his position. but there was definitely a lot of blow back from the broadcasters. >> host: there is only one african-american station owner in the country. is that one? >> guest: there is armstrong williams who has two stations he owns and i believe there is one other station owner in chicago and that person had previously marked multiple racial categories so it wasn't clear they were african-american. i believe at any rate that is down to 19. and that is a sign to many that diversity among ownership is a real concern right now particularly given that we are in the second term of the first african-american president and we are probably faced with the lowest point in terms of media diversity ownership in the broadcast business we have seen in the last two decades. >> host: gautham nagesh covers station coverage for "the wall street journal." and joining us now is armstrong williams. how does this decision affect you? >> obviously i am encouraged by commissioner clyburn's concerns about diversity. if anyone knows my history, i have always been someone to put myself out as a minority and celebrate diversity. i believe that either you can afford and have the relationships whether you can sustain it. i think it is wonderful think people from all walks of life can own stations but it is a very expensive business. i instructed my lawyers to file the waiver that will be done this week. i believe them to be sincere and if they are accepted we will be exempt from this process. i think it is much more than about me. as someone who is perceived as a minority owner and operates two stations in myrtle beach, south carolina and flint, michigan, it is overwhelming. we when we were trying to secure financing jp morgan said there was no way they would loan us the money unless we got a big guy to back the loan. luckily the owner of sinclair broadcasting i had known for 15 years and we talked about me owning stations for the last ten years. i was not that interested because of what it would require. $1.8 for myrtle beach and $1.4 million in flint for the license and what it cost to operate isn't something you can imaginm. >> host: could you have done it independently? can that be done? >> stand alones can't exist. that is my many can't make. it isn't just minorities. wives, women, people of all strives can't do it. this is a game for people like the sinclair broadcasting and the big boys. if you are not one of those, it is very difficult as a stand alone to compete for advertising dollars. advertisers like to buy big contracts. we are lucky that the shared agreements, sinclair broadcasting goes in and negotiates these and the transmission fees. the cable operators would take us off their systems. we would not exist. it is important we have someone with a proven track record in programming to be there and fight for us. if the banks were to loan me the money, let's just say we were to unwind my stations that exist now. in four months the bank would come to me and my loan wouldn't exist and i would go belly up in four months and i speak for all small broadcasters that are in the same predicament. >> host: what is your shared sales agreement and joint sales agreement with sinclair broadcasting? the sidecar as our guest spoke about. >> everything sidecar, joint service agreement, insured service agreement is not the same. it is very important those listening understand this. normally for me, i have total control over the programming for my stations. sinclair broadcasting says we want to put this on and if i don't like it i can veto it. there is nothing else that can be said. the revenues, 85% come to me and 15% goes to sinclair broadcasting. that 85% pay for the entire operation of that station. let me give you real numbers. in flint, michigan, it cost me 6.5 million a year to run that station. that is almost $19,000-$20,000 a day. and remember this, i am in debt. i had to get jp morgan to get had loan. >> host: the $50 million? >> yes. my payment to them is probably $138,000 a month. so people say i got the loan but that is debt. you have to improve the programming, the operation. i am all over the country for the last several months. catering to the local market is very important. i agree with the fcc in that. in the myrtle beach market we have been doing town hall meetings where we are not paid and no advertising or sponsors but it is something we want to do. we did a town hall meeting on affordable care act and just within the last week we went back and did a town hall meeting on domestic violence where people called in and real life-threatening situations and we had the chief of police and the attorney general from the state of south carolina, mike wilson, and sandra rose, the chief of police, was there to help people out of the flightening situations because south carolina leads the country in domestic violence. we take the situations to the community and empower them. in flint we do shows because their budget is so cut to the edge. local police, city council members and the community, and we show we care about them. we are active, we are involved. our myrtle beach station, which didn't have news and that is where you make the money in the local market. that news operation cost us almost $8,000. this isn't cheap. it is not for the faint of heart. billy huggins, my general manager, put that together. without sinclair broadcasting i could not afford this. ice destroyed our generator and we were off the air for 16 hours. it was $400,000 to get a generator. you cannot calculate these expenses. i don't care about the wealth i have been blessed with there is no way i could survive this. this is why when my lawyers file with the fcc for the waivers we are confidant. i am involved with my general manager and becky in flint, michigan, we are on the phone daily. in the flint market we asked them to introduce myself to the staff and we asked why we cannot compete and it is because we don't have boots on the ground. producers, camera operators, anchor people, and six staffers that were necessary just to give us an opportunity in the market. that was almost $350,000 for those positions. you don't have that kind of money when you go into the situation with debt but sinclair broadcasting owns 168 stations and they are the largest owner in the country. they are supportive and encourage me and they are not involved. i deal with staff and we are making progress. i wish youk could see the moral that has been lifted. a lot of people go in and gut them and leave nothing and just take the money out. but for sinclair broadcasting we are in the tv business. i am in this for the long term because south carolina is my home town. that is what attracted me to this business. when david smith said i think i have the key to get you in and he showed me the myrtle beach station. and i said i have to do it. >> host: 15% of the revenue goes to sinclair broadcasting. >> and 85% stays with us. >> host: do you consult with david smith? >> no, it is totally independent. if i want wisdom or advice with things i am doing, i will ask. but the good news is, and this is a blessing, it is my history/background, earlier on in my career i was the ceo of the renaissance network, and i was there for 3-4 years. i have been involved with sinclair broadcasting for programming. that is the outfit that airs my national television show that has been on the air for a long time. so i have been involved in programming and developing content and manageing soul things. i bring the programming, the localism like the town hall meetings and other things that speak directly to the community. i heard "the wall street journal" say earlier a lot of guys are entrepreneur and friends that don't have experience. that is not my case. i am a broadcaster. it is my history and where identify put most of my history in my career. >> host: lauren wilson from "free press" moposted abou you saying i cannot let this rhetoric go unchecked, sinclair broadcasting provides with technical, promotional, back office, sales and related services and sinclair broadcasting also has the right to provide your company stations with up to 25 hours of programming, 25 hours happens to equal $14.88 percent of the 168 hour week and fcc rules already require ownership attributions in instances where broadcasters cast more than 15% of a station >> that doesn't apply for us. she has her facts wrong. they talk about why minorities can't can't get into the industry as a lack of capital. without sinclair broadcasting's support we could not do what dwi and as a business man, i am not apologizing that. i don't want to go abrupt or short change my employees so i consider sinclair broadcasting a blessing. i would say this also, without joint sales agreements and shared service agreements minorities in the broadcast industry is non-existent. this is the only vehicle that makes sure others have a shot at becoming a broadcaster in this country. there is no other vehicle. and the numbers are abyss million. they are failing because of money. capital. they just don't have it. it bleeds them to death. they say i cannot take it anymore. i want to do the business but i cannot afford it. with sinclair broadcasting i will not have that problem. >> host: after the decisio decision, "free press" said this statement. how much of this is about race? >> let me think about that -- i don't think about that much. i don't think this is about race. ideology and affordability and spectrum space and cable owners don't want to pay us for our content. they want our content for free but they will pay espn $6-$7 per prescri prescriber and they pay us 67 cents. it has nothing to do with rates. if you want to know the bottom line, follow the money trail. >> host: your friend and washington news contributor said my suspicion is that liberals at the fcc who claim to be interested in promoted diverse broadcastship lose interest if the owner is a conservative like armstrong williams. >> jaun is my friend and i appreciate him saying the opportunity given the history of the country t is important for minorties, particularly blacks to see america is a place where you can prosper. wheth when al sharpton was getting the talk on the news, it gave me hope. maybe some black girl will see al sharpton and it will give her home she can be on the will. people need to see themselves and what they call their own to achieve the american dream. and i see the reaction from young people. they think i am so cool because they watch television and they think the fact you can own tv is a big deal. i don't think all of the small stations look like me and share my politics. but they are just as impacted. >> host: did you meet with the fcc commissioners before this vote? and what is the next step for you? >> we met with commissioner clyburn. >> host: that was the only one of the five? why? >> i didn't give much thought and weight to meeting with the commissioners because i was returning around trying to adjust to the n new ownership. so i didn't have time to hold my head above water. but i was seeing the broadcasters going in meeting with the commissioners and i said i should do the same. the commissioner and i share roots from south carolina and i asked for the meeting. we addressed our concerns. she didn't say much. she was very open you could tell. it was my first time at the fcc. >> host: what is the application process like to get an fcc license? >> only my lawyers can understand that. they are still reading the language, see what the guidelines are, see what the waiver process is, and spend more money to make sure that happens. >> host: so if your waiver isn't approved, what happens? >> i have not thought about that much, peter. again, listen, i am an entrepreneur and a business owner, and we are constantly reinventing ourselves every day and my goal in life is to reproduce myself and i mean i want to reproduce myself in others. the people i mentor, i want them to surpass what i was able to accomplish on my business resume. and i find no matter what the outcome is with the entrepreneur i will find a way to continue to own a television station and much more. >> host: we have been talking with armstrong williams the owner of the flint michigan station and myrtle beach, south carolina station. >> on the next washington journal, tim ryan discusses the federal budget and followed by the senate chairman on energy and health care issues. and later los angeles times brian bennett will talk about the whitehouse deportation policy under president obama. washington journal live every morning with your calls, facebook comments and tweets on 7 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> i think what we need is something akin to the grace commission during the reagan commission or the brat commission during the clinton administrati administration. an outside group with integrity to come in and do an audit of government. every agencies has a purpose and if it is not fulfilling that purpose or doing it within a reasonable budget it should be cut or eliminated. let's take head start. this came in with the highest motivation. do you know and i didn't until i researched it, there are now three head starts. early head start, enhanced head start and regular. we have the other two dos the first one was working. >> cal thomas on fixing a broken washington on and immediately following a heritage book party for mr. thomas has he signs his book and chats with guest. and this weekend on booktv, this year's national bloack writers conference. and sunday at two, strengthening communities and a panel on publishing. >> the whitehouse announced two executive orders on equal pay. >> good afternoon, and welcome. i am the executive vice president for policy at american progress. we are excited you decided to join us on the discussion against combating pay discrimination. tomorrow is equal pay day and we need to take the time to recognize we have not done everything we need to do in terms of ensuring more "ecstatic nation: confidence, crisis, and compromise, 1848-187 equitand. equal pay isn't just a woman's issue. it is a family issue. families increasingly rely on women's wages to make ends meet. between 1967 and 2010, the percentage of mothers who brought home a quarter of the earning rose from less than a third at 28% to nearly 2/3rds. today we have betsey stevenson who serves as a council of economic advisers and is the leading market on policy. she has focused work on how different public policies affect the labor market and women's and families. we are partnering with the summit on working family issues. we are happy to have her. betsey's record is long. she has taught at leading university and written for journals. she is on leave from the university of michigan gerald r ford's school of public policy and economic's department where she is an associate professor of public policy and economics. we will be joined by a panel that is moderator by joscolyn fry. the panel will include jacqueline berrien, edward montgomery, and victory butson and equal advocate pay amanda mcmillan. right now, i would like you to welcome dr. stevenson to the stage. [ applause ] >> thank you. i want to thank you for the opportunity to participate in today's discussion. the issue of women's pay and participation in the workforce is vitally important for women and for our economy. it is moving and heart wrenching at a personal level. a fact you will not miss when you hear amanda's story today. it is also a matter of central importance for your nation in the 21st century. without making more of the women in the labor force, we cannot maintain our competitiveness. america has long flourished because of the productive works. we must do better. we can do better and succeeding with women is at the heart. women are half of the labor force. however, it stalled at 75% in the 1990's. women's participation over the period has continued to grow in other countries and a lack of family-friendly policies like paid parental leave, availability high quality day care and the right to work time is an ex -- explanation of why women's numbers have dropped. women are overtaken men as graduates in college and high school. and women are the majority of the our young, highly skilled workers. women are receiving training and entering higher paying fields that were once exclusive to men. and these facts highlight how important women are for our labor force and economy and for us to remain competitive. these facts also help explain why women's earnings have grown. 4-10 families have a women as the primary breadwinner and among employed married women their earnings comprise 44% of the household earnings. women are gaining skills, going into higher paid professions and relied on for families. so why are we stuck at 77 cents on the dollar? the gender wage gap is seen across occupations and we see it when men and women are doing identical work side by side. let's take the challenges that computer science is facing as the new york times reported. the share of women declined from 35% to 18% in 2012. a rare example of women loosing ground in a trend that is in the opposite direction of the needs of the labor force. perhaps more troubling is the fact that women drop out of computer science professions at rates double than men as they experience a culture that is too unwelcoming. making sure computer science can attract women and keep them is dire over the coming generations. the economic competitiveness relies on it. without women in tech, we cannot succeed in tech. women are choosing occupations because they offer flexibility without guilt and potential penalty. more eric -- occupations need to figure how they can work with woman and families. the gender wage gap grows throughout the careers. every year what men and women earn grows. ever slight instance of discrimination and every slight edge giver to a man adds up. the young girl who is teased for liking math, the woman who drops her class because the teacher is inappropriate, the woman who is passed over for a promotion because she took maternity leave and the woman that is tired of being an outsider and changes career. there is no end to the stories and each story ends up to 77 cents on the dollar. the president knows this is a national program and left unaddressed it will erode our position in the world. that is why he asked for opportunities to look for to help women succeed. between now and this summer, the president has asked his advisors to reach out and work with business leaders, researchers, advocates, state and local governments to explore works place flexibility, equal pay and lever among others. to make sure we are doing all that we can and all that we must to make the best use of american talent and to ensure u.s. competitive in the 221st centur. they know what to do. they can pass the paycheck fairness act, the act that supported the lilly ledbetter fair pay act. if you cannot find out how much others are earning you cannot find out if you are being discriminated against. lilly had to wait 18 years until an employer slipped her a note. the lilly ledbetter fair pay act extends the amount of time an employer can file a claim. the president is commit today doing this part and that is why the president is taking to new executive actions tomorrow to combat this challenge and stregthen equal pay law. he is going to sign an executive order prohibiting from contracted employers that discuss their wages. he is also going to sign a presidential memorandum to establish new regulations requiring federal contractors to submit summary data on compensati compensation providing race and gender. it will show what the pay gaps look like. and allow more targeted focus where there are discrepancy and reducing burdens on other employers. the president is leading by example and using the pen where he can and continue to urge congress to pass the paycheck fairness act to make sure all employers are held to the same acts. there is more work to do and more ways to find ways to move the ball further because one thing is year when women succeed, america succeeds. thank you. [ applause ] >> good afternoon and welcome it to the center for american progress. i c it is great to have all of you here. i am going to introduce your our parliame panel. we have a terrific panel. first, immediately to my right is the chair equal employment opportunity commission, jacqueline berrien, welcome. she has a resume that is far too lengthy to recount but what i will tell you is that she has a long history in public service as a lit gator at the naacp fund and has been worked on women's issues as well. and she was a appointed by the president as chair in july of 2009. seated next to her is amanda mcmillan from jackson, mississippi. i am sure you will be able to tell that when she