This past Tuesday marked Equal Pay Day — where people in all corners of the nation called for equality in the workplace for women. And it’s an action that the LGBT community could learn from in its own fight for employment equality.
Equal Pay Day, this year April 8, marked the time into 2014 that women, on average, would need to work until to earn the same amount that men in the same positions would have earned in 2013. The federal government estimates that women earn approximately 77 cents for every dollar a man in the same role makes — meaning they need to work an added 60 days each year to make up the gap.
The day was heralded across the country with demonstrations, discussions and declarations by grassroots groups to private-sector businesses to city, state and the federal government. President Obama on Tuesday signed a new executive order preventing federal contractors from retaliating against workers who raise issues about pay discrimination and ordered the Department of Labor to begin data collection on federal-contracting compensation by gender and race.
In all of the awareness-raising events and efforts, one message was clear: Pay inequity for women affects all people. And that’s what made this push such a success: All people, regardless of their personal connection to or affiliation with the issue, were pushed to think of the issue within their own frame of reference. The broad buy-in resulted in intense media attention, vast corporate and private support and even legislation action.
This is the same tactic LGBT people need to employ when looking at employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. While LGBT people may have more inherent barriers to enlisting wide support than female-identified workers, striving for collaboration remains key to LGBT-rights success. The discussion should include appeals to our commonalities and illustrations of how individual discrimination affects the wider workplace landscape. The more allies — among grassroots, corporate and private realms — we have pushing with us for state and federal employment protections, the more attainable they are.
Lawmakers also need to consider LGBT workplace equality just as much a priority as equality for female-identified workers. The latter issue was approached by many legislators as a no-brainer topic, one that deserves bipartisan support, and the same conversation needs to happen around LGBT workplace issues.
When Obama signed this week’s directives, he did so with a sign emblazoned “Opportunity For All” behind him: Enhanced collaboration and legislative leadership can make that slogan a reality.