A Wyoming organizationis unhappy that U.S. Senate killed the Paycheck Fairness Act. Wyoming’s two Republican Senators helped block the bill which would have given women new tools to combat pay discrimination in the workforce.
Wyoming Women’s Foundation Director Richelle Keinath says Wyoming women could have especially benefitted from such a law. Wyoming has the most disparate pay rates among men and women. Women in Wyoming make 64-cents for every dollar a man makes, but they can’t force employers to prove that the differences are based on the job and not the gender of the worker.
Keinath says that would have changed under the Paycheck Fairness Act.
"What the bill would have provided was an opportunity to know what your co-workers are making and insure that men and women are being paid equitably."
Keinath says she agrees with Senator Mike Enzi – who opposed the bill – that women in the state could benefit from job training. But she also believes that allowing women workers to compare salaries with the male counterparts in similar jobs would have gone far to prevent discrimination.