The Big Problem With Ivanka Trump's Tweet About Equal Pay Day
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Equal Pay Day, which promotes awareness about wage discrimination against women, trended on Twitter this Tuesday as people discussed the pay gap and ways to combat it.
Even Ivanka Trump tweeted about closing the wage gap between men and women.
The Pew Research Center reported on Monday that the gap between men and women's wages is narrowing but still significant. In 2015, women working full or part time earned only 83 percent of what men did; it would take women an extra 44 days of work to earn the same.
However, many pointed out something Ivanka's tweet left out: President Donald Trump recently ended Obama-era protections for women in the workplace.
On March 27, Trump signed an executive order that rescinded President Obama's Executive Order 13673, or the "Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces" order. Obama's 2014 order sought to force federal contractors to comply with labor and civil rights laws, including rules demanding greater transparency in pay and protections against forced arbitration in cases of sexual assault or sexual harassment, according to NBC News.
Mandatory arbitration clauses can make it harder for women to come forward in sexual harassment cases.
"Arbitrations are private proceedings with secret filings and private attorneys, and they often help hide sexual harassment claims," Maya Raghu, Director of Workplace Equality at the National Women's Law Center, told NBC News. "It can silence victims. They may feel afraid of coming forward because they might think they are the only one, or fear retaliation."
The 2014 Obama order came after the Government Accountability Office found that 60 percent of the the 50 worst wage theft violators from 2005 to 2009 were given government contracts even after being punished by the U.S. Department of Labor.