starts talki talking. we have called her an equal pay advocate and she has a personal story to tell about her advocatiadvocat advocateing and challenge pay discrimination and winning. thank you for being here. and seating next to her is edward montgomery, as the dean georgetown university, he also has a long record. he was an assistant secretary in the department of labor during the clinton administration. and he did work for auto recover for president obama and he is an economist and will be able to bring a unique perspective. and victoria butson is last and she works on a range of issues affecting women both domestically and internationally and has been a leader on these issues and we are excited and pleased to have you join us. i will start with amanda because i am sure you didn't think in your life you would be out there as an advocate and i think it would be interesting for folks to hear a little bit about your experience and you were here in mississippi and tell us about what the problem was and what was it that prompted you to think something was going on in the work place. >> thank you so much for having me. i never thought i would be on any type of a stage talking about my experience but i am so grateful and thankful to be here. ten years i was a wholesale distributor and supplied goods to merchants. i was an office manager and i did whatever they needed me to do. processed invoices, took orders from customers and whatever they needed me to do. over the years, because they liked the way i worked, they liked me as an employee, they promoted me to be their accounts payability and receiver manager and that gave me insight into their banking records and insight into what other's were making in the company. if that had not happened, i would have never known what the others were making. it was a very hostile work environment just to be clear. it was hostile work environment. you were not going to discuss what you made with other people inside or outside of this company. because i had that inside information and i knew what others were making i wanted to make that money, too, and when positions and sales became available and people would retire or go to another job i inquired if i could fill out an application to be considered for that position. and time and time and time again when i asked to apply even they told me no and it is because i was a woman and people wouldn't want to do business with me and that it was too dangerous for a woman to do because i would have to go into the bad neighborhoods and as a woman i cannot do that. and they told me i would not be a good mother if i was out on the road making sales calls and what if my child fell off the monkey bars and i was three hours away and she needed me them. that is not a good mother. and that was the answer i was given time and time again. >> and just decribe what was the job you wanted to get? >> i wanted to be a salesman for this company. you went and called on customers and took their orders. it isn't brain surgery or anything. i was already doing it on the phone. but it was outside sales versus being inside the office. >> so the things you were doing already were very similar? >> very similar. >> and how often did you ask them about it? >> at least on four to five formal occasions where i was able to document what happened. i asked if i took a self-defense class would they be happy and could i apply them and they said no. there was a whole gamut of things i tried to do to appease the problems of being a woman for me to consider changing the jobs. and even asking if i got a sex change they said no. >> that seems extreme. [laughter] >> what did you do instead since you didn't want to go there? >> instead, i researched my rights. i did it on my own. i went to the computer which was a wealth of information for me. i started to read books about other people's experience and what i was experiencing and if this was legal or illegal, i was trying to define it for myself and figure out the answer. i researched it myself. >> and ultimately what did you decide after you did the research? >> i decided what they were doing was wrong morally, ethically and more importantly legally and i filled a complaint. >> what happened with the complaint? >> it was taken. there was an investigation done. it took a long time. four years. it was hard to be patient and hard to understand the cogs of justice take a long time and you have to go through all of these different steps to make this happen but i knew the truth. and i knew that that could prove it and i didn't care how long it took. i didn't care. >> well thank you for that. and your seated next to the chair of the eeoc, jacqueline berrien, and i am sure this isn't the first time you heard this story or many others like it. people consistently, women in particularly, say that pay discrimination is a challenge, can you talk about what the eoc's, and not specific cases, but what is your observation in terms of pay discrimination and experiences like amanda's. >> first of all, thank you for inviting me to join you today. the story amanda mcmillan shared is in some ways typical of what we see and atypical of what women experience. let me start with what is common or what we see in other circumstances and been able to use the law to address the problem of pay discrimination. first of all, one aspect of what amanda mcmillan experienced was to be paid less than men in the work place who were doing similar work. as she said she was doing sales, the difference was some people were outside but she was inside doing the sales. the work is similar, the work is identical in some respects and yet she was earning less for doing the same jobs or part of the same jobs. but the other thing that is similar is that one of the reasons there is a gap in pay between men and women on average is that women are still excluded from better compensated and regulated and segregrated even. for example in food businesses it isn't uncommon to see the women in the part where tips are part of the income so they are not making minimal wage and not eligible for the higher tips that go to different wait staff. in your case you found it was fine as long as you stayed in the office, but when you started to inquire about jobs that would pay you more, that is when you got the pushback about it would not be appropriate, it would be too dangerous, even though you were willing and able to do it. we have represented in a number of cases or been able to resolve charn charge of discrimination in the administration process under certain circumstances where women are shutout of jobs they wanted to take and qualified. sometimes in male-dominated areas like mining, construction, transportation like long hall trucking, rigging and other jobs where the representation of women is small. so we are challenging that and challenging when men and woman are working in the same workplace and doing the same job but not being paid the same thing. in another case, a woman was working for a fast food restaurant and came in as a cashier, a sandwich maker, worked her way up and was eventually a shift manager, but at every stage along the process, she found men were working beside her but earning more and sometimes it was simply they were paid more and other times it was that the restaurant would sis make decisions that when business was show, woman were sent home and men were able to stay. and we were able to find happening all across the country. the thing about amanda mcmillan case that is somewhat unique is that it is more often the case that people have no idea they are being paid less. and the lack of transparency around pay and compensation and what people earn is one of the real impediments as a government agency and lawyers in private practice to do as much as we would hope to address the issue of pay discrimination. >> and that is part of the president's executive action that would deal with transparency and i was going to ask you about the invisibility of pay discrimination. is that the biggest challenge to uncover the pay discrimination? are there problems with the law itself? >> the transparency issue is a major problem. it is one form of discrimination that is a person can be victimized by and not know it is happening. you happen to have access to financial records. many of you may know the story with lilly ledbetter fair pay act. she was working for good year and had no idea she was being paid less and an anonymous tipster told her through a note. a woman who was working as a human resource manager learned that two men, who held the same position, and less load, were earning more. and partly because of her role as a human resource agent she was able to piece the records together through access in her employment. but most people are not in that position. and the particular challenge is when a workplace prohibits people from talking about pay by subjecticing them to discipline if they discuss their pay and that makes it impossible to know if they are being paid the same as others in the workplace. >> i want to move to edward montgomery because you have worn different hats. you have been in an administration with enforcement responsibility and you have the perspective as an economist as well. the issue of fair pay. tell us why fair pay matters. why does it matter from an economic perspective? >> i think you can start with the economic perspective starting with the story she told. individuals who go into the market place and not get the earning they deserve it has a significant impact on the quality of life they can enjoy and their families enjoy. not just today but over their whole life time because what you earn today affect yours pension and retirement so it sticks with you and your family and changes the opportunities your family can enjoy. we as a society, as you add that up over millions of women, you come to a very big number in terms of the economic impact. that means we as an economy are not growing as rapidly as we should be and are not am enjoying the quality of life. doing something about the gender pay gap is part of this solution for how do we get american families the income they deserve. these things accumulate. they affect the communities availability to grow and businesses by not growing. not hiring someone who has the talent she has is hurting themselves. so it is individual stories to macro pictures for the economy. >> i think betsey stevenson talks about this and the role of women in families and you know increasingly being breadwinners and the importance of addressing tale talent. you know how does that play out? historically, they said it is nice if women earn money but the men are bringing home the resources. is that true? >> that hasn't been true for 35 years. most of the family income growth since the 1970s has been because of women's and their increased earnings. if there was a day of the icing on the cake, it is the cake now. you cannot escape the reality that more women are essential to the earning of the household. this is a central every day issue for the wellbeing of the vast majority of the households. 40% rely on them as the soul and 20% as the partial. so women's earnings account for a significant contribution in over 80% of households in the united states and that is a big issue. ... >> how do we know there is pay discrimination without paid 80? and so it seems as secretary herman was very strong about wanting us to go for collecting basic pay information so that you have some way of figuring out which employers have issues and which employers to not have issues. so the copay survey came into place during that time. we presented during the bush administration, but it was the first time we actually started to be able to get regular kinds of payday that. without that transparency as the commissioner just talked about how the you know where the problems are? who do you know? and quite frankly is not just how much. it gives people, individuals the power to address the problems themselves because what allowed the players to get away with it is the absence of. it empowers women to negotiate. empowers women to demand. it empowers these forces to come in. as all of those benefits if you make the data available. >> you alluded to the fact that betsey stevenson talked-about, the other executive action of the president is around a collection of payday. you know, is there a way to collect it and still protect, you know, confidentiality to make sure that, you know, to give comfort to employers of all of their formation. >> many of these same employers collect a lot of our data off of the web and have no problem saying that it is going to be completely confidential. there are lots of tools and techniques to minimize data and make sure that it does not come out with identifiers. that is really a small-time technological problem to be able to do that. >> that is really very helpful. i want to move to you because you have been part of an initiative in boston that has addressed the wage gap in a completely different way. what i liked about it is that it was a demonstration that everybody can do something. everybody has a role to play. amanda played her role. the chair played the official role. you know, we have the academic perspective. but you have been involved in a voluntary effort. any talk about that? >> sure. as we heard today there are issues with the individual faces to the issues which we face as a society, issues where the government can step in. but in addition there are issues for the employer. we have done in boston, and it is called the 100 percent talent , if one starts with the premise which i think is a fine promised to begin that good, well-many people still have a hard time closing the pay gap. many employers are aware that they have a pay gap and may even wish to solve it but don't really know what to do about it. creating systems and structures that are going to systematically produce an effective closing of the gap can be challenging. may not be that they don't want to do it. is that they don't know how to do it in a way that can permeate the company. so when the mayor of boston decided that he wanted to engage in making boston the best place for working women in the united states, boston had some significant attributes in that era. as betsey stevenson talked about and has been reiterated by michael panelists, women at the high-school, college, postgraduate level i receive in the majority of degrees, the majority. now, betsey stevenson talked about how in terms of young, highly-trained talent women now the majority in the u.s. by the way, this is also true in europe and is going to be true in south america and the next two years. so what we already knew is that large companies, big to multinationals are totally aware of this. they already get on board and figure out how to close gaps because the talent market is predominantly female. and governments understand. what is the incentive for the company? how do we begin solving the problem, not just where a man message which is a totally valid, important, and reasonable place, but amanda already wants to be paid fairly. how do you have equal investment wanted to pay women fairly and will something out, not regulation, but a place where companies can engage, feel good about it, and it can get through all the legal hurdles because when you say you want to close the wage gap, you're kind of saying that you have waged a which can put them at some risk. so the mayor very wisely put together a task force which included those who understood the data, those who had worked significantly in government like my colleagues, individuals like allison clark who serve in the management committee for state street bank and in many businesses that are we like to call main street businesses. so all different levels of business. how can we come together to create an opportunity, we like to call a nudge, how can we manage people in the right direction? first, we have to make it easy. we wrote will -- we like to the make a gorgeous white paper that listed 33 different interventions that companies could take to help close the wage gap, everything from providing greater workplace flexibility to hire talented individuals, frankly male or female. all of these interventions that help women help everybody. everybody wants to work place where they can effectively contribute, not be penalized for who they are, and give their best work. an employer who wants to leverage the investments that have already been made. when amanda told her story when i kept thinking about is command is a worker who wants more responsibility, who has been with the company for chin years, who has repeatedly asked for growth. that is an employee that companies want because that is someone, they will get a leveraged back. it will be making greater profit because they have an employee who has knowledge of the company, investment in the company, shows commitment, as loyalty, and has some tenacity of wanting to improve. that is the employee did you do not want to lose than ever on the sidelines or working from a competitor. when companies look at it from the talents -- talent management when they get it. will we try to do is make it easy. so we made sure that they could choose any three actions that they wanted to take, a complex and that they're going to do this action which means they can publicize that. they can get some credit for trying to do the right thing. and then we have given them what i think is going to be the most valuable piece which is a community where they can have a discourse to talk about what is working well and talk about where the challenges are. the larger the company the more they tend to know where the challenges are. we are giving them an opportunity to participate in the fixing in a way that there will be penalized for and there's nothing punitive. and we will also ask the give us their scrub data. so your question of how easy it is to make anonymous, well, at academic institutions like georgetown are harvard we're pretty good at taking data, making anonymous, and figuring a what it tells us. and we are hoping that the example in boston won't just be me because it can be replicated but will be meaningful because it will tell us things we did not know. the companies, they want to know. they want to retain the female talent. they understand that management and female talent is the future. for the u.s. in particular to be incredibly competitive into the future we have to solve this because the majority of our talent is in no. >> is there an overall bull work time friendly trying to do this and? >> what i would say is the mayor was open because of this right away. and it now the mayor of boston coming gates as well. those of us to study these types of issues and work in this field, even a man the talked about how this is slow going. we are hoping that we will be able to see in a way that we can look at really clean data, disaggregating for all kinds of other factors to see, you know, how long it takes. i think that the goal needs to be when we talk about where things gestalt that it's moving in the correct direction. $0.77 on the dollar is unbelievably poor considering that women are the majority of the educated talent. no one mentioned today, which i'm sure everyone on the panel doesn't maybe you know, the more highly educated a woman is the larger the pay gap. and what is so insidious about that fact is, this is an issue which an individual cannot inoculate oneself from through education. this is an issue which can unbelievably fundamentally not be solved on an individual level which is why this type of partnership between government, academia, individual action, and public-private partnership is the only way that we can really tackle. >> the response to the initiative? >> creek question. the response has been unbelievably positive. allison clark, my colleague from state street worked very effectively that every single thing that we put together, we took it through the whole legal team. there was nothing in this report we did not do this in a silent way. if it had just come out of academia or just the amount of government we would not have gotten it right. the way we talk about how diversity brings more effective decision making, particularly for complex problems, this is a complex problem. in order to get it right you need lots of different actors around the table who can figure out. so by the time it was brought to the public, meaning different companies to decide on, it had already been done right in that it did not put companies a risk. you know, my belief, you have to meet people when they are. it's respectful, is the right way to do it, and it makes things move more quickly. so we went and sat with what used to be known as the ball now called the massachusetts