WEBVTT 00:10.480 --> 00:12.750 (Edwin Shimizu) The Chamber does not support the concept 00:12.750 --> 00:13.840 of comparable worth. 00:13.840 --> 00:18.370 We don't think it's an appropriate way to determine compensation of employees. 00:18.370 --> 00:23.690 I guess one of the things we, when we look at comparable worth is we feel that there 00:23.690 --> 00:26.200 are already extensive Federal protections. 00:26.200 --> 00:31.800 We have an Equal Pay Act, a Federal Equal Pay Act, which ensures 00:31.800 --> 00:33.970 that you get equal pay for equal work. 00:33.970 --> 00:37.790 The other thing is, we have the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which says you 00:37.790 --> 00:39.090 can't discriminate in hiring. 00:39.090 --> 00:42.290 You basically have equal opportunity and hiring opportunities. 00:42.290 --> 00:46.570 So we feel there are some pretty strong Federal mandates that tell you 00:46.570 --> 00:49.680 how you can hire employees and what you can pay them 00:49.680 --> 00:52.390 and we feel those are adequate safeguards. 00:52.390 --> 00:54.550 (Jade Moon) How did this earnings gap evolve? 00:54.550 --> 00:58.550 Dr. Cook describes the historical patterns of job segregation. 00:58.550 --> 01:01.240 (Dr. Alice Cook) What has happened is, that as women moved 01:01.240 --> 01:05.650 into the labor market, they were assigned to jobs which were presumably womanly. 01:05.650 --> 01:09.950 Or somehow related to the jobs they had done in the home. 01:09.950 --> 01:13.730 Working with food, working with textiles, working with children, 01:13.730 --> 01:15.890 taking care of the sick and so on. 01:15.890 --> 01:21.030 These are the predominantly, typically, female dominated jobs. 01:21.030 --> 01:26.080 And I think in part, because housework has never been paid, 01:26.080 --> 01:31.650 these jobs had little or no value in dollar signs. 01:31.650 --> 01:36.930 Now that became the market value set on women's work. 01:36.930 --> 01:42.520 And consequently deeply embedded in the market value is this concept that 01:42.520 --> 01:46.250 women's work is relatively valueless. 01:46.250 --> 01:51.570 And it is that concept that we hope to correct by applying a system 01:51.570 --> 01:54.840 of comparable worth to achieve pay equity. 01:54.840 --> 01:57.630 (Jade Moon) Comparable worth challenges long standing 01:57.630 --> 02:02.510 practices of the marketplace, especially management discretion to set pay rates. 02:02.510 --> 02:06.800 Advocates of comparable worth claim that businesses profit by continuing 02:06.800 --> 02:08.330 to underpay women. 02:08.330 --> 02:11.840 However, the Chamber of Commerce feels it is not market structures 02:11.840 --> 02:15.650 but women's free choices that keep them in minimum wage jobs. 02:15.650 --> 02:20.750 In Edwin Shimizu's view, women's low wages are caused by female job preference 02:20.750 --> 02:23.270 and lack of professional ambition. 02:23.270 --> 02:28.050 I think what you got to look at is why do women choose to stay or why do women stay 02:28.050 --> 02:30.870 in entry level positions instead of moving up and out of it? 02:30.870 --> 02:32.910 I think that's the thing you got to look at. 02:32.910 --> 02:39.430 You can talk in terms of the historical reasons why women have not been getting 02:39.430 --> 02:40.990 paid as much as they are in the workplace. 02:40.990 --> 02:43.520 Things like the fact that they move in and out of the marketplace, 02:43.520 --> 02:46.770 things like they have different aspirations, or they have had 02:46.770 --> 02:48.670 different aspirations in the past. 02:48.670 --> 02:51.960 Well let's say you had an interest in medicine and you look 02:51.960 --> 02:53.960 at what is a doctor pay? 02:53.960 --> 02:56.120 What's the investment in time and effort that I've got to do 02:56.120 --> 02:58.790 to become a doctor, and what's the payoff at the end of the road? 02:58.790 --> 03:02.530 I mean, if you looking in terms of economics versus what does it take 03:02.530 --> 03:04.870 to become a nurse and what's the payoff there, 03:04.870 --> 03:07.450 you look at it and you say, "Is it going to be worth it to me?"