With Congress stuck in an apparent state of stasis on initiatives for gender pay equality, what’s President Barack Obama to do? Issue an executive order, of course. The president has continued his year of using executive power to influence the workplace by signing an executive order and a presidential memorandum this week aimed at government contractors and subcontractors. These measures, respectively, prohibit these employers from retaliating against employees who discuss pay, and require further reporting of pay data by gender and race.
The measures, announced on National Equal Pay Day, mirrors some provisions of the Paycheck Fairness Act, which Congress has repeatedly failed to pass and most recently stalled in the Senate on Wednesday.
