奥巴马总统就男女同工同酬问题发表演讲
Thank you, everybody. (Applause.) All right. Well, thanks to myfriend, Lilly Ledbetter, not only for that introduction but for fighting for asimple principle: Equal pay for equalwork. It’s not that complicated. And, Lilly, I assure you, you remain the faceof fair pay. (Laughter.) People don’t want my mug on there. (Laughter.) They want your face.
As Lilly mentioned, she did notset out to be a trailblazer. She was just somebody who was waking up every day,going to work, doing her job the best that she could. And then one day, she finds out, after years,that she earned less than her male colleagues for doing the same job. I want to make that point again. (Laughter.) Doing the same job. Sometimeswhen you — when we discuss this issue of fair pay, equal pay for equal work,and the pay gap between men and women, you’ll hear all sorts of excuses about,well, they’re child-bearing, and they’re choosing to do this, and they’re thisand they’re that and the other. She wasdoing the same job — probably doing better. (Laughter and applause.) Samejob. Working just as hard, probablyputting in more hours. But she wasgetting systematically paid less.
And so she set out to make surethis country lived up to its founding, the idea that all of us are createdequal. And when the courts didn’t answerher call, Congress did.
The first time Lilly and I stoodtogether in this room was my tenth day in office, and that’s when we signed theLilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. (Applause.) First bill I signedinto law. And some of the leaders whohelped make that happen are here today, including Leader Pelosi and SenatorMikulski and Congresswoman DeLauro. (Applause.) I want to thank allthe members of Congress and all the state legislators who are here and all the advocates who are here, becauseyou all contributed to that effort. AndI want to give a special thanks to the members of the National Equal Pay TaskForce, who’ve done outstanding work to make workplaces across America morefair.
We’re here because today is EqualPay Day. (Applause.) Equal Pay Day. And it’s nice to have a day, but it’s evenbetter to have equal pay. (Applause.) And our job is notfinished yet. Equal Pay Day means that a woman has to work about this far into2014 to earn what a man earned in 2013. Think about that. A woman has gotto work about three more months in order to get what a man got because she’spaid less. That’s not fair. That’s like adding an extra six miles to amarathon. (Laughter.) It’s not right.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Ain’t right.
THE PRESIDENT: Ain’t right. (Laughter.) It’s not right and itain’t right. (Laughter.)
America should be a level playingfield, a fair race for everybody — a place where anybody who’s willing to workhard has a chance to get ahead. Andrestoring that opportunity for every American — men and women — has to be adriving focus for our country.
Now, the good news is today oureconomy is growing; businesses have created almost 9 million new jobs over thepast four years. More than 7 millionAmericans have signed up for health care coverage under the Affordable CareAct. (Applause.)
That’s a good thing, too. I know it’s Equal Pay Day and not ObamacareDay — (laughter) — but I do want to point out that the Affordable Care Actguarantees free preventive care, like mammograms and contraceptive care, fortens of millions of women, and ends the days when you could be charged morejust for being a woman when it comes to your health insurance. (Applause.) And that’s true for everybody. (Applause.) That’s just one moreplace where things were not fair.
We’ll talk about drycleanersnext, right — (laughter) — because I know that — I don’t know why it costsmore for Michelle’s blouse than my shirt. (Laughter.)
But we’ve got to make sure thatAmerica works for everybody. Anybody who is willing to work hard, they shouldbe able to get ahead. And we’ve got tobuild an economy that works for everybody, not just those at the top. Restoring opportunity for all has to be ourpriority. That’s what America isabout. It doesn’t matter where youstarted off, what you look like — you work hard, you take responsibility, youmake the effort, you should be able to get ahead.
And we’ve got to fight for anopportunity agenda, which means more good jobs that pay good wages, andtraining Americans to make sure that they can fill those jobs, and guaranteeingevery child a world-class education, and making sure the economy rewards hardwork for every single American.
And part of that is fighting forfair pay for women — because when women succeed, America succeeds. (Applause.) When women succeed, America succeeds. It’s true. I believe that. (Applause.) It’s true. It’s true. It’s true.
Now, here’s the challenge: Today, the average full-time working womanearns just 77 cents for every dollar a man earns; for African American women,Latinas, it’s even less. And in 2014,that’s an embarrassment. It iswrong. And this is not just an issue offairness. It’s also a family issue andan economic issue, because women make up about half of our workforce and they’reincreasingly the breadwinners for a whole lot of families out there. So when they make less money, it means lessmoney for gas, less money for groceries, less money for child care, less moneyfor college tuition, less money is going into retirement savings.