competitive partnership. we sat down with the presence of the largest corporation in massachusetts and the greater boston area. all of them nodded and understood that these are types of issues that they were facing. everyone wants to do something about it, and here we are giving them a ready-made place to help solve the problem where they can talk about it in what i would call a safe car reasonable, effective way. we get many of them to sign on which gave a lot of confidence to businesses which were small and medium-size enterprises. and then, you know, a lot of the mom-and-pop stores, you know, really wanted to do something about it. we are working now and coming up. we have some type of brand kind of like the good housekeeping seal where you no product has been tested and people can displayed in the shop windows were say, hey, we are trying to do the right thing. we have signed on to the boston compact. so we have had no detractors. i am sure it will have some people who don't want to sign on we thought it would take us quite a while to get to our first 50 major employers. we are looking forward to seeing how it plays out, and i am probably most excited the. >> madam chair, i wonder if we could speak to come into these types of voluntary efforts helpful in terms of your work? >> i have to say was very excited, and it is a gorgeous white paper, by the way. >> thank you. >> when i saw it, particularly by the fact that a lot of these spaces in the discussion about the pay gap have been around is there a gap or isn't it? does it happen because of choices where they make or is it really proof of discrimination? overwhelmingly black and all the research. there is some part of a gap that cannot be explained by non discriminatory factors. there is also a difference in the pay gap in the private and public sector. in the public sector where there is greater transparency about pay and salaries, very often that a skills are not very discretionary and where they are publicized, the pay gap is a fraction of what it is in the private sector. so we do know this is not a figment. there is reason to believe from all the research that there is an issue. to your point about the more highly educated women and where they stand in this, there have been two studies in recent years about women with medical degrees. one out of new york, the other, i forget what part of the country was in, but it was conducted and published a journal of the american medical association publication. both found that after you control a specialty because for many years the medical profession explained this gap by saying, the problem is, women choose these parts of medicine are the specialties that are less well compensated. they're want to be pediatricians and family practitioners, and they're not orthopedic or neurologist. so these researchers have essentially gone about taking that out of the equation, saying, we're going to compare apples to apples, looking at medical residents with the san specialties, with the same backgrounds, with comparable grades and comparable experiences and skills -- still the gap is there and still the gap is, in the case of the new york resident study, more than $16,000. to your point, obviously, if you think about the beginning of someone's medical career, it will only grow from there. that compensation will become a baseline for the next job, or that compensation may determine what kind of research dollars terrible to access. so there is no question that there are things that require some change and intervention. i was excited to see the approach that you have taken in boston. frankly, that is very solution oriented. i think that we can spend a lot of time talking brought the problem of the gender pay gap. my worry is that if that is where we stop command of the discussion begins and ends every equal pay with that we will be with a past president of catalyst said we are today, which is at the rate we're going the pay gap will not be completely closed until 2057. i know. i think that is too long. i think everyone on the panel thinks that's too long. certainly the kind of approach the your taking and really taking a fresh look and trying to figure out interventions that may make a difference. >> one additional piece of the changes that we have been looking at. we have something called the gender action portal. we are taking all of the state alleges experiments abased, particularly randomized controlled trial data and summarizing in for a lay audience. they're is a link to the actual paper. for those who want to read it, you can. you can put in wage gaps, and in papers will come upon different interventions. we will leave out how as opposed to what. what is the gap, which is important, but how you close it. and understanding one size will fit all. there have culture, capacity for change, they have the questions on the inside, you know, predominantly i fundamentally believe that there is no evidence to the contrary, most of the time people think they're doing the right thing, whether or not they are. there is all this change that has to come from getting that mindset right. howdy change that mind-set without having to tell anyone that you are back? telling people that there are bad or wrong slows down the process of change. it is required sometimes, but if you can get to change without that we can speed up. >> to you have -- do they share best practices and all? >> we are creating a venue where they well. people will choose. again, they get to choose how much they will share, what there will talk about all with him there will talk about it. it creates a space where everyone is working on solving this with an investment that is better for the whole economic model. what began as the city and is now growing. the government is to point to the task force, which i am also a part of as well. all of the actors they you would expect our working together to figure out how we do this more broadly. i just presented it in paris, the mayor of san francisco, we have all kinds of people more interested. no one wants the city to underpay women. how does that help? people want to grow their economy, and this is one of the ways to do it. women's challenges, it's a great untapped resource. >> i assume, madam chair, that it is helpful to have an initiative like this, of voluntary initiative where people are sharing information and looking at their practices. do you also provide technical assistance? is that part of the role that you apply? >> absolutely. a big part of what we do and one of the pillars to our strategic approach to enforcing the law is prevention through outreach and education and technical assistance. and that think there are definitely some things that we can learn. i also want to share that one other aspect of our work on equal pay issues today really thanks to the launched by president obama of the national equal pay enforcement task force in 2009, together with the department of labor, the office of personnel management, the department of justice, will we doing on the government side, some of the same information sharing, trying to learn from each other, sharing best practices. we did something which seems like a simple intervention, but it had not been done. each of these enforcement agencies has researchers, we have investigators, lawyers, and one of the things we did was collaborate on developing training to deal with equal pay issues. why should one agency look at this issue and approach it one way and another agency look at an approach it another way. that is how things fall between the gap. so the result, we train in 2011 more than 2,000 federal employees. not just from the eeoc, but from across all of those agencies as well as some state and local fair employment practices agencies. it is just one example of how we, too, are trying to make sure that we are working smarter, collaborating, sharing information. there is no reason for any of us to reinvent the wheel. we are taking a similar approach and had been sharing information about data collection issues and challenges and out to improve our strategic enforcement of the loss. >> well, i want to go back to you, amanda. he said you heard from the chair , all these different people about different ideas around the workplace. if you look back on your experience, would it have been helpful to have had, you know, some effort going on where people were voluntarily sort of looking at their pay practices? what was your experience? the people talk about this issue, or were you just a unique person raising it? >> no. no one was raising it. and as i listen to everybody kind of talk, i think that my story not only was i not -- to fold. not only was i not given the opportunity to even apply for a job when i did inquire about equal pay because there were gentleman that worked in the office of me that did virtually the same job, but we did not make the same amount. i was making probably about $15,000 less than they were your and when i inquired of being paid equally to them, the answer from my boss was, but, amanda, they have families to take care of. they need to be paid more. and my response to that was, what do you call the little people that i have a home? they are my family, and i am in charge of taking care of them. yes, it would have been so helpful. women don't want to to get over. we don't hate men. we don't want to rule the world. i love men. i think they're awesome, but that does not mean that i don't have -- i am not afforded the same opportunities. i have a 7-year-old little girl. she doesn't understand any of this beaches try to figure out why mommy's going the d.c. wire you doing this? and i explained to her. she is in second grade. a's, b's, sees comedies, and thus are important. she's beginning of the chevy crazy take a test. i said, if the light, a little boy in a class ticket test and the get all the answers writing gun running and you took the same testing of all the answers right but gutsy, how would that make you feel? she said, well, bad. that's not good. shouldn't he like it in may because he is a little boy and you get a seat because your lawn grow? and she said, well, no. that's not fair. that's not nice. dustup the way it should be. you know, when you look at the way i just want to be paid equally. i don't want to feel like i have to be an espionage despite a figure out what everybody else is making. like you said, wanted more responsibility. one of the take care of my family. i believe that when women in america do better, our country is better. >> what would you say to somebody who came to you and, you know, says they have a similar problem or they weren't sure. it's out there were experiencing discrimination. >> i would tell them to do a lot of the similar things that i did , do the research, figure out what these things mean. what does this law mean? what does this title mean to you and if you don't know, ask somebody. they can't give you the answer, ask somebody else until you get the answer. what does it feel like in your gut? i knew. and sometimes it was the only thing the cabin going. i knew the truth. i knew that what was going on with me was wrong, and i knew the truth. i got to the park or did not care what anybody else thought because i knew was true. and i could not look at my little girls and tell them that you can do anything in this world you want. you can do, be anything. i was in such a state. i could not be anything of wanted to be. this company was not allowing in affording me the opportunity to read out and i tell my daughters that in america you can do that? through their research, talk to people, reach out to people that know the technical things. the eeoc was immensely helpful to me give you any time that i did know the answer to something i could call my lady and say, now, what does this mean? what's going on? are want to help. should i read this book? what does this mean to mcbride why go from here? you know, trust your gut. trustor get. >> it is an amazing story. i have to say, you know, it is an amazing effort that you did for yourself and your family. you know, one of the things that betsy stevenson talked about among the broader economic implication, 21st century workplace, wonder if you can, you know, talk a little bit about that. we will hear a lot about what the president is proposing a round pace secrecy, collection of payday it. it all sounds very technical. people don't always talk about that. as we look forward to a 21st century work place, what is it that we should be aspiring to? what is a 20% through workplace going to look like? >> nice to dream. tried think the 21st century workplaces got to be one in which each individual can realize their potential. you don't have to leave who you warren what you are at the workplace to work, whether that means your mother, father, whether that means you have kids and don't want the things that are a part of you, you can actually bring into the workplace. when i think of a work flexibility movements, what is that all about? is about allowing you take the same things the prize in value in your day-to-day life and bring them to the work place and maintain them. right now we have too much of a system that says lee that the door. those are all impediments rather than viewing them as strategies to make those ways to exchange with our product. and so we are in a global competition. most of that global competition will come about as a result of which company -- which countries get the most of the people. half of the work force is women. half of the educated work force, more than half of the college educated work forces women. how can we compete with the countries around the globe which would give all of us a place to grow unless we find ways to allow them to be women and to be successful in the workplace. that's what i think. >> into you think -- a lot of the employers you're dealing with share that view. >> absolutely. and that think the way they also look at it -- i mean, we are already invested. i will give you a vignette. put it in a stark relief. pakistan, for example, when they open the gate weighs so that men and women can apply to medical school in equal numbers without there being a quota of how many could be accepted, instantly more women were accepted. the majority of people graduating more physicians. culturally it is still -- there are many impediments to women, all types of pediments so that more than one-third, and some have been as high as half never practiced or did not practice more than five years. when you think of what it means for society to invest when half of the people that you educate to do something then don't want to do, what happens when we invest as a society, invest as a company, invest as an organization, invest as a family , and then they cannot fully participate in society, that is going to have an extraordinary economic cost. companies absolutely want to get the return on investment they have made. women certainly want to get the return on investment they made themselves. sacrificing the sources, this is one of these nominal opportunities where it actually lines of positively in there is no loser it works in the public's fear the academics here . also works organizationally individually. an individual could read the white paper, and the individual or just some summaries on the website. they can move forward and suggested to the manager or just pulled strategies out of it and use it. seeing a person, we often approach the president at the company level. one not begin there. the more senior the people are, usually the more they get it. in the business of the company's problem. this is a nice lady get in and begin to solve the. >> camp. madame chair, if people think that they are being paid less what he told people to do? >> first of all, to the points that amanda was making, i hope that it would be about easier for you to find the information today give you one of the things that we did as a part of the equal pay enforcement task force was together with our partners in the task force to a much more aggressive and extensive public education outreach program around pay issues. still more to do, build more partnerships to make it even more effective and make it penetrate even more places. certainly a part of this was to raise awareness to read it obviously -- i think your comments underscore that that was an important part of where the task force decided to do. secondly, i think one of the things that is important in your story and that we find in many of the charges that we get in this area and in other areas is, what evidence -- one of the first questions you will be asked is what evidence you have that tests to support your believe? even if you don't have your pay stub and someone else's that will be the smoking gun, do you have your pier records? de have records of instances or can you recall put together information about the instances when increasingly pay is not just a matter of every other week. it is other kinds of income. so some things that we would want to know, our people paid? if you have a chance to get all of the different types of compensation that were given in your place, as far as you can tell where men and women getting bonuses when bonuses were given out or did they just go to a certain types of employees and not others? we will be interested in that kind of information. we will also help to address that there will be paid differences. we have also heard from some advocates and others in the field at some time when another type of discrimination has happened, whether it is harassment or some other type of discrimination, and the course of that investigation we will learn and in addition there might have been concerns about pay. so whatever brings the person in the door, and were talking today about pay discrimination. but in fact pilaus that we in for some reenforce of the. so anytime that a person either suspects have reason to believe or learn something that makes them believe that there might be discrimination on the basis of pay, those are the kinds of things that will be helpful for you to have bought about, things you can come forward with the will make a difference. finally there is more and more information available as advocates and others are beginning to take advantage of all the information that is out there. you can start to do things like see how your pay lines up to the market. what are people who hold your job, whenever it is, paid in general. they're resources on the web and otherwise that help to identify and figure out whether they're making with the market pays for specific jobs which is important from those who are negotiating, especially people coming out of school, people negotiating your first time job or who are negotiating a change professions >> and you know, the other thing i wanted to ask you because a lot of times we hear we live in a litigious society. the suggestion is, you know, people just like to go to court. but i know, you know, you were a litigator. how hard is it to actually bring these cases, when these cases for people in the cases. >> well, one of the things under the equal pay act is that you have to show that the jobs of equal very often a lot of time spent if you go the court just trying to prove, yes, this job is the same as that. average basis you can imagine that could be used to challenge the premise will, in the defense of the case. in fact, you know, there are far easier ways to get money and to bring a lawsuit under any discrimination statute. and as somebody who did represent people were victims, often said this, talk with companies, and sure one thing that we can agree on. it's always better to prevent discrimination from happening in the first place. again, i think that is another reason why the approach you're taking in boston is an exciting one and a promising one. we certainly know that when we can achieve voluntary compliance, when we can prevent discrimination from occurring in the first place, that is definitely a when-when. it is not easy to prove these cases. >> i was going to say, it does seem to me that the employers probably feel good that this is an affirmative thing that they can do. >> absolutely. >> is positive for their workplace. >> it takes all the same issues but put some of from where they can stand up and feel proud of it and it's helpful internally with their internal work force. it's helpful because it gives managers or strolling with these issues a press to talk about it, tools to address it, as curve for individual women. and for that reason when you talk about where we need to be, you know, to have a stronger economy in the what we want is businesses who are informed about how they treat people fairly, make sure there paying people fairly, that there being talked about these processes. >> i