Bluestem would be derelict in its role as a crabby old blog if I didn't take a look at yet another bill advanced by Steve Drazkowski, the go-to bully for divisive legislation in Minnesota: a proposal that includes eliminating pay equity for male and female public employees.
The Winona Daily News reported in Drazkowski takes aim at pay equity law:
A Minnesota lawmaker wants to end a state reporting program that penalizes municipalities for pay differences between men and women.
The bill’s chief author, Rep. Steve Drazkowski, R-Mazeppa, defended the suggested change Thursday, calling the Local Government Pay Equity Act outdated and burdensome for cities and counties.
“It’s unnecessary,” Drazkowski said. “It doesn’t add any value to Minnesota workers or to Minnesota government.”
The facts reported by the WDN tell a somewhat different story, with workers receiving compensation due them:
In the past 14 years, 96 resolved penalties resulted in more than $1.2 million in restitution to 1,300 employees and nearly $210,000 in fines, according to state data.
Non-complying cities or counties are given a 90-day grace period to make changes before any penalty is considered.
Perhaps money to workers has no value in Drazkowski's eyes. Editorial boards at Greater Minnesota newspapers have disagreed.
Yesterday, in Our view: We haven't come very far, baby, editor Darrell Ehrlick wrote on behalf of the Winona Daily News editorial board:
We bet there's at least 1,300 people who feel differently.
We haven't come so far, baby.
Drazkowski would try to have us believe that gender discrimination, especially in the public sector, isn't a problem. In other words, government jobs pay the same no matter the gender. Besides, federal law takes care of the issue, so state law is redundant.
Too bad those pesky facts seem to be standing in Drazkowski's way.
The state of Minnesota reports that nearly 1,300 employees in the course of 14 years (in other words almost 100 per year) have been victims of wage discrimination. That's cost the government more than
$1.2 million in back wages and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.
To believe Minnesota doesn't need the law is at best naïve and, at worst, sexist. . . .
Read the entire piece at the WDN. Earlier, the Mankato Free Press weighed in with Our View: Pay equity law should remain:
Just last year a nearly 10 percent gap existed in the wages that Minnesota women were paid in public sector jobs compared to what men were paid.
That number from the Office of Minnesota Management, which tracks compliance, is fresh and troublesome. It’s even more troublesome when a movement is afoot at the Capitol to repeal the law that requires pay equity for public female employees.
Republican lawmakers are pushing to get rid of the 1984 law requiring gender equity in pay because they consider it outdated and too costly. They’ve tucked a provision into a bill that eliminates many state mandates.
If we are going to protect women in the work force from regressing to bigger gaps in pay equity, the law needs to stay on the books. . . .. . .Minnesota’s law has well-served its residents. Other federal and state pay equity laws require employees to sue their bosses to be compensated fairly, according to the Pay Equity Coalition of Minnesota.
Paying women what they deserve to be paid is not only ethical, but it’s part of what Minnesotans mean when they refer to the quality of life here. We came up with a good law and should keep it.
Both editorials follow in the wake of an editorial in the Bemidji Pioneer, Republicans would strip pay equity:
Republicans, who lead both the Minnesota House and Senate, may have been overzealous in their attempt to trim government. Under the mantle of removing mandates from local governments, a Republican effort is underfoot to repeal the 1984 law that brings gender balance to public employment.
In other words, the bill would return to a situation where a man could be paid more than a woman for the comparable amount of work in a public job.
Minnesota Democrats raised Caine with the proposal on Tuesday, issuing a strongly worded message that the bill, House File 7, “distracts us from the real challenges facing Minnesotans while making it harder for working women to earn a wage they deserve. It makes no sense,” said Rep. Linda Slocum, DFL-Bloomington.
Read all of the three editorials; it's clear that Drazkowski is out of touch with greater Minnesota's sense of fairness.
One has to wonder at times about Drazkowski, who ran on "Rural Values."
Where did he pick up his notion of "value," especially with regards to women? The Gin Mill that a brother ran before the strip club was torched? Former colleague and wife intimidator Mark Olson, at whose "Family Picnic" Draz was a special guest following Olson's conviction? Or those of his early supporter, Tim Droogsma? Birds of a feather, anyone?
Image: From Draz's Facebook page, a vision of committed whatever.
What a complete waste of time on Rep. Drazkowski's part. Why hasn't he done anything about jobs?!
Republicans - you've got both the senate and the house in Minnesota now. WHERE ARE THE JOBS?
Posted by: Diana Raabe | Feb 18, 2011 at 11:20 AM