Dive Brief:
- More than two dozen companies, including Amazon.com Inc., PepsiCo Inc. and Dow Chemical Co. on Monday signed a White House pledge to conduct an annual gender pay analysis aimed at eliminating unequal pay.
- 28 companies agreed to review hiring and promotion processes and build equal pay efforts into other workplace initiatives, according to the Wall Street Journal. The efforts are part of a major White House Summit on Women and girls taking place today (June 14) in Washington, D.C.
- Other employers signing the pledge include Accenture PLC, American Airlines Group Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., Deloitte, Expedia Inc., Gap Inc.,Johnson & Johnson, L’Oréal USA and Staples Inc., among others, the White House said. The pledge is part of the ongoing efforts of the Obama administration to level the paying field, so to speak.
Dive Insight:
Along with this latest White House-driven effort, the Labor Department is also updating guidelines for federal contractors on protecting against sex discrimination for the first time since the 1970s, including added protections for transgendered workers, the Journal reports.
The Journal notes that a major part of President Obama's overall agenda has been focused on improving women’s financial state nationwide, adding that economists and policymakers who support him say the president's repeated workplace flexibility effort has helped fuel cultural change inside American workplaces.
On the flip side, many of the White House's workplace-focused legislative efforts (expanding paid family leave, raising the minimum wage nationwide, etc.) were rebuffed by Republicans in Congress or loudly protested by employers. The recent overtime rule change is another such example.
