Samantha Masunaga's Fair Pay Act

Improved Essays
“California equal pay bill may be toughest in nation” (Masunaga 2015). This article was written by Samantha Masunaga and published in the Los Angeles Times. The Los Angeles Times has been in circulation for more than 130 years and has won over 40 Pulitzer prizes. The paper has been accused of having a liberal bias, but I do not feel that it has any bearing on this particular story. Samantha Masunaga attended UC Berkley Graduate School of Journalism. Prior to joining the staff at the Los Angeles Times in 2014 she worked for the Oregonian and the Orange County Register. Given the subject of the article there is some expectation that Masunaga may be a bit biased and the majority of the quotes she uses are from people that support the bill. On …show more content…
The bill guarantees that female and male coworkers that do the same or almost the same job will be paid the same, regardless of their job title (Masunaga 2015). This includes people that work for the same company, but at different locations (Masunaga 2015). The bill also allows employees to question the amount that other employees are paid and protects them from any retaliation from the company or their bosses (Masunaga 2015). The bill was written by Democratic Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson and states that women in California earn 84 cents to every dollar earned by men (Masunaga 2015). The article also gives statistics in regards to the gender-pay gap in nursing. Male nurses are making roughly $11,000 more than their female counterparts and only a portion of that can be attributed to education and experience (Masunaga 2015). There are some critics that are concerned that the bill did not do enough or go far enough (Masunaga 2015). The National Organization for Women’s California chapter were among those that were against the Fair Pay Act (Masunaga 2015). They would have liked the bill to include equal pay stipulations for any people that may face discrimination (Masunaga …show more content…
The first is Symbolic interactionism. This theory views things a micro level and examines how individual behavior can be influenced by social interaction and the effect that is has on society (Carl 2013:9). In this case the paycheck becomes a symbol. For some women it can be a symbol of success or accomplishment, but that could change if the discover that a male co-workers is being payed significantly more. The check may become a symbol of inequality and they come to feel that they are not worth as much as a man is. This can effect a female’s sense of self-worth. This can have an impact on society, the woman might leave her job and apply for state assistance or she may spiral into depression and require help from a

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