Donald Trump has made no secret of just how much he “loves” and “adores” women. In addition to regaling them with various adjectives like nasty, loser, and unattractive, he’s made no secret of wanting to learn more about women issues at work. In fact, it was only two months ago that he made headlines for holding a meeting at the White House on women in the workplace where his advisors were two male CEOs. Yes, that’s right. Two men were chosen to explain to the president all about the issues facing women in the workplace, presumably because, in the entirety of the United States, there were no qualified women that could be found to do the job.
So it makes sense then, that this president and his administration would mark Tuesday’s Equal Pay Day by recently signing an executive order that revokes the 2014 Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces order signed by President Obama which ensured that companies which contract with the federal government comply with labor and civil rights laws. Doing this is tantamount to saying that not only is it okay to break the law and abuse workers and still be eligible for federal contracts—it also okays violators who break rules that impact women workers as well.
In an attempt to keep the worst violators from receiving taxpayer dollars, the Fair Pay order included two rules that impacted women workers: paycheck transparency and a ban on forced arbitration clauses for sexual harassment, sexual assault or discrimination claims. [...]
By overturning the Fair Pay order, Trump made it possible for businesses with federal contracts to continue forcing sexual harassment cases like [Fox New’s anchor Gretchen Carlson's sexual harassment suit against former Fox CEO Roger Ailes] into secret proceedings — where the public, and other employees, may never find out about rampant sex discrimination claims at a company.
It doesn’t come as a big surprise that Trump would do anything that makes it harder for women to file sexual harassment or sexual assault claims in the workplace given his own history of admitted assault and harassment. But his failure to stand up for women’s equal pay is a reminder of how dangerous and toxic his misogyny really is.
[Sen. Richard Blumenthal D-CT] told NBC News that Trump's overturning the Fair Pay order sends women's rights in the workplace back "to a time best left to 'Mad Men.'"
"These coverup clauses render people voiceless — forcing them to suffer in silence, suppressing justice, and allowing others to fall victim in the future," said Blumenthal. "At a time when the fight for equal pay continues, Trump also moved to eliminate paycheck transparency and leave workers to negotiate in the dark."
The other result of Trump's executive order on federal contractors was lifting a mandate on paycheck transparency, or requiring employers to detail earnings, pay scales, salaries, and other details. The Fair Pay order Trump overturned was one of the few ways to ensure companies were paying women workers equally to their male colleagues.
Overturning this order has real-life economic consequences for women. Women, on average earn less than men, and there are even greater earning differences among women by race and ethnicity, with women of color making far less than their white counterparts. Eliminating paycheck transparency will have a devastating impact on women and their families as women try to ensure fair wages in the workplace. But then again, this president is nothing if not consistent. Time and time again he has proved that he doesn’t really care anything about women beyond what they look like or what they can do for him.