mean, i think, as both said, having the employers voluntarily act to prevent the problem from coming up to begin with, to be proactive, thinking about their system, think about their practices, to regularly be going in and looking at themselves is the best case scenario for all sides. it saves four years of arctic. it saves thousands of dollars in litigation costs. it helps women and the company's reach their potential now. the more that one can do in the space the better off you can do, i think we'll always need eeoc to take care of hopefully will will become a smaller and smaller number of bad actors. her story is a horror story. >> i no there are folks who have questions, but amanda, want to give you the last word for the moment. when you think back on it, you know, you listen to all the different pieces year. you think back on your experience. it did take four years, but are you happy you did it? >> yes. i'm very happy that i did it. i did not do it for the money. i did when a settlement. we went to mediation. we did not actually go to court. i did not do it for the money. it wasn't that much money. it was because it was wrong. i talk about my children. my mother grew up telling me, you could be anything you want to be. i wanted to honor that commitment to my children to say this in turn. yes, i have no regrets for what i did whatsoever. i did not always to the right thing. it was not always the most direct way to go maybe. i learned a lot. i certainly never thought i was going to be in front of all you people, but i'm so pleased to be yes. it is the right thing. it is the right and. i have no regrets whatsoever. >> thank you. thank you for are really interesting conversation. [applause] >> and i do think we have time for couple questions. [inaudible question] we have a monopoly on that. another thing that's going to change. to what extent is women's disproportionate caregiving role the moving factor in that independent? and can we ever hope for pay equity without paid family leave and paid sick is? thank you. >> you raised a couple of really good points. what are you start, victoria. >> that is an exceptionally good point. it has become kind of passe to want to talk about the second shift toward a double burden. one of the things i often discusses all of the work on gender equity has done a fantastic job of letting women have virtually 100 percent of the job with their mothers did and virtually 100 percent of the town fathers did. that's okay if that's really jurors. but for most women it isn't really a choice. what happened and it is will record. i think it -- i think it's an extraordinarily large part of the overall problem, but not a huge part of the pay gap for. it's part of the pay gap, but with more of the pay gap uneven with companies have on the books policies that parents can take or when it can take from maternity leave, it's not that women are gone two weeks, 12 weeks. it's the myth and the penalty that comes from a that in most professions when women take that leave their penalized for that and we also know if women take significant time of my 24 months, they are usually under employed the rest of their lives degrees of the pay gap becomes an extraordinarily large and embedded get out, not because they have to care for the children, but because of how others perceive that. and i give you one more fact about that. we have some wonderful research under the age p.s. the shows that when women and men in the same job in the san corporation each have a child commend giveaway is called a relational bonus. bob becomes a more likable guy. he's a bit nicer. and the breadwinner myth which said so eloquently talked about how it is just not real and has been from 125 years that then people say, you know, bob isn't going anywhere. we can count on bob. bonn is seen as more committed and nicer. when betsy has a child bitsy is viewed as less present, less committed, was engaged, even when her behaviors have changed in no way. and what that means is really high penalties. and the individual has no idea what just happened. but he comes back to work, working harder. each time she gets back store should doubles down. at her desk more, but she doesn't realize that it's all this perception. if you know if you can, it. there are narratives and tools to do that. >> it does seem to me your question raises the issue of a legal impediment and also the need to change the culture of the workplace. i think and spoke to that a great deals will be the year of a point about paid family leave and paid sick days above policies that the center for american progress firmly supports to really make sure that we have strong workplace policies. does anybody else want to comment? >> just that the eeoc did several years ago put together some information and had a public meeting on caregiver discrimination. as you set in, and really is combination of things. partly it centers on pregnancy personally or needs associated with pregnancy or a combination were changed is related to pregnancy, but it is more than that. one of the things that we recognize is that by looking at caregiver discrimination we're also looking at the fact that women also have a disproportionate amount of responsibility for all the care. it is an even just a matter of and the job better years that me have this impact. it can, for women, be over much of their work lives of some of those challenges about receiving a balance or trying to manage work and family responsibilities or hopefully obtain some flexibility that happens without penalizing the where it can make a difference. there are definitely different dimension to that issue. sometimes it is a form of discrimination that we can address. >> other questions. >> i'm with an organization called a news that is trying certified building is being energy-efficient, had certification with certifiable to national or large corporation as having achieved a global standard for gender equality. it is sort of like that good housekeeping seal the victoria was talking about. it addresses the multi dimensional cultural problem. there are so hard to get to because the woman is in seeing it. the company is in seeing it. we do a very extensive analysis that is cooked up by lots of ph.d. some people at harvard and multinational corporations. it was actually incubated and launched the the world economic forum. is not come into the marketplace will we your finding is, victoria is so right that companies see this as an imperative. five years ago we were having to explain to them when needed to become gender equal. now there and cold sweat as to how. this is a metric based arroba with a customized plan for how they do a that has arrived on through this very sophisticated assessment project. that's another tool that is out there. we're seeing a lot because there seems to be a market driven demand. companies realize, you will make more money if you appreciate these women and don't lose the expense of the trend when. >> thank you. and glad he mentioned it. it is terrific to see a lot of these voluntary efforts growing as well. a question here. >> hi, pamela miller. the turning back to the university, i was there 30 years ago. journalism major. our protocol. i'm sitting there now with 18, 19, 22 euro women looking at them. thirty years ago we did not get the equal rights amendment. if you told me 30 years ago that in 30 years we still would have it, we still won't have the legislation on the books. when i was young 30 years ago would have looked to you and said, hunt, it will take that will. i say to them, this is the time. dr. martin luther king had a word that is for some reason following account of our vocabulary that he used to warn about, gradualism. he used to say -- one about that. don't allow gradualism with your rights. and i think that we have known some cynical falls. our rates were what we needed. we have to -- and i think now, we've known for a long time that we need the law. without the law we don't have the protection. it's wonderful. companies are coming up now. there are a lot of corporations that will do it voluntarily. we will have protection until we have the law on the books. i guess my question is whether you agree with that and not. is something that i found over my life span that whenever have rights until a small. >> i can start. if all the people want to weigh in. i think, you know, when you talk about these issues there are times when it feels like progress is slow. but press is important. no, progress does get made. it does stand toward justice. in know, my general take, and maybe others can weigh in, you need a little bit above. you're right. voluntary action alone is nice. and maybe some companies that do it. you know, sometimes the legal requirement gives a little push. it's the carrot and stick. i think one of the things that i liked about our conversation was held but complement each other. certainly it would be great if the eeoc was out of business. so, you know, i know that it will be nice if those cases did exist. looking forward woman not celebrated the day. >> one of the things about the history of the eeoc is we are gone back to 1964, the 50th anniversary, we opened our doors in july of 1965. one thing we have learned about -- over the course of the history of the agency is initially the only way to enforce the law was through persuasion. and over time it became clear to congress, it became clear to those who were concerned about it that we needed a range of ways to enforce the law, including access the litigation, including mediation which has allowed us to resolve cases more quickly and to reach a mutually agreeable lions the problems of discrimination. often very important to people or still on the job. and in a range of things in between. so there is no question, i think, while voluntary compliance is important, persuasion and moral persuasion as i believe they said when the reverse looking at what the agency should to be a part of it is also necessary over the past 50 years to at times go into court or to seek relief in other ways. we have done it, we have been able to achieve some significant change. as my special assistant who is here has shared a "with me from nelson mandela, when one climbs a great help one often finds there's another decline. that is, think of the nature of enforcement of civil rights in many cases. >> time for one more. >> one morbid. >> hi. the center for community change. wondering if any of you have exchange about the extent to which having a union in the workplace tests to alleviate the problem or not and if there's information available about that >> a few years ago the eeoc had a public forum to discuss pay equity issues. we had someone participating. one of the most important issues has addressed low wage women. one thing that we really can't leave without knowing specifically is that it's difficult if some of the issues that we have raised by court family balance and other kinds of confirms our even more challenging for low-wage working women. very often working multiple jobs. often because the working multiple jobs that may be in a part-time status, then they have few if any benefits, then me -- baena asking how long the be able to take leave, then in and have even basic sick leave. it may not have opportunities to be paid and all it to have to take care of a sick child or relative. so whenever we have said about women and the status of working women and the pay gap in general you can multiplying for working women and low-wage working women. certainly the report of was collaborative not help to illustrate in many ways how grave the situation is. one of the things that has made a difference in some occupations or job categories has been the availability of collective bargaining which addresses some of those needs. >> at the ground of time unfortunately. we can spend all afternoon here. i want to thank all of you. you're a terrific panel. in the school cannot montgomery, georgetown, madam chair from a poor employment opportunity commission and our fabulous equal pay advocates. thank you will. [applause] >> the u.s. house last week moved forward with the budget plan that passed the budget control and to vote republican into a budget committee. this and agree to extend long-term unemployment benefits to they. we'll show you part of that debate later. secretary of state john kerry will leave capitol hill tomorrow . a is expected to take questions on syria, iran, and the ukraine. you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. our live coverage from the senate foreign relations committee starts at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span three. later in the day, a senate panel will hear from the u.s. coast guard commandant nominee and two nominees for the consumer product safety commission. live coverage from the senate commerce committee at 2:30 p.m. eastern also on c-span three. [inaudible conversations] >> the republican-controlled house budget committee agreed to a budget plan along party lines last week. house democrats and their response to the gop budget that relies on one and half trillion dollars in higher taxes of the next two years. part of last week's budget markup. >> this meeting will now come to order. welcome back, everybody. we will proceed with the consideration of the fiscal year 2015 concurrent resolution on the budget. before we begin, would like to welcome two new members to our committee, representative don from texas who is no stranger to the budget committee and representative killdee of michigan who i believe is new for the first time in the committee. we're happy to have you as new members. you were appointed last night. i would like to yield for any comments. >> thank you, mr. chairman. want to join you and welcome into terrific members. we have a veteran member of the budget committee and a new member. they're here in the nick of time so we have our reinforcements with us. >> it's going to be a long day. >> a good debate. >> we can do whatever you'd like >> first, want to begin by thanking the ranking member for working with me to develop a structure for this market that follows closely what we have done in the past. we have traditionally had a good, bipartisan agreement on how to conduct the committee's business. this year is no different. we have a very long day ahead of us, and i want to thank everyone for their cooperation. we will complete our work by midnight, and i hope that we can complete action sometime before that. part of the structure we have developed, we will begin by having presentations on the budget. in our control by the majority in in our control by the minority. make an opening statement, and the ranking member will make an opening statement. any other members who wish to make additional statements may submit them for the record. after those to opening statements the majority will use the remaining time left in its our command in the minority will use the remaining time left in its hour. after the presentations have concluded we will have staff walked through in which members can ask any questions that will take as long as the minority stakes. hopefully it will be within one hour. the move will ask any questions that they have. after the staff walk through we will then proceed to the amendment to the structure that we've worked out with the ranking member. i will describe the process more in detail. and now recognize the gentleman from georgia. >> you may want to recognize the gentleman from maryland. i ask unanimous consent that house rose 16, the chairman be authorized to declare a recess at any time today. >> without objection, so ordered it will now move to opening statements. >> first of all, want to thank the members of this committee. the second year in this session. this should not be of strange process to anyone with the exception of our two new members. this is our fourth budget in four years to read each one of our budgets has been on time and has been in balance. and though we have not always agreed on every detail we have worked through the tough issues on behalf of our constituents. i also want to thank the ranking member. i expect we will have a lot to talk about today. we won't always see eye to eye. he and his staff have done their part to uphold the committee's long tradition of bipartisan cooperation. our debates have always been spirited and civil. want to thank them for that as well. no, we passed a bipartisan budget at just a few months ago. some people might be wondering why your even during a budget if one is now in place. here is how i see it. that agreement was a step in the right direction but a bare minimum. before then the senate had not passed a budget nearly four years. talks broke down. senator murray and i try to change that. we found some common ground. a modest 2-year agreement to fill our most basic responsibilities. we spread our military from arbitrary across-the-board cuts. we returned to power of the purse back to congress, and we reduced the deficit without raising taxes. so the agreement was a step in the right direction, but from our perspective it did not go far enough. it did not do enough to address the driver of our debt. and it did not do enough to get our economy growing again. nearly five years after the recession many families still have not recovered. the past five years economic growth has been consistently failing to meet in dictations. in fact, the congressional budget office has consistently lowered its economic forecast. the budget in the economy are closely linked. just as a weak economy contracted budget and to read, a responsible budget canal propel the economy forward. .. we would have just carrier strike crews. if

Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20140408

