Local 1180 Rallies to Fight Gender Pay Discrimination

For millions of women throughout the country, pay disparities between them and their male counterparts are a continuing reality. While union membership helps even the playing field for all, as of 2021 the gender pay gap is still more than 22% - meaning that women, on average, make 22% less than men, even after controlling for race and ethnicity, education, age, and geographic division. Each year it takes the average woman two and a half months to reach the salary that the average man makes in the previous year alone. 

March 15 is observed as Equal Pay Day - the day that marks how far into a calendar year a woman, on average, has to work to make what a man earned the previous year.  

For this year’s Equal Pay Day, members of CWA Local 1180 rallied at Manhattan’s City Hall to call for concrete steps to end the pay gap, including the New York State Salary Range Disclosure Law which would require employers to post minimum and maximum salary ranges on job listings. A similar law has already been adopted in New York City (taking effect in May), and Local 1180 and other community and labor leaders are now pushing for it on the State level, arguing that transparency will help lessen pay discrimination. 

“As we looked at the statistics we were just overwhelmed at the way the city has this [gender] pay gap,” said CWA Local 1180 President Gloria Middleton, speaking at the rally. “It doesn’t matter what department. We just see it is all over the place. What was most notable was in the Human Resources Administration, when we looked at what higher management —directors and assistant directors [mostly female] salaries and compared them to the director salaries being paid by the Department of Transportation where those jobs are held mostly by men—there’s a disparity of thousands and thousands of dollars. It’s ridiculous.”

Check out video of the rally here.