Hannah Gregory
BUS 259-0001
October 27, 2012
Human Resources and Working Women
Executive Summary
For as long as women have been working, they have been facing problems and
inequality. The Civil War saw the amount of working women increase exponentially. With this
increase, came an awareness of the working woman’s issues. Poor or dangerous working
conditions, long hours, low and unequal pay and outright discrimination made working a
hardship for women. Unfortunately, exposure of these issues did not generate much progress.
Changes did not begin until the mid-nineteenth century with the formation of the first women’s
labor unions, the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association and the Daughters of St. Crispin.
Equal pay was not legislated by Congress until 1872 and even that was only extended to female
government employees. At the turn of the century, women began to be more vocal about
their treatment at work. Women began to organize into leagues and unions, going on strike to
force employers to treat them fairly and equal to their male co-workers. Finally, in 1912, Teddy
Roosevelt made women’s rights and official part of his political platform. This action put
women’s issues in the face of the public and demanded a reaction. In 1920, the Department of
Labor was formed to support women in the workplace. More legislation providing equal rights,
equal pay, and improved working conditions for women was passed during the 1960’s and
1970’s.
Over time, conditions and pay have improved for working women. However, there are
still issues that women face when they are a part of the modern workforce. These issues
include sexual harassment, the glass ceiling, and equal pay for equal work. The glass ceiling is a
phrase coined by the Wall Street Journal describing the barriers preventing women from
achieving promotion to the highest levels of a corporation. Today, women make up a meniscal
percentage of CEOs and board members of Fortune 500 companies. Human resource
departments have to take an active role in shattering the glass ceiling in these companies so
that women are promoted on an equal basis as men. Sexual harassment is a problem that is
not exclusive to women, but is prevalent in the workplace and women are the most frequent
targets. Unwelcome advances, pervasive crude and sexual behavior, and basing employment
decisions on whether or not a sexual favor is granted constitutes sexual harassment and is a
form of discrimination. Human resources departments are an important part of stopping and
preventing sexual harassment. These departments also play a big part in insuring that women
are compensated on an equal level with their male counterparts. Human resources are
responsible for creating and influencing compensation practices in a company. This influence
should be used to ensure that women receive equal pay for equal work as required by law and
ethical standards.
The development of human resource departments has been crucial to women’s equality
in the workplace. During the twentieth century, human resource departments have aided
women by walking alongside them in their journey to equal treatment. Human resource
employees can offer information and options to women who have or are starting families and
don’t wish to leave their careers. These options enhance companies and often raise profits.
Introduction
Women have been an integral part of the American work force for a long time. Longer
in fact, than there have been formal human resource managers and representatives. It is
important to understand the history behind the working woman so that modern human
resource departments can function effectively. For human resources to really aid the female
workforce, they must understand topics like sexual harassment, the glass ceiling, and equal pay
for equal work. These are just a few of the issues that women face in the work place.
History of Women in the Workplace
The Civil War claimed the lives of over 600,000 men and left scores more injured. This
great loss required women to enter the work force en masse to provide for their families and
keep the machine of American Industry moving. Working conditions were poor at best and life
threatening at worst. Hours were long and pay was low. Women who worked in factories,
mills and shops were not compensated equally to their male counterparts and had very little
voice. In fact, many were perceived as a threat by the men they worked with and for. The end
of the Civil War saw a change in the demographic of the American Workforce but sadly, it took
many years for women to make their voices heard there.
While the height of women’s rights activities occurred during the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, women have been making efforts to improve their working
conditions long before then. According to a timeline by NYSUT, (A Union of Professionals), the
first organization of female workers was the Daughters of Liberty formed in 1765 as a branch of
the Sons of Liberty. The first time that female workers organized a strike was in 1824 when over
a hundred women in Pawtucket, Rhode Island went on strike to protest wage reduction and an
increase in work hours. The United Tailoresses of New York was formed the next year and was
the first women’s union. The union went on strike six years later protesting unfair wages. By
the 1870s, the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association (LFLRA) had been formed by female
cotton mill workers in Massachusetts, and the first national union for women, the Daughters of
St. Crispin, was formed. The LFLRA staged a notable strike against twelve to fourteen hour
workdays in “unhealthy apartments, exposed to the poisonous contagion of air, vegetable,
animal and mineral properties, debarred from proper Physical Exercise, Mental Discipline and
Mastication cruelly limited, and thereby hastening on us through pain, disease and privation, to
a premature grave…” (TheLaborSite.com). The LFLRA sought the creation of laws limiting the
workday to ten hours and the improvement of working conditions. In 1872 Congress passed a
law providing female government employees equal pay for equal work.