several of us noteasseveral of e testimony of the 40 million records 96% of them come from the visa waiver countries or aspiring in which the requirement to populate the database is set. >> if the country becomes noncompliant what actions would you take? >> first would be the communication between the program office working with the components on hsi to point out the deficit and overtime we haven't met the situation yet but there would be the authority of the secretary's office with secretary johnson to take steps to see that that effort was enforced in the law. >> we haven't had this instance happened yet. what would be a realistic amount of time, three months or six months quick >> because of the importance to the security vetting we wouldn't want that to be an extended period of time. i know everybody seems to be in compliance right now but is there a hurdle to providing the information you hear from the partner nations? >> with regards to the visa as the chair pointed out at the outset of these are the closest allies in the country with whom we share the most experienced that have developed sophisticated information systems operating through, so with regard to the countries we have the infrastructure in place. >> as a result of the requirement to you think the sharing has been increased into the program has been successful? >> i appreciate you can be named this hearing and exploring the legislative options so soon after the vulnerabilities have been exposed and appreciate the testimony that we've heard from the experts today and want to thank mr. wagner and mr. bersin for the response and the outbound passengers from the u.s. in light of the flight 370 tragedy and everything else that you described but to build upon something the ranking member has asked about the capacity building with other countries around the world you responded that there is not a line item currently but can you talk a little bit more starting with mr. bersin and continue with mr. wagner about funding the capacity and efforts into the second question you may also want to address in the same way that we are exploring the legislative options in the fixes you've already put in place maybe talk about what other countries have done over the last three weeks so if you would start. >> starting with the second question in the aftermath of the interpol statements come of secretary general ronald noble has been publicizing the issue and countries around have taken note of the problem and while it's too soon to say that it's resulted in changes it has created an awareness that didn't exist before and i think we will be seeing different countries within the constraints of the systems and cultures into the wall taking action and we should continue to encourage the populating database and also the screening. with regards to capacity building there are instances in which they have received state department grants through programs to help countries build the capacity. my point is it's always on a grand basis and there is no long-term capacity building line item to say we are going to do this and encourage all of the countries in north america from colombia or pinnacle to build a system so that any time someone comes into the north american aerospace or port we would have insight who is on those planes. to do that would take a large budget. mr. wagner is in a better position to give the experience and can allow anin panama all ad others but the larger vision is that over the next ten years while we cannot build the measures we built here we can put a minimally required satisfactory system in place from ten of all to the arctic but that would take it budget appropriation and i was us. >> i would think every country and every person in the world that gets on an airplane has a shared interest so we have the allies we've already described. the uk is already pursuing this but we also have countries like iran who have safety concerns. is there any way we can provide resources or encourage others especially wealthy countries to share the burden to make sure everyone is participating? i would love to find from you or mr. wagner what the cost is so we know what we are talking about. do you have a thought on this? >> we did work with mexico and panama on and the caribbean to help these countries with their authorities into the internal laws and regulations to complex of the manifest information to help fund them in the systems to actually go through and screamed that information and we have our personnel with this to share what we can so there's work to do with other developing develog countries and then there's also the developed world getting our allies to take like approaches to how we do this and you will find very degrees of capacities and authorities and privacy issues that it's a consistent message that all of our allies should be doing it in a similar fashion. >> as a follow-up to today's hearing what you be able to come up with a ballpark figure and share that with the committee so we understand and maybe on the past experiences with other countries what it would take to fund the necessary capacity locally, not that the united states needs to bear that burden on its own, but just so we know what that number is it so that is the basis for engaging other countries that might give to fund that's because it's in everyone's interest. >> she described this in finer detail. there is an infrastructure background. there is one single that connects the 190 countries have interpol and it's the beginning of the kind of system that you're talking about but perhaps he can explain what the system is and why it is a potential link in the area that you're exploring. >> we have notes in about five minutes. >> it is the backbone that connects the countries to not only interpol and resource databases to each other and the ability otothe ability of the co utilize this is centered upon its bureaus of the national central bureau becomes the cornerstone for making sure that the utilities tools are available. >> with that said the u.s. has been supportive of the interpol membership in the community specifically in central america. we helped install sites at specialized police units but also border control points as well. we are continue to work prior to the airline disaster we've been working with counterparts in mexico and other countries in the caribbean as well to determine how we can better and most effectively assist them in fully realizing how the utilities and tools may be better serviced in their countries. and we will obviously work with interpol to determine how we can best come up with a global strategy for engaging countries sharing best practices and lessons learned from this process. it's been a process for the united states, one that's taken time to develop and we need other countries to ramp up as quickly as possible. >> recognize the gentleman from california. first the ranking member has a comment. >> i want to put on the record thank you for your leadership on this issue and a lighter that you joined on into this isn't taking your time but i hope you will submit -- i would like to submit the letter for the record. again thank you for your leadership. >> thinthank you madam chair for allowing me to participate and the ranking member for supporting that request. and as others have stated, my prayers and wishes go out to the families of malaysia flight 370. but as we have often learned from aviation disasters, if there is any hope that has come out of it it is that we learn a lot about our own security and how to make passenger safety much better and i also want to note int if the chair miller submitted a letter to the department of homeland security and we appreciate the response that we received. and with senator schumer to create this s. ltd database if they don't we simply won't issue than these us and i hope i can work with the chair and the ranking member on such legislation. mr. bersin from you we would've to north america's concern as well because i believe the country we should principally be tracking our ones who have airports near our borders. for example, and my colleagues district she has mexico which has a large international airport and in san diego you have to yell on a just to the south and washington state you have vancouver and of course new york montréal and toronto are not far. my question is what degree are the bordering countries to the north and south, canada and mexico and of course in the hemisphere and a law and other countries, what percentage of passengers are being screened against the database traveling in and out of those countries? >> with regards to mexico, the figure mr. wagner can confirm what the 100% in terms of people entering mexico and could cross the border and come into the united states. with regard to canada, the canadians are fully cooperative with us and they screamed. we are in discussion with them about the full screening debut for their own citizens and as a result of this incident we will see a complete screening from the neighbors to the north. >> does that mean a flight originated in venezuela and landed in mexico 100% of the passengers with a check? >> that's great with regards to the stolen and lost travel document database. >> suppose a flight originating from germany and coming to vancouver, 1100% be checked? >> with regards to against the canadian database, yes and against the s. ltd when there is a secondary inspection there would be a check and as i say we are engaged in canada is engaged in to see what it could do to complete the cycle. with regard to the point on north america the reason i focus is that it's not just the neighboring airports such as far as and el paso, san diego, but it's people coming from outside the atmosphere into central america for example and traveling overland to the border so it's important for us to actually look at this as a continental problem, not a national one and i think president obama in the own the border action plan with the prime minister and canada recognizing perimeter security as a critical issue and our colleagues and partners share this notion. >> we are beginning to learn about check it whic such as a purchase program with interpol. what is the participation of u.s. airlines and hotels and other tourism companies right now as far as checking passports against the database as a point of purchase rather than 72 hours before the flight? and i'm just talking about the united states. >> i believe that all passports are being screened not by the airlines necessarily at the plaintiff purchased but by cbp and domestic purchases is what we are referring to. >> but i check a program intended to have cooperation with the vendors, right? the airlines and hotels. >> right. the relationship, the public-private relationship exists in the u.s. for some time and has a better fact it's a model for the world. it's one that we have taken to interpol and the ie check if working group is in a developmental stage. interpol is beginning to look at how to balance requirements into the concerns of 190 companies with a public-private partnership. having said that, the models that have been rolled out have been with hotels and they have seen success. they are now looking specifically at following the malaysian airline disaster at the transportation sector. >> is every purchase in the united states to travel outside or every purchase out of the united states to travel in the united states checked against the database at the point of purchase or closer to the departure or arrival? >> this will be the final question. >> when the tickets are purchased and checked out the counter. >> 100%? >> inbound flights to the u.s. yes. >> i want to thank the witnesses for being here. i think all of us have additional questions, so i would invite you all to separate those for the witnesses and we will ask for a written response to the questions and again i appreciate you coming on short notice. we convened this hearing i had an idea and convened it pretty quickly particularly for helping us move on capitol hill. so we appreciate the witnesses coming this morning and in person went to the role that record will be open for seven days and without objection the committee stands adjourned. thanks again. >> yes, our nation is founded on law and not on the whim of man. there is no divine right of presidents. a president is an ordinary citizen vested with the power to govern and sworn to protect the u.s. inherent in that is a responsibility to live within its laws with no higher or lower expectations than the average citizen. appeared atsident the deposition of ms. jones and secondly before the federal grand jury, he was sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. this according to witnesses to the judiciary committed before the special counsel, he did not do. , i will vote to impeach the president of the u.s. i ask this be considered by the u.s. senate and that other body of this great congress uphold their responsibility to render justice on these most serious charges. but to the president. you haveay -- sir, done great damage to this nation over the past year. while your defenders are contending that further impeachment proceedings would only protract and exacerbate the damage to this country, i say that you have the power to terminate that damage. and heal the wounds you have created. you, sir, may resign your post. [shouting] >> the house will be in order. >> and -- [shouting] >> the house will be in order. >> i can only challenge you in such fashion if i am willing to heed my own words. to my colleagues, my friends, and most especially my wife and family, i have hurt you all deeply and i beg your forgiveness. prepared to lead our a narrow majority as a speaker. i believe i had it in me to do a fine job. but i cannot do that job. or be the kind of leader that i would like to be under current circumstances. so i must set the example that i hope resident clinton will follow. i will not stand for speaker of the house on january 6. but rather, i shall remain as a backbencher in this congress that i so dearly love for approximately six months. whereupon i shall vacate my seat and asked my governor to call a special election to take my place. i think my constituents for the opportunity to serve them. i hope they will not think badly of me for leaving. i think my chief of staff and all of my staff for their tireless work on my behalf. and i think my wife most especially for standing by me. i love her very much. god bless america. [applause] >> find more highlights from 35 years of house for coverage on our facebook page. c-span, korean by america's cable companies 35 years ago and brought here today as a public service by your local cable or satellite provider. >> on the next "washington ohio's tim ryan discusses the debate over the federal budget on capitol hill. followed by senate republican policy committee chairman john barrasso on energy and health-care issues. later, l.a. times correspondent brian bennett talks about white house deportation policy under president obama. "washington journal" is live every morning with your calls, tweets, and facebook comments on 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> a few live events on c-span. will testify before the senate foreign relations committee on national security and foreign-policy. join the conversation on facebook and twitter. watch it on c-span3 at 10:00 a.m. eastern. on c-span2, we will cover a defense department briefing on u.s. strategy and operations in africa. including peacekeeping and anti-terror efforts. >> we need something akin to that grace commission during the reagan administration or the brac commission -- the commission, base realignment and closing. an outside group with integrity, no current elected politicians. of government from top to bottom. every agency of government has a piece of legislation or a charter that created it. if it is not the feeling that purpose within a reasonable budget, it should be cut. let's take headstart. this came in with the highest motivation. not, there, i did are three had starts. early head start, enhanced headstart, and regular headstart. why do we have the other two? the first one was not working. the second one was not working. >> veteran columnist cal thomas on fixing a broken washington. saturday night at 10:00 eastern and sunday night at 9:00. following, a heritage foundation book party for mr. thomas. also this weekend on book tv, this year's national black writer's conference. sunday at two :00, strengthening communities, the historical narrative. plus a panel on publishing. book tv, every week and on c-span2. >> a center for american progress for him on two white house orders addressing pay equity. it would prevent contractors from retaliating against address payat issues. this is 1.5 hours. >> good afternoon, we are excited you have decided to join us. i am carmel martein. tomorrow is april 8, eight a qual pay day. we have not done what we need to do to ensure equal pay. average, paid, on $.77 for doing the same as a man. on racial and ethnic lines, it is worse. african-american work make only -- african-american workers make only $.64. a families issue. families increasingly rely on women's wages to make ends meet. between 1967 and 2010, the percentage of mothers who brought home at least a corner of a family's earnings rose from tos than a third, 20%, nearly two thirds. here today to help us frame our discussion, betsey stevenson. dr. stevenson serves as a member of the council of economic advisers at the white house and is a leading expert on labor market policy. focused much of her work on how different public policies can affect the labor market experiences of women and working families. we are honored to be partnering with the white house of the department of labor on a summit later this year on working family issues. we are grateful to have her today and see her as a terrific partner. y's record isetse long and distinguished. she has taught at the nation's leading institutions and is published widely in leading economic journals. she served as chief economist of the u.s. department of labor and is currently on leave from the university of michigan's gerald r ford school of public policy and the economics department at michigan, where she is an associate president of public policy and economics. we will be joined by a distinguished panel that will be whorated by jocelyn frye, will tell you more about the panelists. just to give you a preview, the chair,will include eeoc jacqueline berrien. dean montgomery from the mccourt school of public policy at georgetown. victoria from the kennedy school of government at harvard, and equal pay advocate amanda mcmillan. join me in welcoming dr. stevenson to the stage. [applause] >> thank you. i want to thank you for the opportunity to participate in today's discussion. the issue of women's pay and participation in the workforce is vitally important for women and for our economy. it is moving and heart wrenching at a personal level, a fact you will not miss when you hear amanda's story. it is also a matter of central importance for our nation in the 21st century. without making more of the amazing talent of women in the labor force, we cannot maintain competitiveness. america has long been a nation where prosperity has flourished because of our talented workforce. our workers are some of the most productive in the world. but we can do better. we must do better. succeeding with women is at the heart of doing better. women are now nearly half of our labor force. although participation of women in the prime working years stalled at roughly 75% in the 1990's. women's participation of her continued toas grow in other countries. researchers have pointed to a lack of family-friendly policies, like paid parental and sick leave, day care, and the right to be able to work part-time, as an explanation for why the u.s. has lost ground relative to other developed countries. the fact that women's participation stalled in the 1990's does not mean that women 's role in the labor force has stayed the same over the last few decades. women have overtaken men as college graduates and in graduate education. their dominance in education over the past few decades means that women are the majority of our young, highly skilled workers. are receiving training and entering higher-paying fields that were once the near exclusive dominion of man. just how highlight important women are for our labor force and our economy. and for us to remain competitive. help explainlso why women earnings have grown in importance for families. today, about four in 10 families have a woman as the primary breadwinner. ,mong employed married women their earnings now comprise a household% of their earnings on average. women have continued to gain skills. they are going into higher earning professions and are increasingly relied on to provide for their families. so, why are we stuck at $.77 on the dollar? is seener wage gap persistently across income distribution. we see it within and across occupations. we even see it when men and women are doing identical work, side-by-side. let's take the challenges that computer scientists face, as the new york times reported this weekend. they share of women in computing to declined from 37% in 1985 18% in 2012. a rare example of women losing ground in a trend that is in the opposite direction of the needs of our labor force. troubling ismore the fact that women drop out of computer science professionals at rates double that of men. as women experience a culture that they too often find unwelcoming. making sure that computer science can better attract and retain women is crucial to meeting demand for workers over the coming decade. the urgency is there. not just because women are fed ess,ith being paid l facing unwelcoming workplaces, and economic discrimination, but because our economic environment relies on it. women are often too often choosing occupations because they offer flexibility without guilt and penalty. --upations like a citrix occupations have shown us that flexibility does not have to structure of the job. more occupations need to figure out how to work under for women and families. we are failing to retain the talent they need to retain competitive. the gender wage gap grows through women's careers. every year, the difference between what women earn and men are gross. every instance -- women are in and men earn grows. every instance adds up. teased forirl who is liking math, the college student who drops a class after the ta propositions her, the woman who is passed up for a promotion by her male collie, a buddy of the manager's. the woman who is passed over a promotion because she took maternity leave. the woman who gets tired of being marginalized and changes careers midstream. there is no end to the stories. each of these adds up, time and time again, to $.77 on the dollar. the president knows this is a national problem. left unaddressed, it will he rode our economic position in the world. tot is why he has asked us increase opportunities for when to succeed. between now and june 23, when the white house hosts a summit on working families with the department of labor, the president has asked advisers to reach out to and work with the leaders -- work with business leaders, educators, advocates, understand this, and state and local governments to explore key issues. including workplace for stability, equal pay, and paid leave. to make sure we are doing all that we can and all that we must to make the best years of american talent and to ensure u.s. competitiveness in the 21st century. he knows that there are things that congress can do right now. they can vote this week to pass the paycheck fairness act. a bill that addresses the injustice that led to lilly