The BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) is so dull that even professors in American Political Development took years to publish a book on the origins of this statistics-collecting agency formed in 1906.
But information is power, and President Barack Obama will exercise his executive power to force medium and large firms to “report to the federal government what they pay employees by race, gender and ethnicity . . . to crack down on firms that pay women less for doing the same work as men.” Wowsa. Hillary Clinton just scored an executive power worth following if she’s elected.
If American businesses start reporting what women, Latinos, African-Americans, LGBTQers, persons with disabilities, and (best of all) any employees — including white men — who are over 39 years old (and thus protected under age discrimination) are paid, we can all count on getting a pay raise, no? All of us but white men who are under 40 and older than 18 years old — many of whom make up Trump’s voting base — will have the data reported for potential lawsuits. In other words, less than 20% of the American workforce is not protected, or 80% can sue for discrimination.
The Lilly Ledbetter Law, the first law Obama signed, has had little to no effect. The neotribal Roberts Court (religious, anti-woman, anti-union . . .) undermined class-action suits as a means of helping those who were discriminated against to get paid fairly, so Obama found another way — new rules that capitalize on the reparations movement re-energized by Ta-Nehisi Coates. African-American women, historically paid the least, should be the first in line for raises.
Ruth Frick O'Brien 