And it’s all bad for business,because our economy depends on customers out there, and when customers haveless money, when hardworking women don’t have the resources, that’s aproblem. When businesses lose terrificwomen talent because they’re fed up with unfair policies, that’s bad forbusiness. They lose out on thecontributions that those women could be making. When any of our citizens can’t fulfill their potential for reasons thathave nothing to do with their talent or their character or their work ethic, we’renot living up to our founding values. Wedon’t have second-class citizens in this country — and certainly not in theworkplace.
So, tomorrow, the Senate has thechance to start making this right by passing a bill that Lilly already alludedto — the Paycheck Fairness Act. (Applause.) They’ve got a chanceto do the right thing. And it would putsensible rules into place, like making sure employees who discuss theirsalaries don’t face retaliation by their employers.
And here’s why this isimportant. There are women here todaywho worked in offices where it was against the rules for employees to discusssalaries with one another. And becauseof that, they didn’t know they were being paid less than men — just like Lillydidn’t know — for doing the exact same work. For some, it was years before they found out. And even then, it only happened because amanager accidentally let it slip or, as in Lilly’s case, a sympatheticco-worker quietly passed a note. Sheonly found out she earned less than her male colleagues for doing the same workbecause somebody left an anonymous note.
We can’t leave that tochance. And over the course of Lilly’scareer, she lost more than $200,000 in salary, even more in pension and SocialSecurity benefits — both of which are pegged to salary — simply because shewas a woman.
And Lilly, and some of the otherwomen here, decided it was wrong, set out to fix it. They went to their bosses; they asked for araise. That didn’t work. They turned to the law; they filed suit. And for some, for years after waiting andpersisting they finally got some justice.
Well, tomorrow, the Senate couldpay tribute to their courage by voting yes for paycheck fairness. (Applause.) This should not be a hard proposition. This should not be that complicated. (Applause.)
And so far, Republicans inCongress have been gumming up the works. They’ve been blocking progress on this issue, and of course other issuesthat would help with the economic recovery and help us grow faster. But we don’t have to accept that. America, you don’t have to sit still. You can make sure that you’re putting somepressure on members of Congress about this issue. And I don’t care whether you’re a Democrat ora Republican. If you’re a voter — ifyou’ve got a daughter, you got a sister, you got a mom — I know you got a mom– (laughter) — this is something you should care about.
And I’m not going to stand stilleither. So in this year of action I’veused my executive authority whenever I could to create opportunity for moreAmericans. And today, I’m going to takeaction — executive action — to make it easier for working women to earn fairpay. So first, I’m going to sign anexecutive order to create more pay transparency by prohibiting federalcontractors from retaliating against employees who discuss their pay with eachother. (Applause.) Pay secrecy fosters discrimination and weshould not tolerate it — not in federal contracting or anywhere else.
Second, I’m signing apresidential memorandum directing the Department of Labor and our outstandingSecretary of Labor, Tom Perez, to require federal contractors to provide dataabout their employee compensation so pay discrimination can be spotted moreeasily.
Now, I want to be clear: There are great employers out there who dothe right thing. There are plenty ofemployers out there who are absolutely certain that there’s no paydiscrimination happening in their offices. But then sometimes when the data is laid out, it paints a differentpicture. Many times they then doeverything they can to fix the problem, and so we want to encourage them to fixthese problems if they exist by making sure that the data is out there.
So everybody who cares about thisshould pay attention to how the Senate votes tomorrow on this paycheck fairnessact, because the majority of senators support this bill, but two years ago, aminority of Senate Republicans blocked it from getting a vote. Even worse, some commentators are out theresaying that the pay gap doesn’t even exist. They say it’s a myth. But it’snot a myth; it’s math. (Laughter andapplause.) You can look at thepaychecks. You can look at thestubs. (Applause.)
I mean, Lilly Ledbetter didn’tjust make this up. (Laughter.) The court, when it looked at the documents,said, yep, you’ve been getting paid less for doing the same job. It’s just the court then said, you know, it’sbeen — as Lilly said — it’s been happening so long, you can’t do anythingabout it anymore — which made no sense and that’s why we had to sign anotherbill. It’s basic math that adds up toreal money. It makes a real differencefor a lot of Americans who are working hard to support their families.
And of course, the fact that we’vegot some resistance from some folks on this issue up on Capitol Hill just fitswith this larger problem, this vision that the congressional Republicans seemto be continually embracing — this notion that, you know what, you’re just onyour own, no matter how unfair things are. You see it in their budget. Thebudget the Republicans in Congress just put forward last week, it’s like a badrerun. It would give massive tax cuts tohouseholds making more than a million dollars a year, force deep cuts to thingsthat actually help working families like early education and college grants andjob training.
