California’s state budget is tanking – fewer revenues due to reduced income and sales taxes and greater expenditures due to unemployment pay-outs and other costs to deal with COVID-19.
To address the shortfall, union leaders are in final-stage negotiations with the Administration and State Legislature to determine if state worker salaries might be reduced – through pay cuts or furloughs.
Ironically, that puts union leaders – and especially SEIU 1000 President Yvonne Walker, due to the size and diversity of her membership – in a strategic position to make sure state worker pay equity is front and center when the state’s finances rebound.
The way to do this is to cue up research that offers a more precise picture of where gender pay gaps exist.
I recently reviewed (with valuable input from colleagues) research on “women’s earnings” from the California Department of Human Resources (CalHR). The report released this year – analyzing 2016 data – was a considerable step up from previous publications. Continue reading “An Opportunity in this COVID-19 Crisis: Cue Up Research on Pay Equity”
