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The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. NORTON) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor to report to my colleagues something that I am certain is as much of a piece of embarrassment to them as it is to me, and that is that on February 29 a Federal Court declared a class in a lawsuit against the Architect of the Capitol, our agent, that is to say the Congress of the United States, alleging that there has been a violation of the equal pay act; that we have been paying women less for doing the same work as men.
The women I am talking about are the women who clean the offices of Members, who keep this Capitol clean, and who, in fact, are responsible for the maintenance and cleanliness of the place where we work.
This was the first class action under the Congressional Accountability Act, the new act we passed, in order to hold Members and Congress itself accountable in the same way that we hold others. May I say that it should not have been necessary for this case to go this far. I am a former chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and I have to tell my colleagues that when a case that looks like this is filed before the commission today, and for years now, they simply get settled out before they get this far.
This case not only did not get settled out when it was in our own administrative process, in the Office of Contract
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This body needs greater oversight of the Architect of the Capitol and of the new Office of Compliance when a suit can get this far. Apparently these people were willing to settle. And when a party is willing to settle, it is usually on the basis that they may not get everything that they want, but what they certainly are entitled to is to have their work reclassified so that they are paid for doing the work they are performing. And, of course, in any such case there would be back pay.
What we are talking about here, to make myself clear, is that laborers who are men make more money for doing the same work as custodians, formerly called charwomen, who are women in the House.
When the President of the United States in his State of the Union message for the last several years has gotten to the part where he talked about equal pay for equal work, all Members rise as if to salute in majesty the women of America. And yet right here, in the House where we work, the first class action certified has been a simple equal-pay case of the kind rarely found in civilian society today. If this case goes much further, it will become an open embarrassment to this body.
As my colleagues are aware, there is no disagreement among us when it comes to the Equal Pay Act, passed in 1963. We all agree that if women are doing the same work as men, they should not be paid less, and in this case perhaps as much as a dollar or more less, by classifying them by some other name. Whether we call her a laborer or a custodian, we must pay her under the act for the work she is doing.
I regret that the case has gone this far. I feel it is my obligation, as a former chair of the EEOC, to bring this matter to the attention of Members. Because I am certain that Members on neither side of the aisle understand or know or have reason to know this case has gone this far, and that when we go home into our districts women are likely to ask us how in the world have we allowed ourselves to be sued by our own employees for not paying them the same wage as men for doing the same work.
It is time that we rectified this situation. If not, I can assure my colleagues, I have spoken with the plaintiffs, I have spoken with their lawyers. There is no turning back now. They are not afraid that it is the Congress of the United States that is involved. After all, we said in passing the Congressional Accountability Act that we wanted to be treated the way civilian employers are treated. Please treat the women who clean our offices the way we would want always to have people treated under our jurisdiction.
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