And, of course, it includes thatnovel idea of repealing the Affordable Care Act. (Laughter.) Fiftieth time they’ve tried that — which would mean the more than 7million Americans who’ve done the responsible thing and signed up to buy healthinsurance, they’d lose their health insurance; and the 3 million young adultswho’ve stayed on their parents’ plan, they’d no longer have that available;take us back to the days when insurers could charge women more just for being awoman.
On minimum wage, three out of fourAmericans support raising the minimum wage. Usually when three out of four Americans support something, members ofCongress are right there. (Laughter.) And yet here, Republicans in Congress aredead set against it, blocking a pay raise for tens of millions of Americans –a majority of them women. This isn’tjust about treating women fairly. Thisis about Republicans seemingly opposing any efforts to even the playing fieldfor working families.
And I was up in Michigan lastweek and I just asked — I don’t understand fully the theory behind this. I don’t know why you would resist the ideathat women should be paid the same as men, and then deny that that’s not alwayshappening out there. If Republicans inCongress want to prove me wrong, if they want to show that they, in fact, docare about women being paid the same as men, then show me. They can start tomorrow. They can join us in this, the 21st century,and vote yes on the Paycheck Fairness Act. (Applause.) Vote yes.
And if anybody is watching orlistening, if you care about this issue, then let your senators know where youstand — because America deserves equal pay for equal work.
This is not something we’re goingto achieve in a day. There’s going to bea lot of stuff that we’ve got to do to close the pay gap. We got to make it possible for more women toenter high-paying fields that up until now have been dominated by men, likeengineering and computer science. Womenhold less than 6 percent of our country’s commercial patents — that’s not goodenough. We need more parents and highschool teachers and college professors encouraging girls and women to studymath and science. We need morebusinesses to make gender diversity a priority when they hire and when theypromote. Fewer than five percent ofFortune 500 companies have women at the helm.
I think we’d all agree that weneed more women in Congress. (Applause.) Fewer than 20 percent of congressional seats are held by women. Clearly, Congress would get more done if theratio was — (laughter) — evened out a little bit. So we’ve got to work on that.
And we’ve all got to do more tomake our workplaces more welcoming to women. Because the numbers show that even when men and women are in the sameprofession and have the same education, there’s still a wage gap, and it widensover time. So we’re going to keep makingthe case for why these policies are the right ones for working families andbusinesses. And this is all going tolead up to this first-ever White House Summit on Working Families on June 23rd.
So, ultimately, equal pay is notjust an economic issue for millions of Americans and their families. It’s also about whether we’re willing tobuild an economy that works for everybody, and whether we’re going to do ourpart to make sure that our daughters have the same chances to pursue theirdreams as our sons, and whether or not we’re willing to restore to the heart ofthis country that basic idea — you can make it, no matter who you are, if youtry.
And that’s personal for me. I’ve said this before — I’ve got twodaughters and I expect them to be treated just like anybody’s sons. And I think about my single mom working hard,going to school, trying to raise two kids all at the same time. And I think about my grandmother trying towork her way up through her career and then hitting the glass ceiling. And I’ve seen how hard they’ve worked, and I’veseen how they’ve sucked it up. And theyput up with stuff and they don’t say anything, and they just take care of theirfamily and they take care of themselves, and they don’t complain a lot. But at a certain point, we have the power todo something about it for the next generation. And this is a good place to start.
So, for everybody out there who’slistening, ask your senator where you stand on paycheck fairness. (Applause.) If they tell you that there’s not a pay gap out there, you tell them tolook at the data, because there is. It’stime to get this done. And I’m going todo my small part right now by signing this executive order and presidentialmemoranda. (Applause.)
NSDA“SDcamps”全国英语演讲与辩论大赛（大学组）/SDcamps全国中小学生英语演讲与辩论大会（中小学及幼儿组）/美式辩论赛（以下简称大赛/大会）现诚招全国省市合作伙伴或城市合伙人，共同进行推广NSDA赛事品牌、举办赛事及培训活动、开展素质教育、美式营地项目等多方面合作。
我们希望认同NSDA理念，有赛事组织经验，或有教育资源，特别是有理想有热情的机构或个人一起携手，共同推广NSDA品牌、赛事及素质教育。以机构的形式，或以城市合伙人的方式均可。具体的赛事组织、盈利模式，欢迎电话或微信咨询。
微信：0012133598196