ledbetter being paid less simply for being a woman for 19 years. lili's company used pay superstate, the threat of retaliation as an important policy to persist. if you cannot find out how much a reverse -- if you cannot find out how much others are earning, you cannot find out how much you are being discriminated against. lilly had to wait 19 years. the lilly ledbetter act empowers women to file claims. we cannot stop there. we hope that congress will do their part. the president is taking two new executive actions tomorrow to combat this challenge and strengthen enforcement of equal pay laws. the first is that he will sign an executive order prohibiting federal contractors from retaliating against employees who discuss compensation. he knows that pay secrecy fosters discrimination and we should not tolerate that and federal contracting. he will also sign a presidential memorandum instructing the secretary of labor to establish requiringendations federal contractors to submit to the department of labor summary data on compensation paid to employees. race.ing bacy sexa and this will show companies this is how you are stacking up, this is what your pay gap looks like. to allow more targeted enforcement, like focusing efforts where there are discrepancies and reduce burdens on other employers. the president is leading by actple, using the pen to where he can. he will continue to urge congress to pass the paycheck fairness act to ensure all employers are held to the same high standard women deserve. there is a lot more to be done. we will be working together to find ways of moving the ball even further for. one thing is clear, when women succeed, america succeeds. think you. [applause] >> good afternoon and welcome to the center for american progress. i am a senior fellow here. weill introduce our panel, have a really terrific panel. and i am going to give a brief introduction and then we are going to get right into it. first, immediately to my right is the chair of the equal employment opportunity commission, jacqueline berrien. she has a resume that is far too lengthy for me to recount. will i will tell you is that she has a long history in public service. a litigator at the naacp legal defense and education fund. she also has been philanthropic. at the ford foundation, she worked on women's issues as well. she was appointed by the president as chair in july 2009. welcome. seated next to her is amanda mcmillan from jackson, mississippi. i am sure you will be able to tell that when she starts talking. great to have her here. we have called her and equal pay advocate. she has a very personal story to tell about her advocacy around equal pay and her personal experience challenging pay discrimination. and winning. thank you for being here. next to her, dean edward montgomery. the dean at the public policy institute at georgetown. andtoo, has a long establish record. he was assistant secretary in the department of labor during the clinton administration. he has done work around auto recovery for president obama. he is an economist. i think we will be able to bring a unique perspective, having many different hats. ist but not least, victoria the founding executive director of the women in public policy program at the harvard kennedy school. she works on a range of public policy issues affecting women. both domestically and internationally. she has been a leader on this issue for many years. we are excited and pleased to have you join us. i will start with amanda. i am sure amanda, you did not necessarily think in your life you were going to be out there as an advocate for equal pay. i think it would be interesting for us to hear about your experience. in mississippi. tell us a little bit about what the problem was. what is it that prompted you to think there was something going on that was wrong in the workplace question mark >> i never thought that i would stage talking a about my experience. i am so grateful to be here. i work for a company for almost 10 years. it wholesale distributor that supply goods to merchants. , i didn office manager whatever they needed me to do. process invoices, take orders from customers. whatever they needed me to do. over the years, because they liked the way that i worked, they like to me as an employee, they promoted me to be their accounts payable and accounts receivable manager. that gave me an insight to their banking record. to knowe me insight what other people were making in the company. if god had not happened, i would have never known what -- if that had not happened, i would have never known what other people were making. it was a very hostile work environment. just to be clear. you were not going to discuss people, made with other inside or outside of this company. have that inside information, i knew what others were making. i wanted to make that money, too. becamesitions in sales available, when people would retire or go to another job, i could fill an application for that position. time and time and time again when i asked to even apply, they told me know. it was always the same answer -- because you're a woman. they told me people would not want to do business with me because i am a woman. they told me the job was too dangerous for a woman to do. i would have to go into bad neighborhoods. a woman can do that. i would not be a very good mother if i was on the road making sales calls. and what if my child fell off the monkey bars and i was three hours away and she needed me then? that is not a good mother. that was the answer i was given time and time again. just described a little bit, what was the job you wanted? >> i wanted to be a salesman for this company. you call on customers and you took their order. it is not brain surgery or anything. i was already doing it over the phone. it was outside sales versus inside the office. were doinggs you already were very similar? >> very similar. >> how often did you ask him about it? at least on four to five formal occasions where i was able to document what had happened. -- i asked if i took a self-defense class would they be .appy, they said no there was a gamut of things i try to do to appease the problems with me being a woman to even consider me for the job. even asking if i got a sex change, could i then fill out an application, they said no. [laughter] >> that seems extreme. [laughter] what did you do instead? instead, i researched my rights. i did it on my own. i went to the computer, which was a wealth of information for me. i started to read about other people's experience. was this legal, was this a legal, i was trying to define it .or myself i researched it myself. >> what did you decide? >> i decided it was wrong morally, ethically, and more importantly, legally. and i could prove it. so i filed a complaint with the eeoc? >> what happened? >> it was taken, there was an investigation. .our years, it took a long time it is hard to be patient and hard to understand that justice .akes a long time you have to go through all these different steps to make this happen. and i knew that i could prove it. i do not care how long it took. you for that. you are next to the chair of the berrien.queline i am sure this is not the first time you have heard this story or others like it. people consistently say, women payarticular, say that discrimination is a challenge and an issue. can you talk a little bit about what the eeoc is. i know you cannot talk specifically about cases, what is your operation -- what is your observation in terms of pay discrimination and expenses like amanda's? >> thank you for inviting me to join you today. the story that amanda mcmillan is in some ways typical of what we see. in some ways, it is atypical of what women experience. let me start with what is common and what we have seen in other circumstances. to use thebeen able law, particularly title vii of the civil rights act of 1964 and equal pay act of 1963 to try to address the problems of pay discrimination. first of all, one aspect of what amanda experienced was to be in thess then men workplace who were doing similar work. as she said, she was doing sales. some people were outside doing sales, she was inside doing sales. , identical similar in some respects. and yet she was earning less for the same job or part of the same job. the other thing that is similar. one of the reasons there is a gap in pay between men and women, on average, is that women are still excluded from some better compensated jobs and relegated and even segregated, at times, into the poorly, stated jobs -- the poorly compensated jobs. in the food service industry, it is not unusual for women to dominate the positions where tips are a substantial portion of income. they're not even making minimum wage and they are not eligible thatome of the higher tips go to other kinds of waitstaff. in your case, you found it was fine as long as he worked as an office manager, you stayed in the office. when you started to inquire about jobs that would pay you more, you got pushed back then it would not be appropriate or it would be too dangerous. even though you were willing and able to do it. a numberepresented in of cases, or been able to resolve, charges of discrimination through our process inive similar circumstances. women have been shut out of jobs that were qualified for. sometimes in male-dominated oras like mining construction or transportation. especially long haul trucking, thehouse jobs, rigging, representation of women is small. we are challenging that exclusion. we are also challenging when men and women are working in the same workplace and doing the same jobs but not being paid the same thing. in another case we resolved recently, a woman was working for a fast food restaurant. she came in as a cashier. as a sandwich maker. she worked her way up, she eventually became a shift manager. literally at every stage along the process she found that men were working beside her and earning more. sometimes it was simply that they were paid more. other times it was that the restaurant was systematically make decisions that when wouldss was slow, women be sent home but men could continue their shift. that was happening systematically. we've are able to find it was happening across the country. the seeing that makes amanda mcmillan's story somewhat unique in that makes our enforcement of these laws is so challenging is it is more often the case that people, as she said, have no idea they are being paid less. transparency around pay and compensation, what people earn, is one of the very real impediments to trying as a government agency or for the private enforcement actors like to dos and have practiced as much as we would hope. >> that is one of the issues that is part of the president's executive action to deal with transparency. that is what i was going to ask you about in terms of the invisibility of pay discrimination. is that the biggest challenge in ability tooc's uncover pay discrimination? is a transparency or are there problems with the law? >> transparency is a major problem. it is one form of discrimination that a person can be victimized by and not know it is happening. you happen to have access to financial records. the storyu may know with lilly ledbetter. she had been working for years for goodyear and have no idea she was being paid less. an anonymous tipster let her know through a note. in one of the other cases recently, a woman who was working as a human resources learned that two men who held the same position come and actually had smaller caseloads than her, were earning more. partly, i suspect, because of her role in the corporation as a human resources person, she was able to piece together some information through the records her regularss to in employment. most people are not in that position. challenge is when a workplace actually prohibits people from talking about patty. -- about pay. subjects them to discipline if they discussed pay. makes it virtually impossible for an employee to know whether they are being paid the same as others in the workplace. >> thank you. montgomery.ve to ed you have worn different hats. you have been in administration and had enforcement responsibilities. you have been in academia and have the perspective of an economist as well. the issue of fair pay -- there is always so much disputed. but why does it matter from an economic perspective? >> you can start with the economic perspective starting with the stories you just told. individuals who go to the marketplace not to get the earnings they deserve. lifepacts their quality of and their family's quality of life over their lifetime. what you learn today affect your retirement. it sticks with you and your family. it changes the opportunities your family can enjoy. we as a society, adding that up over millions and millions of women, you come to a very big number in terms of economic impact. we as an economy are not growing as rapidly as we should be. we do not enjoy the quality of life that we should be. the dusk of the problems we face today is relatively low growth -- the two problems we face today is relatively low growth and low income. as we get american families the income they deserve? these things accumulate and affect a community's ability to grow because of purchasing power. they affect a business as if he is ability to grow. the company is hurting themselves. they are hurting our competitiveness and our ability as a country to grow. these accumulate from individual stories to a very big, macro picture for the economy. betsey stevenson talked about this, the role of women in families and increasingly being breadwinners. the importance of addressing talent. how does that play out? have saidly, people it is nice if women earn money but that men are really bringing home the resources. is that still true? or are the demographics changing? >> that would have been true for 35 years. most of the family income growth we have seen since the 1970's, almost all of it, has been because of increased labor force participation of women and their earnings. if there was a day when it was icing on the cake, it is the cake now. that reality.ape more women are more essential to the earnings of the household. it is not a peripheral issue. it is a central, everyday issue for the well-being of the vast majority. 40% of households rely on women's earnings as the sole breadwinner. there is another 20% or 30% who a partial as breadwinner. women's earnings account for a significant contribution in over 80% of households in the u.s. that is a big time thing. >> the other thing i wanted you to address, when you were at the department of labor as an enforcement official, one of the issues out there is being able to identify when pay discrimination is happening. and having access to the information that is necessary. can you talk a little bit about the challenges that agencies face in being able to identify pay discrimination? >> economists say how can you measure something you cannot see. yet we have laws prohibiting pay discrimination and yet we get no pay data. how do we know if there is pay discrimination without pay data? it seems, as secretary herman was a very strong about wanting us as the department of labor and the clinton administration basic paycollecting information. so you have some way of figuring out which employers have issues and which do not. the equal pay survey came into place during that period. during the bush administration. it was the first time we started being able to get regular kinds of pay data. without a transparency, as the commissioner just talked about, how do you know where the problems are? who do you know needs issues. it is not just how much it helps enforcers, it gives individuals the power to address the problems themselves. what allows employers to get away with it is the absence of sunshine. empowers women to negotiate. it empowers women to demand. it empowers enforcers to come in. youas all those benefits if make data available. >> you alluded to the fact that betsey stevenson talked about the other executive action around the collection of pay data. is there a way to collect it and ?till protect confidentiality make sure to give comfort to employers that all their information is going to be out on the street. many of these same employers collect lots of our data off the web and have no problem saying it is going to be completely confidential. there are lots of tools and techniques to anonymize data and make sure it does not come out with identifiers of firms. that is really a smalltime technological problem to be able to do that. >> that is very helpful. victoria, i want to move to you. you have been part of an initiative in boston that has addressed the wage gap in a different way. what i liked about it is that it was a demonstration that everybody can do something. everybody has a role to play. amanda played her role, the chair plays the official role. we have the academic perspective and prior experience. you have been involved in a voluntary effort. can you talk about that? >> as we have heard today, there are issues that the individual faces and issues that face the society. issues where the government can stop in. for thee also issues employer. in boston, it is called the 100% .alent boston women's compact if one starts with the premise, which is a fine premise to begin, that good, well-meaning people still have a hard time closing the pay gap. and that many employers are aware that they have a pay gap and may even wish to solve it. they do not really know what to do about it. creating systems and structures that are going to systematically produce an effective closing of the gap can be challenging. it may not be that they do not want to do it. it is that they do not know how to do it in a way that can permeate the company. when he was mayor of boston, decided he >boston had significant attributes in that area. it has been reiterated by my co-panelists. women at the high school, college, and postgraduate level are receiving the majority of degrees. young highlyabout trained talent, women are the majority in the u.s.. this is also true in europe and it will be true in south america in the next few years. what we already knew is that large companies, big multinationals are totally aware of this. they already get that they need to get on board and figure out how to close gaps because the talent market is predominantly female. we also know that government get it. governments understand. what is the incentive for the company's and how do we begin solving the problem not just where amandany -- wants to be paid. how do you help companies have equal investment wanting to pay women fairly and have the roll something out that is not a regulation but a place where companies can engage and feel good about it and it can get through all of the legal hurdles? when you say you want to close the wage gap, you say you have a wage gap. that can put them at some risk. wisely put together a task force that those who understood the data, people like me, those who worked significantly in government, ,ike mike alec kathy minahan individuals like allison quirk who served on the management committee for state street bank and many businesses are main street businesses. all different levels of business. how can we come together to create an opportunity -- what we like to call up nudge - how can we nudge people in the right direction? we wrote a gorgeous white paper that listed 33 different interventions that companies could take to help close the wage gap. it was everything from providing greater workplace flexibility so high talent individuals, male or female, all of these interventions that help women, help everybody. everybody wants a workplace where they can effectively contribute, not be penalized for who they are and give their best work. an employer who would want to leverage the investment they already made. when amanda told her story, i kept thinking about her being a worker who wants more responsibility, who has been with the company for 10 years, who has repeatedly asked for growth. that is an them believe that companies want because that is companies willhe get a leverage back and they will be making greater profit because they haven't will ye who has knowledge of the company and investment in the company and shows commitment who has loyalty and who has some tenacity of wanting to improve. that is the employee that you don't want to lose and have her on the sidelines are working for your competitor. when companies look at it from a talent management lens, they get it. we tried to make it easy so we made sure they could choose any three actions they wanted to take. they sign a compact saying that they are going to do this action which means they can publicize that. they can get credit for trying to do the right