Sen. Kamala Harris, desperate to be viewed as a champion of women’s rights in order to attract votes next year, has released what she calls a “Gender Pay Gap Plan” that would, if implemented, wreak havoc on almost any company that happens to have more than one hundred employees.
While the plan sounds well-intentioned at first, the truth is that it won’t help women earn more money than they are currently earning. Rather, it will force companies to come up with various ways to circumvent intrusive government control of their commercial business practices.
The Gender Pay Gap Plan would require companies with one hundred or more employees to report any differences in pay between male and female employees. Job titles and pay differences due to experience and performance would be taken into account. However, companies found to have violated the new law would be fined one percent of profits for every one percent gap in pay. At the same time, employees who feel that they have been discriminated against due to their gender would not be able to arbitrate their claims. Instead, they would need to take their cases to Federal Court or the EEOC.
While the Gender Pay Gap Plan would need to pass both houses of Congress in order to become law, Sen. Harris has made it clear that, if she is elected President of the United States in 2020, she will issue an executive order forcing government contractors that want to bid on jobs worth more than $500,000 to obtain an “equal pay certification” from the federal government. She hasn’t offered details on how companies would obtain such certification, but one can be certain that it will likely involve a great deal of time, paperwork, and expense.
Naturally, there are a number of ways in which companies can get around such legislation should it ever become law. It is likely that many companies would modify job titles and/or create new job positions to get around the regulations. Companies that offer women flexible job options such as the ability to work at home in exchange for lower pay would likely rescind these options.
It is also likely that many corporations would resort to more drastic measures than merely renaming job positions and modifying company rules. Advances in automation are already providing employers with new options, and many companies may opt to automate jobs that were once handled by human workers, thus cutting people out of the job market. This would be a particularly attractive option to companies that could lower their full time employment rate to fewer than 100 employees. Alternatively, corporations may choose to outsource jobs to contractors instead of taking on the responsibility of filling out extensive paperwork to prove “equal pay” for all full time employees. This would be a boon for people who enjoy working in the gig economy; however, it would be damaging to those who need full-time employment with employee benefits such as healthcare and paid leave.
The whole “Gender Pay Gap Plan” is based on faulty reasoning that Sen. Kamala Harris is trying to put forth as being a “non-debatable point”. The truth of the matter is that while many women are paid less than their male counterparts, there are several valid reasons why this is the case. Men often work in difficult yet rewarding fields such as welding, construction, masonry and engineering, while women choose less demanding fields such as teaching, social work or secretarial work. Furthermore, men are more likely to work overtime for extra pay than many of their female counterparts.
While it is true that some employers do discriminate against women in their employ, this does not justify creating new, intrusive federal regulations for businesses that would hurt both female employees and the overall economy.
~ Patriotic Freedom Fighter
