BPW/WV
met at their annual convention in April 2003 and chose to adopt the
same legislative platform adopted by BPW/USA. The BPW/USA
Legislative Platform is shown below: Equal Rights Amendment,
as authored by Alice Paul, shall stand first, foremost and above all
other items which may appear on the national platform of this
Federation until equal legal rights for women and men become guaranteed
in the United States Constitution, because all statutory law derives
thereforom. "Equality of rights under
the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any
state on account of sex." Platform Economic Equity Health Civil Rights Adopted
July 2002 The April 2003
convention also brought the adoption of an Equal Pay Act Resolution
that is shown below.
EQUAL
PAY ACT RESOLUTION
Whereas, according to the Status of Women Report issued November 19, 2002 by the Institute for Women's Policy Research, working women in West Virginia earn 70 percent as much a men; Whereas, the West Virginia figure for the percentage of women's wages compared to men's is lower than the national gap between women and men's compensation, which is 73%; Whereas, on April 15th 2003, also known as Equal Pay Day, women in West Virginia finally earned as much as men earned by December 31st of the previous year; Whereas on Equal Pay Day, 2003, "Unhappy Hour" events were held around the state in West Virginia to protest the continuing wage gap between women and men, including "Unhappy Hour" events in Morgantown, Lewisburg, Charleston, and Weirton; Whereas, the State of West Virginia passed the Equal Pay At in 1998, with the goal of remedying unfair pay differentials between women and men state employees and setting a positive example for private employers; Whereas, the Equal Pay Commission, established by the 1998 Equal Pay Act, studied the wage gap among state employees and discovered significant disparities in pay in a number of female dominated job classifications; whereas, in 2001, the legislature began appropriating funds to address the disparities discovered by the Equal Pay Commission; Whereas, in 2002, without any public discussion, legislation was passed which effectively gutted the protections and requirements of the Equal Pay Act; Whereas the modifications to the Equal Pay Act in 2002 nullified the effective date for language which defined equal pay, which had been in the state code since 1965, and nullified the effective date for grievances over equal pay violations; Whereas, in 2003, a bill to restore provisions of the Equal Pay Act died on the last night of the session; Whereas, the Equal Pay Commission is currently scheduled to expire on July 1, 2003, Therefore, be it resolved that the West Virginia Federation of Business and Professional Women strongly urges the Governor of the State of West Virginia to place a bill on the agenda for a special session that would continue the Equal Pay Commission beyond the ate it is currently set to expire and that would restore provisions of the Equal Pay Act that were modified in 2002. |