thing. then we have given them what i think will be the most valuable piece -- a community where they can have a discourse to talk about what is working well and talk about where the challenges are. the larger the company, the more they know where their challenges are but they don't know how to fix it. we are giving them an opportunity to participate in the fixing in a way they won't be penalized and there is nothing punitive and we ask that they give us their data. how easy is it to make it anonymous? at academic institutions, we are pretty good at taking data and making it anonymous and figuring out what it tells us, what is the story? we hope the example of austin will be meaningful because it will tell us things we did not -- we hope the example of boston will be meaningful because it will tell us things we did not know. they want to retain their female talent and they understand that is the future. for the u.s. in particular, to be in credit all -- to be competitive in the future, we have to deal with this issue. >> is there a goal or timeframe you're trying to do this in? >> the mayor was hoping we could solve this right away. the new mayor of boston is engaged in this as well. those of us who study these types of issues and work in even amanda said, this is slow going so we are hoping we will be able to look at clean data aggregating it for all kinds of other factors to see how long it takes to get change. behink the goal needs to moving in the correct. $.77 on the dollar is unbelievably poor considering that women are the majority of the educated talent. no one has mentioned today, which i'm sure everyone knows, the more highly educated a woman is, the larger the pay gap. what is so insidious about that fact is this is an issue which an individual cannot inoculate themselves from through education. this is an issue which can unbelievably, fundamentally not be sought on an individual level which is why this type of art ship between government and academia and individual action and public/private partnership is the only way we can tackle this issue. >> what is the response to the issue? >> everything we put together, we took it through the whole legal team at state street so there was nothing in this report -- we did not do this in a silo. if it had just come out of academia or government, we would not have gotten it right. the way we talk about how diversity brings of making, this is a complex problem. to lots of different actors around the table to figure it out. by the time it was brought to public to different companies that could sign on, you had already got it right. it did not put the companies at risk. anytime there is a hulsey change come you have to meet people where they are and it's respectful and it's the right way to do it and it makes things move more quickly. we went and sat with what used to be known as the volt, which is now the massachusetts competitive partnership. he sat down with the largest corporations in massachusetts in the greater austin area and all of them understood that these are types of issues they were facing. everyone wanted to do something about it and here we are giving them a ready made place to help solve the problem where they can talk about it in what i would call a safe and reasonable effective way. we got many of them to sign on confidencea lot of to businesses which were small and medium-sized enterprises. storese mom and pop really wanted to do something about it. we are working on coming up with -- we have kind of like a brand -- like the good housekeeping seal where you know a product has been tested that people can display in their shop windows arepeople can say, hey, we trying to do the right thing and we've signed on to the boston compact. we have had no detractors. i'm sure we will have some, people who don't want to sign on -- we thought it would take a while to get to our first 50 major employees that went bristly and we're looking forward to seeing how it lays out and i'm probably most excited about what we will find. >> that's great, thank you. madam chair, i wonder if you are these voluntary efforts helpful to you in terms of your work? and it isery excited a gorgeous white paper, by the way. [laughter] >> i will share that with our team. fact that aand the lot of the space in the discussion about the gender pay gap has been around is there or isn't there? or does happen because of choices women make or is it really personal discrimination? overwhelmingly, you look at all the research -- there is some part of the gap that cannot be explained by nondiscriminatory factors. there is also a difference in the pay gap in the private sector and public sector. in the public sector where there is greater transparency about pay and salaries were very often the pay scales are not very discretionary and where they are publicized, the pay gap is a fraction of what it is in the private sector. we do know this is not a figment. there is reason to believe from all the research that there is an issue. more highlyt about educated women and where they stand in this, there have been two studies in recent years about women with medical degrees. one was out of new york and the other -- i forget what part of the country it was -- but it was conducted and published in the journal of the american medical association. both found that after you difference in specialty because for many years the medical profession explained the gap by saying the problem is women choose the parts of medicine or the specialties that are less well compensated so they want to be pediatricians and family practitioners and they are not orthopedics and they are not neurologists and that's the problem. these researchers have gone about taking that out of the equation. they say we will compare apples to apples and we are looking at medical residence with the same specialties, with the same backgrounds, with comparable grades and comparable experiences and still, the gap is there and still, the gap, in the case of the new york resident study, more than $60,000. -- more than $16,000. that is the beginning of some is medical career and it will only grow from there. the compensation will come -- become a baseline for the next job or the compensation may determine what kind of research dollars they are able to access. there is no question that there are things that require some change in intervention and i was excited to see the approach you have taken in boston. frankly, that is very solution oriented. i think we can spend a lot of time talking about the problem of the gender pay gap. my worry is that if that is where we stop and the discussion and begins with that, we will be where the past president of catalyst said we are today which is, at the rate we're going, the pay gap will not be completely closed until 2057. i think that is too long. i think everyone on the panel thinks that's too long. certainly, the kind of approach you are taking and taking a fresh look and trying to figure out the interventions that may make a difference is exciting. >> i will share one additional piece of the changes we have been looking at -- we created something called the gender action portal which is going live in a month and a half. we are working to get all of the data which is experiment lead based on randomized control trial data and summarizing it audience and there is a link to the actual papers over those who want to read the paper, you can. andcan put in which cap papers will come up and different interventions. we are about how as opposed to what. not what is the got but -- not what is the cap but how do you close it. one size will not fit all and every company and corporation has a culture and capacity for change they need to deal with. there are questions on the inside -- i fundamentally believe and there is no evidence of the country that most of the time people think they are doing the right thing whether or not they are. there is change that has to come from getting the mindset right. how do you change that mindset without having to tell anyone you are bad? telling people they are bad or wrong slows down the process of change for it is required sometimes but if you can get to the change without that, you can speed it up. do the companies talk to each other and share best practices? >> we are creating a venue where they will and they will have that opportunity and people will choose. they get to choose how much they will share or talk about and with whom they will talk about it. they creates a space where everyone is working on solving that with an investment that is better for the whole economic model of what began as the city that is now growing. the governor appointed a task force which i'm a part of as well as all of the actors you expect. they're working together to figure out how we do this more broadly. i just presented in paris and the mayor of san francisco contacted us. we have all kinds of people interested because no one wants their city to underpay women. how does that help? people want to grow their economy and this is one of the ways to do it. women's challenges is a great untapped resource. helpfulume that it is to have an initiative like this, a initiative, where people are sharing information and looking at their practices. do you also provide technical assistance? is that part of the role you play? >> absolutely, a big part of preventionoc does is through outreach education and technical assistance. i think there are definitely things we can learn but i also want to share that one of the aspects of our work on equal pay issues today, thanks to the launch but president obama of the national pay -- equal pay ,nforcement act of 2009 together with the department of labor and the office of personnel management and the department of justice, has been of thatare doing some same information sharing on the government side and are trying to learn from each other and are sharing best practices. we did something which seems simple but it had not been done. each of these enforcement agencies has researchers, we have investigators, lawyers, and one of the things we did was collaborate on developing training to deal with the equal pay issue. should one agency look at this issue and approach it one way and another agency looks at it another way? that is help things can fall between the cracks. we trained more than 2000 federal employees in 2011 from across all of those agencies as well as from state and local fair employment practice agencies. it is one example of how we are trying to find out how we are working smarter and collaborating and we are sharing information. there is no reason for any of us to reinvent the wheel. we are taking a similar approach and have been sharing information about data collection issues and challenges and how to improve our strategic enforcement of the laws. we heard from the chair and victoria in all these different people about the different ideas around the workplace. if you look back on your experience, would it have been helpful to have had some effort going on where people were voluntarily looking at their pay practices? what was your experience? did people talk about this issue or were you a unique person? one was addressing this. as i listen to everybody talk, i was imy story not only not given the opportunity to even apply for a job when i inquired about equal pay because there were gentlemen that work in the office with me that did virtually the same job but we did not make the same amount. i was making probably about $18,000 less than they were a year. when i inquired about being paid equally to them, the answer from my boss was -- amanda, they have families to take care of. they need to be paid more. -- whatnse to that was do you call the little people i have a home? they are my family and i am in charge of taking care of them. yes, it would have been so helpful -- women don't want to get over. we don't hate men or dislike men and we don't want to rule the world against men. i love men and i think they are awesome. but that does not mean that i -- that i am not a for the same opportunities. i have a seven-year-old little girl. she does not understand any of the spreadsheet is try to figure out why mommy is going to d.c. why are you doing this? i explained it to her -- she is b,d,f's arerade -- a, important to her. i said at the little boy in your class took a test and got all the answers right and got an "a" and you took it testing thoroughly answers right but got a "c", how would that make you feel? she said not good. shouldn't the little boy get an "a" because he is a little boy and you should get a"c" because you are a little girl? she said that's not fair and that's not the way it should be. way, iu look at it that want to be paid equally. i don't want to feel like i have to be an espionage spy to figure out what everybody else is making. like you said, i wanted more responsibility. of my to take care family. i believe that when women in america do better, our country does better. what would you say to somebody who said they had a similar problem or they were not sure -- they thought they were experienced discrimination -- what would you tell them to do? >> i would tell them to do a lot of the similar things i did. do the research and figure out what these things mean. what does this law mean? what does this title 7 mean to you? you don't know, ask somebody. if they cannot give you the answer, ask somebody else until you get the answer. what does it feel like in your gut? sometimes it was the only thing that kept me going -- i knew the truth. i knew that what was going on with me was wrong. i knew the truth and the got to the point where i did not care what anybody else ought because i know it was true. i could not look at my little girls and tell them you can do anything in this world you want to. you can be anything when i was a space of blatant dissemination. i could not be anything i want to be. this company was not allowing me and afforded me the opportunity. how can i tell my daughters that in america you can do that? do the research, talk to people, reach out to people that know the technical things -- the eeoc was immensely helpful to may. anytime a did not know the answer to something, i can call my lady and asked. what's going on? should i read this book? where do i go from here? trust your gut. trust your gut. >> thank you, that's an amazing story. it's an amazing effort you did for yourself and your family. that that chings stephenson talked about was the broader economic implications in the 21st century workplace. can you talk a little about that? we will hear of a lot about what the president is proposing around pay secrecy and collection of pay data and it sensory technical. people don't always talk about that. if we look forward to a 21st-century work lice, what is it we should be aspiring to? what does a 21st-century workplace look like exactly? >> i used to dream. the 21st-century workplace has got to be one in which each individual can realize their potential. where you don't have to leave who you are and what you are at the workplace door whether that means your are a mother or a father for that means you have kids or don't have kids. the things that are part of you that make you who you are and make you the talent that you are, you can actually bring them to the workplace. when i think about work flexibility, what is that all about? it's about allowing you to take the same things you prize and they'll you in your day to day life and bring them to the work lice and maintain them. right now, we have too much of a system that says lee did that at the door. -- that says lee that at the door. those are impediments instead of finding those ways to accentuate our productivity. we are in a global competition. most of that will come about when we resolved by which country we can get the most out of their people. half of the workforce is women. ,alf of the educated workforce more than half of the college educated work forces women. how can we compete with the countries around the globe which will give all of us a place to grow unless we find ways to allow them to be women and be successful in the workplace? that's what i think the 21st century workplace has to be about. >> vic torilla, do you think the employers would share that view? they have already invested -- i will give you a vignette to put it in starker relief. in pakistan, when they opened the gateway so that men and women could light to medical school in equal numbers without their the a quota, instantly, more women were accepted and the majority of people graduating were physicians. culturally, there are many impediments to women, all types of impediments, being physicians. more than 1/3 physicians and some say more than 1/2 did not practice more than five years. when you think of what it means that halfy to invest, of the people you educate to do something don't go on to do it, what happens when we invest as a society or as a company or an organization or invest as it family in girls and women and they cannot fully participate in society, that has an extraordinary economic cost. companies absolutely want to get the return on investment they have made in each employee and women certainly want to get the return on the investment they've made in themselves and the sacrifices and the choices they have made. this is a phenomenal opportunity where it lines up positively and there is no loser. it is a win-win. we think of it in boston is a win win win. it works in the private and public and academic spear and it also works organizationally and individually. one of the pieces we did in boston is an individual could read the white paper and the forward andan move suggest this to their manager or suggested to the company or pull strategies out of it and use it. or a senior person at the company -- we approach the president of the company because we could. when not begin their? the more senior the people are, usually the more they get it. they need to solve the company's problems. this is a nice way to get in and begin to solve a problem. chair, if people think they are being paid less, what do you tell people to do? i hope it would be a lot easier for you to find the information today. one of the things we did as a part of the equal pay enforcement task force is together with our partners in the task force, do a much more aggressive and extensive public education and outreach program around pay issues. there is still more to do and still more partnerships i'm sure that we could make to make it even more effective and penetrate even more places. but certainly, part of this was to raise awareness. obviously, i think your comments underscore that that was in port in part of what the task force to fark -- decided to do as a strategy. secondly, i think one of the things that is implicit in your story and that we find in many of the charges we get in this of thed others, one first questions will be asked is what evidence do you have that help to support your belief that you were discriminated against? if there is documentation, if there is information, even if you do not have your pay stub and someone else's that will be the smoking gun -- do you have your pay records together? do you have records of instances or can you recall or put together information about instances when pay is not just a matter of every other week what comes in a check. in some professions, most of your salary or most of your compensation comes from other things. it is bonuses, its commissions, it's other kinds of income. some things we would want to know are how are people paid? did you have a chance to get all the different types of compensation that were given in your workplace? as far as you can tell, were men whenomen getting bonuses bonuses were given out or do they just go to certain types of employees and not others? we would be interested in that information that will also help to address the pay differences. someve also heard from advocates and others in the sometimes, when another type of discrimination has happened, whether it is harassment or pregnancy discrimination or some other form of discrimination, in the course of that investigation, we will learn in addition there might be concerns about pay. whatever brings a person in the door -- we are talking today about a discrimination based on sex -- in fact, the laws we enforce address other forms of pages from a nation. any -- any other forms of pay discrimination. when a person believes or learn something that makes them believe there might be to termination -- discrimination, the those a be helpful to think about and would make a difference. finally, there is more and more information available from advocates and others. they are beginning to take advantage of the information that is out there about