The late eighteen and early nineteen hundreds saw a surge in action by women seeking
to improve their work environments, wages, and rights. In 1881 three thousand laundry
workers went on strike in Atlanta, Georgia and New York passed a law requiring female doctors
for female patients in mental institutions. The National Consumers League was formed by
women in 1899 to organize women to use their influence as consumers to push for better
working conditions and employment laws for women. 1909 saw the formation of the National
Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL) to fight for improved pay and working conditions for
women. In 1909, female workers in New York went on strike in the “Uprising of the Twenty
Thousand” (NYSUT). This was a planned strike protesting safety issues that included few and
inaccessible fire escapes from lofted work stations and extremely poor working conditions. A
fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company then caused the deaths of 149 women there who were
either unable to escape or forced to jump from the top floors of the building. This tragedy at
the end of the two-month strike did lead to laws forcing employers to improve working
conditions (TheLaborSite.com). It also grabbed the attention of the American public and in
1912 Teddy Roosevelt’s party officially included women’s rights in its platform (NYSUT).
The NYSUT timeline goes on to describe activities and incidents in the early twentieth
century’s political arena. In 1920 the Women’s Bureau of the Department of Labor is formed to
support working women. In 1933 and 1934 the presidential cabinet and U.S. Court of Appeals
instated their first female members; Francis Perkins as Secretary of Labor, and Judge Florence
Ellinwood Allen on the bench. The next year, the National Council of Negro Women was
formed by Mary McLeod Bethune to fight racism, sexism, and job discrimination. She was
backed by President Roosevelt in 1936.
During the 60’s and 70’s, a slew of laws providing equal rights, equal pay, and improved
working conditions for all American women. These laws included the Equal Pay Act in 1963, the
establishment of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in 1964, and
Executive Order 1137 in 1967 by President Johnson which expanded his affirmative action
policy and expanded education and employment rights for women (NYSUT). In the turbulent
70s, the courts were forced to consider the effects of these laws. The U.S. Court of Appeals
ruled that employers could not manipulate job titles in an attempt to pay women less than men
or justify lower pay for women based on a false “going market rate” (Schultz v. Wheaton Glass
Co., Corning Glass Works v. Brennan, NYSUT). Also during this time, the Equal Rights
Amendment (1972) and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (1978) were passed. Finally, in 1986,
sexual harassment was declared to be employment discrimination and against the law by the
U.S. Supreme Court (NYSUT).
These are just a few events that helped to shape our modern day work environment.
Women have taken an impressive journey in an effort to be treated fairly and considered equal
to their male co-workers. Why is this journey so important? How is it relevant to current
human resources operations? It is important because without understanding the past, we
cannot hope to improve the future. Women are still fighting many of the same battles today.
Relationship between Human Resources and Working Women
When women were carving out their place in the workforce, they did not have a human
resources representative to contact. There was no one “on the inside” to vouch for them or
ensure that they were treated fairly and with respect. Women were truly on their own in many
ways. Today, companies have human resources departments devoted to, among many other
things, ensuring that all employees are treated equally regardless of race, sexual orientation,
religion, or gender. They are responsible for ensuring that women are compensated equally to
their male counterparts, are not victims of sexual harassment or other forms of discrimination,
and are able to enjoy equal opportunities for advancement. Women now have a wealth of
information and help available to them, thanks to the women who fought for equality in the
past. One thing that Human Resource departments have been working towards is getting and
keeping qualified female employees for their companies. No one argues that men and women
are different with different needs, motivations, and attitudes. Women are the ones who carry
and birth children but they are no longer required by society to be the primary caregiver. Many
families are making the decision to let Mom go back to work while Dad stays home with the
kids. Companies are also able to offer flex-time and work-from-home options to their female
employees. Human resource departments need to stay up to date on these practices so that
they can offer these options and keep valuable employees on board. Policies like this that
support working women will enhance a company, increasing productivity, opportunities,
creativity, and morale (Green, et.al).
Women’s Issues and Human Resources
There are many obstacles that women still face in the workplace. Equal Pay, the Glass
Ceiling, and sexual harassment are problems that are not faced exclusively by women, but they
are dominant among female workers. Frequently, these issues rear their heads in subtle ways
that could easily cause them to be overlooked. Human resource workers have a responsibility
to identify these issues and work to eradicate them from the companies they work for.
Without action, these problems will continue and progress will come to a halt.
The Glass Ceiling
The “glass ceiling” was a term used by the Wall Street Journal to describe barriers
preventing women from promotion into the top levels of corporations. Ten years after the
appearance of this phrase, the Glass Ceiling Commission was created and published its findings
that the glass ceiling continued to “deny untold numbers of qualified people the opportunity to
compete for and hold executive level positions in the private sector” (Economist, 2005).
