I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
On Monday, three female assistant attorneys general filed suit against the New Mexico Attorney General’s office, saying they were paid less than men with less experience and that men with less experience are being paid more than the three women.
But attorneys in the AG’s office were not included in a survey of government employees conducted last year by the Governor’s Task Force on Fair and Equal Pay, the task force leader, Martha Burk, told The Independent. Because they’re not classified (they’re paid off the regular scale), the attorneys weren’t included in the survey and won’t be included in annual reports on pay inequity that Gov. Richardson has ordered all state agencies to produce by the end of 2010.
In December, Gov. Bill Richardson signed the executive order directing agencies to create annual reports on pay inequity between men and women and to fix any gaps they found.
Burke, who is the governor’s senior policy advisor on women’s issues, said that she was not aware of any recent pay inequity complaints in the office of the Attorney General. “I have heard just through sort of the grapevine, that many years ago there was pretty blatant sex discrimination,” she said, nothing that was “many years” before the current administration.
This does not mean, of course, that there have been no complaints, only none that Burk can recall hearing about.
The Associated Press has more on the current lawsuit:
The lawsuit says one of the women, Lesley Lowe, was hired in 1987 at a lower rate than a male attorney with one year less experience and that she and most female attorneys in the office have been paid at lower rates than their male counterparts since that time.
The lawsuit also says there has been no attempt by the office to create an objective pay system.
Burk pay inequities the survey found in New Mexico were below national levels. According to the report:
Those gender wage gaps found in the New Mexico classified workforce are moderate, and are much lower than national averages. Nationally, females make 77cents to the male dollar for full-time, year-round work, resulting in a gender wage gap of 23% favoring males. Of the 396 pay bands analyzed for gender pay disparities, only 15 had gaps exceeding 20%, affecting a mere 76 individuals of 19,811 in the classified workforce (0.003%).