pay. you can start to do things like see how your pay lines up to the market. what are people who hold your job, whatever it is, paid in general? there are sources on the web and otherwise that help people to identify that and figure out whether they are making with the market pays for a specific job. that is important for those negotiating especially people coming out of school and people who are negotiating either a first-time job offer or who are negotiating to change professions. many times we hear we live in a litigious society and the suggestion is that people just like to go to court and win cases. you are a litigator. how hard is it to actually bring these cases for people in the cases? is verytandard demanding. one of the things under the equal pay act is that you have to show that the jobs are equal or equivalent. very often, a lot of time is spent if you go to court trying to prove the job is the same as that job. challenge that can be presented will come up in the defense of the case. fact, there are far easier ways to get money than to bring a lawsuit under any employment discrimination statute. -- as somebodyo who represented people, i have often said when i talk to companies, i'm sure of one thing we can agree on -- it is always better to prevent discrimination from happening in the first place then to try to prove it and remedy it or correct it after the fact. i think that is another reason why the approach you are taking in boston is exciting and promising. because we certainly know that when we can achieve voluntary compliance, when we can prevent discoloration from occurring in the first place, that is definitely a win-win. it is not easy to prove. it seems to me that the employers probably feel good that this is an affirmative thing they can do and it's positive for their workplace. >> that's right, takes the same issues but frames them where they can feel proud of it and it's helpful internally with their internal workforce and helpful because it gives managers who are struggling with these issues a place to talk about it, tools to address it and great for individual women because they say the issue is on the table and they have an opening to talk about it. it will change that town of those conversations inside the workplace. >> for that reason, when you talk about where we need to be, to have a stronger economy, that what we want is businesses who are informed about how they treat people fairly, how do they make sure they are paying people fairly, that they are being thoughtful about this. absolutely, having the employers voluntarily acted to prevent this problem from coming up to begin with, to be proactive in thinking about their systems and their practices and regularly be going in and looking at themselves is the best case scenario for all sides. it saves four years of heartache. it saves thousands of dollars in litigation costs. and it helps women and the companies reached their potential now. the more that one can do in that space, the better off you can do, we will always need eeoc to take care of smaller and smaller number of bad actors, hopefully. her story is a her story and should never happen. a horror story and it should never happen. >> when you think back and listen to all the different pieces but you think back on your experience and it took four years. are you happy you did this? >> yes. i'm very happy that i did it. i did not do it for the money. i did win a settlement and we went to mediation, we did not actually go to corporate i did not do it from the money, it was not that much money. i did it because it was wrong. i talk about my children -- my mother told me you can be anything you want to be and i want to be able to honor that commitment to my children and say the same thing. no regrets as to what i did pray i do not always do the right thing and it was not always the most direct way to go, maybe. i learned a lot. i certainly never thought i would be in front of all of you people. i am so pleased to be. yes, it's the right thing. it's the right thing. i have no regrets whatsoever. >> thank you. all for a really interesting conversation. [applause] i think we have time for a couple of questions. yes? >> we are 100% of the people having children and i don't think that will change. to what extent is the caregiving role of women the moving factor in the gender pay gap? and can we ever hope for pay equity without paid family leave and paid sick days? thank you. >> you raised a couple of really good points. >> i think that is an exceptionally good point. it has become kind of passe to want to talk about the second shift or the double burden. all the work on gender equity has been -- has done a fantastic job of women having 100% of the job of the mother and 100% of the job their fathers did. that is out k if that's a choice. for most women, it's not really a choice. it's what happens and it's what required. i think it's an extra in a really large part of the overall problem but not a huge part of the pay gap. it's part of the pay gap that more of it is about when companies even have on the books policies that parents can take her women can take for maternity leave, it's not that women are gone two weeks, 12 weeks or what have you -- and the penalty that comes from it that in most professions and women take that leap, they are penalized for that. we also know if women take 20nificant time off like four months, they are usually under employed the rest of their lives. the pay gap becomes an extraordinarily large and gap because of how people perceive that. we have some really wonderful which shows of hbs that when women and men in the same job in the same corporation each have a child, men get was called a relational bonus. when bob has a child, bob becomes a more likable guy. he is a bit nicer. that's because of the breadwinner myth which is not real and has not been for more than 25 years. then people say we've got bob now and he is not going anywhere. we can count on bob. he is viewed as more committed and nicer. when betsy has a child, betsy is viewed as less resins, less committed, less engaged him in no way and she is viewed as more absence. what that means is high penalties in the individual has no idea what just happened. betsy comes back to work. she is working harder and each time she gets passed over, she doubled down. she is at her desk more but does not realize that these perceptions exist. if you know it, you can combat and there are tools to do it. >> this seems to me your question raises the issue of illegal impediment but also the need to change the culture of the workplace. ed spoke to that a great deal as well. your other point about paid family leave and paid sick days are policies that we at the center for american progress firmly support to really make sure we have strong workplace policies. did anybody else want to comment on the question? putust that the eeoc together some information several years ago and had a public needing uncared it -- on caregiver's cremation. debt discrimination. -- discrimination. it centers on pregnancy per se, or the league associated with it -- or the leave associate with it but it is more than that. recognize things we is that by looking at caregiver discrimination, you are also looking that women have a disproportionate amount of responsibility for elder care. it's not just a matter of childbearing years. for women, be over much of their work lives that some of those challenges about achieving a balance or trying to manage work and family responsibilities or hopefully obtain from -- some flexibility that happened without penalizing them. it can make a difference. there are definitely different dimensions to that issue. it is a form of discrimination we can address. >> questions? i'm with an organization which is certifying a building is being energy efficient. it would certify multinational or large corporation as being -- as having achieved a global standard for gender equality. it is like the good housekeeping seal that victoria was talking about. it addresses the multidimensional cultural problems that are hard to get to because the woman is not seeing it and the company is not seeing it but we do very extensive analysis that has been cooked up by lots of phd's and people at harvard and multinational corporations. it was incubated and launched through the world economic forum. it has now come into the marketplace. what we are finding is victoria is right that companies see this as an imperative. five years ago, we had to explain to them why they needed to become gender equal. now they are in a cold sweat as to how they do this. this is a metrics-based roadmap with a customized land for how they do it that has arrived -- that is arrived upon through a sophisticated's assessment process. it is another tool out there and we are seeing more tools because there seems to be a market driven demand. companies realize you will make more money if you appreciate these women and don't lose these expensively trained women who come up through the pipeline. >> i'm glad you mentioned that. it is really terrific to see a lot of these voluntary efforts. you have a question here? >> i am a temple university student returning to the university. i was there 30 years ago in journalism and i wrote a column. withitting there now 22-year-old women looking at them -- 30 years ago, we did not get the equal rights amendment. if you had told me 30 years ago that in 30 years, we still would not have it, we still won't have the legislation on the books, when i was young, 30 years ago, i would've looked at you and said it will not take that long. i say to them that this is the time. dr. martin luther king had a reason, hasor some fallen out of our vocabulary. used to warn about gradualism. he's to warn about that. don't allow gradualism into your rights. fallse known since seneca what our rights were and what we needed. now we just have to say because all these wonderful reasons that there is so many women graduating that we have known for a very long time that we need a law. without the law, we don't have the protection. companies are coming up now on the government says we want to do it on terrell it but there are a lot of corporations that will not do it voluntarily. we will not have protection until we have the law on the books. my question is whether you agree with that or not. it is something i found over my lifespan that we never have rights until it is the law. when you talk about these issues, there are times when it feels like progress is slow. but progress is important. progress does get made. said, it bends toward justice and sometimes the bending takes longer than we watch. my general take is that you need a little bit of both. right, by voluntary action alone, it's nice but there may be some great companies that do it but sometimes the legal requirement gives a little push. it is the carrot and the stick. one of the things i liked about our conversation was how they can complement each other. eeoculd be great if the was out of business -- i don't mean that personally. [laughter] not you, we would get you a job. you are highly employable. nice ifhat it would be those cases did not exist. i am looking forward to when we are not celebrating this day. >> one at the things about the history of the eeoc is that we were created by the civil rights act of 1964. we opened our doors in july of 1965 so our 50th anniversary as an agency is coming up. one thing we have learned over the course of the history of the agency is initially, the only way to enforce the law was through persuasion. over time, it became clear to congress and clear to those who were concerned about it that we needed a range of ways to enforce the law including access to litigation, including mediation which is allowed to resolve cases more quickly and to reach mutual agreeable results to problems of discrimination who are still on the job and then a range of things in between. there is no question, i think, that while voluntary compliance is important, persuasion and are part of it. it has also been necessary over the past 50 years to, at times, go into court or to seek relief in other ways. we have done it and have been able to achieve some significant change. joyy special assistant shared a quote from nelson mandela -- when one climbs a great hill, one often finds there is another to climb. i think that is the nature of enforcement of civil rights in many cases. >> time for one more? one more. i'm wondering if any of you has any information about the extent to which having a union in a workplace tends to alleviate the problem of pay equity or not and if there is information available about that? ata few years ago, the eeoc a public forum to discuss pay equity issues in someone participated from afl-cio. issuesthe most important that the union representation and the availability of collective argument has addressed is for low-wage women. one thing we really cannot leave without noting specifically is that it's difficult with some of the issues we raised like work /family balance and other concerns that come from working women -- they are even more challenging for low-wage working women. low-wage women are often working multiple jobs. because they are working multiple jobs, they may be in a part-time status and may have few if any benefits. they are not asking how long will i be able to take leave, they may not have sick leave at all. they may not have opportunities to be paid at all if they have to take care of a sick child or relative or parent. abouter we have said women and the status of working women in the pay gap in general, you can multiply that for working women and low-wage working women. the shriver report helps to illustrate in many ways how great -- grave that situation is. what has made a difference in some occupations has been the availability of collective bargaining which addresses some of those needs. >> i think we are out of time, unfortunately. we could spend all afternoon here but i wanted angola view. you -- but i want to thank all of you. thank you all. [applause] host: caller [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> during this month, c-span is pleased to present our winning entries in this year's student cam video documentary competition. student cam is the annual competition that encourages middle and high school students to think critically about issues. we asked students to base their documentary on the question -- what is the most important issue the u.s. congress should consider in 2014? s areecond prize winner sophomores in silver spring, maryland. they believe the economic achievement gap is the most important issue. numbers look at these starting at high school. fully, 96% of kids from the highest income group complete high school. it's almost a given. 63% of those who come from the lowest percentile do. in 10 of lowe income children eventually graduate from college, less than one in 10. that is morally and educationally unacceptable. >> hi, i go to montgomery blair high school in silver spring, maryland. silver spring is a rapidly growing come incredibly diversity in the washington, d.c. metro area. blair is a great school and one of my favorite things is a diversity among our 2800 students. i see all kinds of evil walking down the halls. peoplee all kinds of walking down the halls. there is something you cannot see by looking at her students. the one glance at our test scores is something that is off. why are students from high income and middle class families consistently outperforming low income students in every subject? this is only a snapshot of a problem that reaches across the nation. the economic achievement gap. >> for the most part, it's the gap in education performance and outcomes based on different groups of students which often lead to your social economic status. >> the presence is undeniable. low income fourth-graders are, on average, three years behind their middle and high income counterparts. by 12 great, they fall into an average of four years behind. why? why do low income students test lower and drop out more often? this is one of those issues where the answer is probably not one you can tie up with a bow. >> being a low income student comes with a slew of factors that can hinder academic performance. the home environment is more stressful for parents to work multiple jobs may not the home to help their kids with homework or read to them. it is something numerous studies have helped students do better once they start school. the u.s. department of education has reported that lower income children who still have a good learning environment at home start school at of other lower income students, further exemplifying the example of good education from an early age. families can be very different for these groups of students. a minority student come a let's say, but they also may come from a family of one parent were they just don't have the two parent personal support you would have. if the parent is not well-educated, the communities could be dangerous and there could be crime and all too often, the same person is the caregiver. it's a big challenge. >> a low income neighborhood may have a library or other educational resources. some schools are funded by our party taxes, schools located in the lower income areas would lower property values tend to struggle more to fund their local public schools. top of their classrooms, lack of resources, the students you cannot status of home may cause stress and neurological issues that can further hamper his or her academic performance. >> we have to look at the achievement gap is a multigenerational issue. there are families right now that are clinically stressed and probably produced children with lesser iq's than they could have had. up with highrew levels of stress, i would have memory. that means i can only hold so much information in my head and i cannot learn as fast or as well as others. the brain will wire up according to the environment. the brain needs to react. >> the basic principles in this that we want everybody to make it based on their character and their willingness to put the time and effort into working at something. that is why it's important to provide these opportunities. you don't have access to those opportunities so it's more difficult to succeed. it's important on individual level to make sure that every child can succeed and has an opportunity and it's important to us as a country because we are only as successful as the people of this country are successful. to the extent we can empower our students, we empower the entire country. >> but we cannot use the brutal reality of poverty is a catchall excuse to avoid responsibility for educating children at risk and help them beat the odds as thousands and thousands do year after year after year. our children only have one chance, one chance to get a great education. i cannot wait for poverty to magically disappear. in fact, for them and their parents, education is the way out of poverty they don't want to waste a minute. they are chasing the american dream with everything they have and we have to help them get their. we all share in that responsibility, no one gets a pass. we first began researching the achievement gap, we had no idea what kind of impact it has had on our community and our country. it is an issue that truly affects all parts of the country. we cannot ignore the low income population, letting them fall further into poverty with every generation that has not received quality education. to deprive a part of our people is to deprive the country as a whole. the future of the country depends on how we deal with the achievement gap today. >> to watch all the videos and to learn all about the competition, go to c-span.org. kosher comment on student cams facebook page or tweet us. >> coming up today, a few live events on the c-span networks. john kerryf state will testify before the senate foreign relations committee. you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. atch it on c-span three 10:00 a.m. eastern. >> in a few moments, a look at today's headlines, plus your calls, live on "washington journal." the house of representatives is back in session at 10:00 eastern. today's agenda includes work on the gop budget. at 8:30 eastern, we are joined by senator john barrasso to discuss health and energy cares. you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. ♪ its the washington journal for april 8. the busy day on the hill. secretary kerry before the senate foreign relations committee at 10:00 eastern on also, several senate democratic women scheduled to take the senate floor today to discuss gender pay equality. scheduledok for that at 2:15 this afternoon.

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