By Fred Gaboury

The Working Women's Department of the AFL-CIO will kick off a series of nationwide activities and release new findings on the serious wage gap that continues to exist between men and women on April 3. It has been designated as Equal Pay Day by a coalition of over 250 local organizations in 41 states, belonging to the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE).

"An overwhelming majority of American women see the disparity in pay as a top concern," Cue Vu, an AFL-CIO program specialist who is directing the AFL-CIO's April 3 activities. "Our 2000 survey showed that 87 percent of working women cite stronger equal pay laws as their number one issue, a statistic that is remarkably similar to a recent poll taken by Lifetime television."

Vu said the AFL-CIO survey showed that the life time earnings of the average woman who goes to work at age 25 and works until she is 65 will be more than a half-million dollars less than those of a man. "Or, put another way," she said, "the male/female wage differential costs the average working family $4,000 per year."

Vu explained the reason for choosing April 3 as Equal Pay Day: "It falls on Tuesday, thus symbolizing the day when women's wages catch up to men's wages from the previous week. In other words, because the average woman earns less, she must work longer for the same amount of pay. As a matter of fact, it takes her almost seven working days to earn what he earns in five workdays."

A fact sheet issued by the AFL-CIO shows the wage gap increased by a penny an hour in 1990, leaving the wages of women workers at 72 percent of that of men. The differential was even worse for women of color where the wage of African-American women is 65 percent of white males and Latinas earn only 52 cents.

Vu said the AFL-CIO Working women's Department is concentrating on efforts to win equal pay legislation in Congress and at the state level.