UUP: Support New York State Fair Pay Act

Level of Government: State

As a State University of New York (SUNY) employee, and member of United University Professions (UUP), I am writing to request your support for the New York State Fair Pay Act S0955/A3911. This legislation would make it an unlawful employment practice for an employer to discriminate against employees on the basis of sex, race and/or national origin by paying different wages. Equal pay has been the federal law since 1963, but women are still paid less than men with similar work, education, skills and experience.

A study by the AFL-CIO and the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) determined America's working families lose $200 billion a year to the wage gap, an average loss of $4,000 to each working woman's family. This information suggests that if single working mothers earn as much as men in the same jobs, their income would increase by almost 17 percent and poverty rates will be reduced from 25.3 percent to 12.6 percent.

In addition, the Fair Pay Act would allow employees in the private sector to freely and without fear of repercussions from their employer, share information concerning salary levels. Without salary information, the vast majority of workers employed in the private sector can not verify that they are receiving equal pay. This effectively makes existing state and federal equal-pay for equal-work laws useless.

I strongly urge you to support the passage of the Fair Pay Act to help remedy longstanding discriminatory pay practices.

Thank you for your consideration and support on this important issue.

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