As a Senate committee prepared to involuntarily shelve her equal pay legislation this morning, Rep. Barbara Norton vowed to not only launch a grassroots campaign to advocate for financial equality, but also to publicly scorn lawmakers who oppose the concept in the future.
In response, the House Labor and Industrial Relations Committee voted 7-4 to defer Norton’s House Bill 605, matching the shared fate of other similar proposals introduced during the ongoing regular session. Norton, a second-term Democratic legislator and retiree from Shreveport, was seeking to extend the equal pay provision currently applied to government employees to those working in the private sector.
With expectations of legislative failure, Norton promised the committee that she would return with her proposal in 2019—with “300 or 400 people” in support of her initiative. Those advocates, Norton said later, will come from the ranks of a public issues campaign she plans to form soon. Without offering specifics, she also threatened to publish the names of legislators who oppose her policy efforts. “You’ll either pass it,” she told the committee, “or I’ll have your name all over the world.”
Asked how she intends to bankroll her campaign, which she said would include broadcast and social media elements, Norton replied, “We don’t need any funds. We don’t need any money.”
But Norton, who has likewise taken an interest in school safety and gun control issues, does have some ideas for potential partners. She told the 14-member labor committee, on which 12 men serve, that she plans to include their wives and female relatives in her outreach. Her equal pay campaign will likewise engage churches, sororities, fraternities and other organizations, possibly through monthly meetings.
Among those voting to spike Norton’s bill was Houma Rep. Beryl Amedée, one of the committee’s two Republican women. After asking Norton about instances where women make more money than men, Amedée offered to help with the outreach campaign in regard to education initiatives and training programs for women on workplace skill sets such as salary negotiations. “We’re seeing some of the same problems,” Amedée said to her colleague, “but our ideas of what will improve those problems may be different.”
During interviews following the hearing, Renee Amar, the small business and health care director for the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, said her organization doesn’t believe in discriminating wages based on gender—and she supports any campaign that adds clarity to the issue. “I’m hoping (Norton’s) campaign raises awareness to the fact that (equal pay) is the law already,” said Amar.
Mirroring Amedée’s approach, Amar said a better route through the issue might include education initiatives for girls in elementary school to become more interested in science, math, engineering and technology—STEM fields—that could lead to higher-paying jobs. Amar also believes women should be taught how to negotiate salaries, citing initiatives by the American Association of University Women.
Norton described such arguments as “excuses,” and relied on personal experiences to make her point. “I don’t have a hard time negotiating a salary,” she said after the meeting. “There are many women who don’t have a hard time.”
As the only other woman serving on the labor committee, Rep. Dodie Horton, R-Haughton, voted to involuntarily defer Norton’s bill. Asked for her opinion on the vote, Horton said, “No comment.”
While men and women elected to work in the Legislature enjoy the same base pay, studies generally show women in Louisiana’s private sector have one of the worst, if not the worst, gender pay gaps in the nation. Studies vary in exact numbers, but on average Louisiana women earn between 47 and 69 cents per every dollar earned by men, depending on factors such as race or ethnicity.
Norton said Louisiana suffers from a “mindset” that encourages men, who she said are traditionally seen as the head of the household, to earn more money. “What about those households that don’t have men?” she said. “Why are we still oppressed?” She said the current equal pay laws in place have not been properly enacted, and hopes her campaign will “open up eyes all over America.”
Jeremy Alford will publish a daily update throughout the legislative session on Daily Report PM. Alford reports on Louisiana politics at LaPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter, or on Facebook. He can be reached at JJA@LaPolitics.com.
