Thread by @ashtonpittman

NEW: Lilly Ledbetter and the Mississippi Black Women's Roundtable are warning that two equal pay bills advancing in the Mississippi Legislature risk actually widening wage disparities for women if they become law. 1/ #MSLeg
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Mississippi Black Women's Roundtable State Lead Cassandra Welchlin says the House's Equal Pay Act would codify into law a systemic form of wage discrimination by allowing employers to pay women less than men based on their salary history from past jobs. 2/mississippifreepress.org/20598/equal-pa…

Welchlin: “The other thing in her bill is that it is based on the ‘continuity of employment history.’That means it would be OK to pay a woman less than a man for the same job because she took time off work to care for her baby or a sick family member." 3/
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Mississippi House Rep. Angela Cockerham is the sponsor of the House Equal Pay Act.

The Mississippi Black Women's Roundtable said they spoke with her, but she did not agree with their criticisms. (She didn't answer a request for comment for this story.) 4/
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Welchlin: "We told her it was concerning that she would introduce such a bill as this when she knows that Black women are already at risk of wage discrimination, and frankly, all women across this state. And she said we have a difference of opinion.” 5/mississippifreepress.org/20598/equal-pa…

Welchlin said the Mississippi Senate's Equal Pay Act, sponsored by Republican Sens. Brice Wiggins and Nicole Boyd, is also concerning because "it puts the burden on the woman to have to prove that she is being discriminated against." 6/
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Welchlin: “They both leave out critical protections and language that would actually help close the wage gap. Neither of them have any language about race. Neither one of them has language that would ban an employer from relying on salary history." 7/
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Equal-pay activist Lilly Ledbetter says “these two bills actually risk widening Mississippi’s gender wage gap and stripping Mississippians of their rights.”

She supports the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable’s efforts to pass “a real equal-pay law." 8/
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Lilly Ledbetter: "I know from firsthand experience how important equal-pay protections are. This is why I’m alerting Mississippians: Don’t be duped by two equal-pay bills that are currently moving through the Mississippi Legislature—SB 2451 and HB 770." 9/
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Welchlin says a “good equal pay bill” must do four things:
1. Address both gender and race-based disparities.
2. Ban the use of salary history to determine wages.
3. Protect against retaliation.
4. Be enforceable so that women can recover damages. 10/
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The Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable worked with House Rep. Sonya Williams-Barnes and Sen. Angela Turner-Ford on two pieces of legislation that would have achieved those objectives, but both bills died in their respective chambers without a vote. 11/
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Welchlin: “Women are important to Mississippi’s economy. We are caregivers, we are workers, we are daughters, we are mothers,” she said. “And Mississippi needs to start seeing and treating us as such." 12/
#MSLeg
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Context: Mississippi is the only state without a state-level equal pay law to protect against gender-based wage discrimination.

Alabama became the 49th state to pass an equal pay law in 2019, leaving Mississippi alone as the last without one.
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UPDATE: The Mississippi Senate just passed its version of the equal pay bill that @MS_BWR expressed concerns about.

There is still time for either bill to be amended to address those concerns if lawmakers choose to do so, however.mississippifreepress.org/20598/equal-pa…