In Whose rural values? Drazkowski plan to end pay equity gets Greater MN's thumbs down, Bluestem looked at the negative reaction by outstate newspapers to a divisive Drazkowski proposal.
Now the fairly conservative New Ulm Journal has weighed in.
In the editorial, Equal pay and smoking — why weaken laws?, the editors write:
One bill would repeal Minnesota's Local Government Equal Pay Equity Act. This law has been around since 1984 and, slowly but surely, has raised the wages of women public employees to the levels of men doing equal work. That's a good thing, right?
But some GOP legislators think the law needs to be repealed. It's too expensive, they say, for local governments to prepare and file the pay reports they are required to submit every three years.
While it is true that pay inequity has all but disappeared in Minnesota's public sector, it is worthwhile to keep checking. It took us 27 years to get to this point. We suspect it would take a much shorter time for inequities to creep back in.
Perhaps readers might consider the larger worldview underlying Drazkowski's inclusion of pay equity provisions in a bill to eliminate "mandates.
Measures to ensure that the principle of equal pay for equal work is more than just an idle promise to women? For Draz, simply red tape and hoops for guys running local government to jump through, since the proper of role of state government is to make everyone speak and read English (while freezing the salaries of those who teach the subject).
Photo: Screenshot of Steve Drazkowski, from an Emmer for Governor endorsement video.
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