An
article in The Economist (21 July 2005) said that the Commission found that while 45.7% of
American jobs were filled by women, 95% of senior positions were filled by men. In the ten
years since the Glass Ceiling Commission was formed, the number of senior positions held by
women has increased from five percent to eight percent. In 2010, women held only fifteen
percent of board seats among Fortune 500 companies. Only three percent of CEOs in these
companies are women (Lang). In her article for USA Today, Ilene Lang states that even though
more of today’s women are going to business school and earning their MBAs, their male
counterparts (with or without a comparable degree) are paid 23% more. She goes on to say
that men not only “start their first post-MBA jobs at higher positions than women”, but their
salaries increased at a rate higher than their female co-workers. Women with seniority, higher
performance ratings, and more education and experience are being overlooked for senior
positions. They are being bypassed in favor of the male stereotype and the idea that a woman
will abandon the company to tend to or start her family. According to Psychology Today (15
May 2010), women are choosing to “opt-out” of high level jobs and are either remaining in
their present position, starting over at new companies, or simply going home because they
have hit the glass ceiling and can go no further in their current companies.
Human resources departments can and must take an active role in working to shatter
the glass ceiling. Experts at Harvard have stated that having women in senior level jobs would
greatly improve company function and profits (Williams). Human resource representatives can
start by analyzing the hiring and promotion practices of their companies. By looking at
statistics, employee profiles, and the methods used by the company to determine who will
receive promotions, human resources can identify practices or individuals who may be
contributing to a low ratio of female to male senior employees. Unsatisfactory practices can be
corrected by making changes to company policies and pushing for awareness of the glass ceiling
throughout the company. Individuals contributing to this issue may be more difficult to deal
with. Many may not realize that they are treating their co-workers unfairly and these
employees could benefit from awareness training and workshops. A system of checks and
balances could easily be incorporated into hiring and promotion procedures to prevent
unintentional actions that would put any employee at a disadvantage. Individuals who are
consciously discriminating against the women they work with and preventing them from
working in top-level positions will need to be handled more actively. Disciplinary action may
need to be taken if these employees refuse to acknowledge or change their behavior.
The progress on this issue has been painfully slow. Top companies have experienced
increases of female CEOs and board members at rates of one to two percent per decade
(Williams, Lang). One out of every three qualified women with MBAs is not working or is
underemployed as opposed to one out of every twenty similarly qualified males (Economist).
The only way to correct this problem and change these numbers is to empower women in the
workplace and work to eradicate stereotypes and bias. Human resource departments have the
power and responsibility help shatter the glass ceiling in America.
Sexual Harassment
Unlike the Glass Ceiling which mainly affects women, sexual harassment can be directed
towards any employee with the largest amounts of victims being women and homosexuals. For
the purpose of this paper, the focus will be on women. The U.S. Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission declares the illegality of harassing an applicant or employee because
of that person’s sex and goes on to state that:
“Harassment can include “sexual harassment” or unwelcome sexual advances, requests
for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual
nature…harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or
offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision (such
as the victim being fired or demoted).”
A harasser can be a supervisor, co-worker, or anyone else connected to the work environment,
of the same or a different gender, and of any sexual orientation. Sexual harassment is
discrimination and it violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (Heathfield). About.com offers
examples of sexual harassment. Some items on this list are unwanted jokes and gestures,
inappropriate touching or grabbing, offensive emails or pictures of a sexual nature, and
constant flirting or requests for dates. To constitute sexual harassment, these behaviors
(among others) must be severe or pervasive (Equal Rights Advocates). For example, a single
inappropriate or offensive email forwarded to female coworkers would not be considered
sexual harassment, but persistent offensive emails would constitute sexual harassment.
When offensive behavior creates what the EEOC calls a “hostile or offensive work
environment” this behavior has become sexual harassment. Offensive behavior of a sexual
nature that interferes with an employee’s ability to perform their job falls into this category.
For example, two or three female employees are subjected to lewd jokes, whistles,
inappropriate comments and flirting from their male co-workers several times each day. They
are unable to escape this behavior since they work in cubicles and the men refuse to stop.
These women are being hindered in their jobs and forced to work in a hostile and offensive
work environment. They can take action to stop this sexual harassment. Employment
decisions based on the rejection or acceptance of sexual favors or advances also constitutes
sexual harassment. Some women have found that they are passed over for promotion, given
poor performance reviews, or suffered reduced compensation because they refused to submit
to the sexual advances of their supervisors or co-workers. These women are victims of sexual
harassment and may take legal action.
If a woman complains that she is being sexually harassed at work, she is protected by
law from retaliation. For example, a woman is being sexually harassed by her direct supervisor.
