Apple, Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft Sign White House Pledge For Equal Pay (fortune.com)

In honor of Women's Equality Day, an anonymous reader shares with us a festive report from Fortune: More than two months after the White House first announced its Equal Pay Pledge for the private sector, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and other major industry players have signed on. By taking the pledge, which was first introduced at the United State of Women Summit in June of this year, companies promise to help close the national gender pay gap, conduct annual, company-wide pay analyses, and review hiring and promotion practices. The new signees were announced in a White House statement on Friday -- which also happens to be Women's Equality Day, the anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote. Apple, which announced earlier this year that it has no pay gap, released a statement promising to dig even deeper into compensation. "We're now analyzing the salaries, bonuses, and annual stock grants of all our employees worldwide. If a gap exists, we'll address it," the company said in a statement. Twenty-nine companies signed the pledge on Friday, bringing the total number of signatories to 57. The pledge is part of a $50-million, White House-led initiative to expand opportunities for and improve the lives of women and girls. The consortium members issued a statement via Whitehouse.gov's press release: "The Employers for Pay Equity consortium is comprised of companies that understand the importance of diversity and inclusion, including ensuring that all individuals are compensated equitably for equal work and experience and have an equal opportunity to contribute and advance in the workplace. We are committed to collaborating to eliminate the national pay and leadership gaps for women and ethic minorities. Toward that end, we have come together to share best practices in compensation, hiring, promotion, and career development as well as develop strategies to support other companies' efforts in this regard. By doing so, we believe we can have a positive effect on our workforces that, in turn, makes our companies stronger and delivers positive economic impact." The consortium members include: Accenture, Airbnb, BCG, Care.com, CEB, Cisco, Deloitte, Dow, Expedia, EY, Glassdoor, GoDaddy, Jet.com, L'Oreal USA, Mercer, PepsiCo, Pinterest, Rebecca Minkoff, Salesforce, Spotify, Staples, Stella McCartney, and Visa.

Comments

Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Can they work equal time?

Cause in my experience there's a lot more "oh my children" time given and no "Hey I am a single white male" time compensated.

Re:Cool

[Ol Olsoc]

Can they work equal time?

Cause in my experience there's a lot more "oh my children" time given and no "Hey I am a single white male" time compensated.

Hopefully, the work itself will have some impact on compensation. I was the highest paid person in my department by far. That's because I would put in the work needed to get the job done. Trying to get a female co-worker to put in anything over 40 hours was almost impossible. The reasons it was impossible was that "I have to cook dinner for my husband/pick up the kids at day care/I have a golf match/group therapy/I'm in a car pool/I have a headache. The same for most field trips.

To the point where in over 30 years, I recall one time a female co-worker worked overtime. She even cried about it.

After 5 was a sausagefest, as they say. So I'd be interested in seeing some equality in that area as well.

And that's a big issue, because although I'm retired now, if my co-workers who couldn't be bothered to put in any extra when needed were paid the same as me, I'd either need a promotion, or would also have to cook dinner for my wife.

That's an easy thing to agree to...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mostly because the wage gap doesn't exist at all. It's another bullshit myth.

And the other end of the deal?

[Stormwatch]

So, did women pledge to work as hard as men do? Did they pledge to take as many overtime hours? Did they pledge to pursue the same risky and physically demanding careers, such as construction or mining?

Re: And the other end of the deal?

[PopeRatzo]

Professional sports would probably disagree with you on that.

Whoa there. Do you believe that the gold medal winning women olympic gymnasts didn't work as hard to achieve their accomplishments as their male counterparts? Did you see what they did?

Do you realize that the US women took home more medals in this olympics than the men?

And in regard to professional athletics, do you really believe - honestly - that the top male tennis players in the US had to work harder than the women players? The leading US women's tennis player has almost twice as many grand slam wins as the leading US men's tennis player.

   

Re: And the other end of the deal?

[PopeRatzo]

If you mean "hard" as in "actually performed an objectively measurable feat of strength",

Come on, man. What was the last time you think someone reading Slashdot "actually performed an objectively measurable feat of strength"?

This story is about Apple, Facebook, IBM and Microsoft. How often do you think the jobs we're talking about require "feats of strength"?

Re: And the other end of the deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

And in regard to professional athletics, do you really believe - honestly - that the top male tennis players in the US had to work harder than the women players? The leading US women's tennis player has almost twice as many grand slam wins as the leading US men's tennis player.

In profession tennis tournaments, men play best of 5 sets while the women only play best of 3 sets, so yes, male tennis players absolutely have to work harder. The women are also paid the same amount despite having to play fewer sets.

So does Slashdot have a quota?

[Nova Express]

"We're required to shove one SJW feminist STEM propaganda piece down our readers throats every week"?

Like the media outlets responsible for #GamerGate, it seems that more and more Slashdot's moderators actively loath their own readers...

Re:You forget that

[Znork]

"Which is not to say I'm unsympathetic, but the issue isn't the disparity, it's the things that drive people to suicide."

That's saying that women are incompetent at suicide. It's not like it's a big secret that pills and cutting aren't very likely to actually kill you and getting information of easily accessible methods that will actually get the job done isn't more than a search away (automotive assisted decapitation ftw!). Being capable of researching options isn't a gendered thing (or we should re-evaluate a lot of things).

I suspect the reality is that the disparity is largely based on the rational projections of future life chances. There's a large difference in the likely development of a life for those who aren't completely capable of dealing with it for men and women. Women make an ultimately rational choice to keep chances high to get help, because they have a significant chance of actually getting help, and even women who can never support themselves will often be able to life a somewhat decent life, get support from parents, attract a mate, etc. While men... well, a failed suicide attempt isn't exactly CV improving material.

So, whether a fully conscious choice or not, the disparity is sociologically and probably biologically rational. Men have better reasons to be serious about it if they decide to check out.

And I really don't see any tendencies that it will change. Rather, I think our care for women is biologically hardwired, and the way society is progressing for the moment, being unsympathetic to men is more popular than ever. I mean, fuck, look at something like BLM; even if, in reality, the black men are mainly getting shot due to being male rather than being black, would you try launching a 'mens lives matter' movement? I think not.