She complains to her company’s human resources department who reports the behavior up the
chain-of-command. The woman’s supervisor is legally barred from firing the woman, lowering
pay, or taking any disciplinary action against her because of her report. Title VII requires all
public and private employers (Exception: companies that employ less than fifteen people) to
“take reasonable care to prevent sexual harassment and take reasonable care to promptly
correct sexual harassment that has occurred” (Equal Rights Advocates, Repa). Human resource
representatives play a key role in ensuring that these laws are followed.
A clear policy on sexual harassment and defined procedures for reporting and handling
incidents are important to preventing and stopping sexual harassment. Human resources
departments need to ensure that these policies and procedures are in place in their companies.
They also need to stay up-to-date on the laws that protect victims and dictate handling of
sexual harassment cases. For example, before someone files a sexual harassment lawsuit, she
must first file a complaint with the EEOC. Many companies also have their own procedures for
dealing with complaints and employees should take advantage of these procedures. Many
times, sexual harassment cases can be resolved in house and without a drawn out legal process.
Human resource managers also have a broader role in preventing sexual harassment in the
workplace. Managers need to foster a workplace environment that does not permit sexual
harassment. All employees should know that their co-workers are to be respected at all times
and sexual harassment will not be tolerated (Heathfield). Human resources departments
should encourage the employees of their companies to speak out if they are being harassed
and write down dates, places, times, and witnesses of any harassment. Most importantly,
employees immediately report sexual harassment and be unafraid to do so (Equal Rights
Advocates). Human resource representatives should have an open door policy that ensures
employees that they are free to report harassment without fear of retaliation or rejection.
Equal Pay for Equal Work
Equal Pay may be one of the oldest grievances that female workers have had against
their employers. Even today, over one hundred years after women fought tooth and nail for
equality, there are women in the United States who are compensated less than their male
counterparts. According to the Equal Pay Act (an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act)
passed in 1963, “men and women who do the same jobs that require equal skill and
responsibility must be compensated with equal wages and benefits” (Repa, 2/10). This does
not mean that every woman must be paid the same amount as every man. Men (and women,
for that matter) may have increased compensation based on seniority, quality of work, merit,
and many other factors as long as those factors do not include gender. Jobs do not have to be
identical in order to fall under the Equal Pay Act. Any jobs, regardless of title or descriptions,
which require similar amounts of skill, effort, responsibility, and are performed under similar
circumstances, are considered “the same job” by the EPA (Repa, 7/28). These criteria do not
have to be identical, only similar. Some companies have tried to bypass the law by changing job
titles and descriptions, saying that men are being paid more because they are working a
different job. This trick is not only unethical and discriminatory, but it is also illegal.
Human resource departments are heavily involved in the compensation practices of
their companies. Human resource representatives have the ability to ensure that all employees
receive equal pay for equal work. Sometimes, discrimination of this nature is unintentional or
caused by a biased compensation system. Other times, pay discrimination occurs because of
sexist stereotypes and preconceptions or outright dislike of women. For example, take two
sales representatives, one male and one female, working in Washington State. They have been
working at a company for the same amount of time and both have consistently good
performance reviews. In any given month, they both earn similar commission on the products
they sell but the male is paid a significantly higher hourly rate than the female because he is
considered “one of the guys” by his supervisor. This violates the Equal Pay Act. However, if the
male makes quarterly trips to Arizona, New Mexico, and New York State to conduct company
business, he may be compensated more because his job includes a significant additional facet.
These systems should be analyzed to ensure that female employees are not being discriminated
against, intentionally or otherwise. It is the job of human resource workers to evaluate the pay
systems their companies are using to prevent inequality, whether it is deliberate or not.
Compensation can be a very tricky area to work in. Considerations must be made for
financial compensation as well as non-financial compensation. Companies offering men more
paid time off than women may be in violation of the Equal Pay Act, even if men and women are
receiving the same paychecks. Human resource representatives have the ability to make
changes to compensation systems that are biased towards men. They also have the ability to
stop deliberate pay discrimination with a system of checks and balances.
Conclusion
Human resource departments can go a long way to assisting and promoting female
workers. Some of these women depend on their H.R. representatives to ensure they are
treated fairly in their male-dominated career paths. Human resources must be sensitive to
women’s issues or else they risk adding to the problem instead of helping find a remedy. While
sexual harassment, the glass ceiling, and equal pay for equal work are not issues that are
exclusive to women (many minorities still suffer from unequal treatment in the workplace),
women are a group that faces these problems each day. Human resource departments must
work to make sure that everyone is treated fairly regardless of age, race, sexual orientation,
religion, or gender.
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