Tag Archives: bill

Esther Peterson, the woman who advocated for the Equal Pay Act and made it possible in 1963 – GOOD

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In a rendition of "Santa Baby," Miley Cyrus sings, "A girl's best friend is equal pay." The remix might be new but debates and discussions about equal pay have been quite long-standing. Esther Peterson was the woman who pushed the Equal Pay Act in 1963 and paved the way for discussions and actions around the same. The bill was signed by President John F. Kennedy on June 10, 1963, to ensure that there was no sex-based wage discrimination.

Peterson was the leading reason behind the act and was the highest-ranking woman in Kennedy's administration. The president appointed her as the Head of the Women's Bureau at the beginning of his term. She was later promoted to Assistant Secretary of Labor in 1963. As per History TV 18, Peterson remembered advocating for the Equal Pay Act even when it was not a top agenda at White House in a 1970 interview.

Equal pay was never a top priority, she said in the interview and added, [The White House] helped me at certain times, but Ive literally carried that bill up. However, the Equal Pay Act was not the first time someone had pushed for equal pay for women. As per the source, the interest in this topic began in 1896, when it was first brought to the Republican party platform. As a senator, Kennedy co-sponsored the Equal Pay bill in 1957 but never held much discussion around it. Although he supported equal pay it was not a priority for him. Peterson confirmed this in the 1970 interview and shared that the White House didn't intervene much in the work of the Women's Bureau on the Equal Pay Bill. She said, We were given the responsibility and we lobbied it through. She was asked if the bill was a top priority at the White House, to which she replied, No. We didnt get help from them We got the bill through ourselves, frankly.

She played a key role in putting together the testimony for the hearing on the Equal Pay Bill in 1962. She also liaised with other groups to lobby members of Congress to support the bill. The next year Congress passed the bill through amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to protect against wage-based discriminations. However, the bill was slightly different from what Peterson had advocated for. She advocated for "Equal Pay for comparable work" while the bill passed was for "Equal pay for equal work." Peterson believed that the bill needed some strengthening and work.

Peterson was proven right because, as per the Pew Research Centre report in 2022, gender-based and ethnicity-based discrimination in wages still exists. As per the report, black women earned 70 percent of what white men earned while Hispanic women earned 65 percent of what white men earned.

In 2023, Congress even considered the Paycheck Fairness Act to strengthen the Equal Pay Act but didn't pass it. Peterson's contribution was not restricted to this single act though. After JFK's assassination in 1963, she continued to work for Lyndon B. Johnsons administration. He appointed her as Special Assistant to the President for Consumer Affairs, a role she returned for during Jimmy Carters term. She advocated for food labels to list nutritional information and grocery stores to list down prices per unit so consumers could make better decisions. She also advocated for better child care. Her endeavor for the act is an inspiration for women in power and for women around the world to keep pushing for their rights.

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Esther Peterson, the woman who advocated for the Equal Pay Act and made it possible in 1963 - GOOD

New gaming credit law gives Macau Chief Executive power to terminate eligibility of concessionaires to issue credit – Inside Asian Gaming

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Members of Macaus Legislative Assembly have noted that the final version of the new law on gaming credit adds a provision on the termination of the qualification of the concessionaire to engage in gaming credit activities, a clause that allows the Chief Executive to terminate the provision of credit by concessionaires on the basis of significant public interest.

The second standing committee of the Macau Legislative Assembly discussed the gaming credit law on Friday, and members of the committee told media afterwards that the bill is expected to come into effect on 1 August this year. The bill had already passed a general vote in the Legislative Assembly on 18 May.

The final text of the bill stipulates that gaming credit business can only be carried out by Macaus concessionaires, confirming that gaming junkets are prohibited from engaging in such business themselves. However, junkets may enter into an agency contract with the concessionaire to carry out credit behavior with players on behalf of the concessionaire, provided that the money lent or recovered in the process belongs to the concessionaire. Such agent contracts require the approval of the Secretary for Economy and Finance.

The latest version of the bill adds this new provision on termination of eligibility to engage in credit business which grants the Chief Executive the power to terminate without regard to whether the concessionaire has fulfilled its relevant obligations.

However, the bill does not specify in detail what constitutes significant public interest or the circumstances under which it might be deemed to be in the public interest.

The bill does, however, establish a transitional period before the bill comes into force whereby the credit behavior of junkets will be dealt with in accordance with the old legislation.

As previously reported by IAG, the new credit law also prohibits casino management companies from issuing credit.

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New gaming credit law gives Macau Chief Executive power to terminate eligibility of concessionaires to issue credit - Inside Asian Gaming

The Rwanda plan has become another Brexit for the Tories – The New Statesman

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Nostalgia stalked Westminster yesterday: a nostalgia for Brexit. Why do I say this? Because both the media and Tory MPs seemed to be pretending that the vote on the second reading of the Rwanda bill was a reincarnation of the Brexit wars. Throughout the afternoon, Tory MPs burrowed into various committee rooms around Westminster Palace to fashion a response. Mark Francois a stout Tory MP who, after a stint as a coalition whip and minister, came into his own as a parliamentary Brexit pugilist grandiosely proclaimed outside Portcullis House that he and his colleagues on the partys right would abstain.

Over in the chamber, the shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper, pen in hand, hair slicked back like an Australian Open tennis player, chastised the parliamentarians sat opposite for slashing away at windmills. But Labour was not the main show. That was Robert Jenrick, the erstwhile immigration minister, who rose to declare that here he stood and he could do no other.

Except abstain on the bill in order to improve it at the committee stage. Priti Patel, who Jenrick doffed his hat to multiple times, was sitting a row back as a reminder of all those migration ministers who had failed before Jenrick. In truth, it seemed that his speech was delivered with one eye on the leadership contest that will follow electoral defeat. He was parading in front of his fellow Tory MPs.

Despite his words and his abstention the bill passed with a majority of 44. For all the rigamarole the breakfast meeting between Sunak and mutinous MPs, the photo ops, the hills climbed and marched down again the result was as predicted. The government is still wrestling with a despair-ridden parliamentary party that it can barely control. It is still running out of time to change course before the election. And its message is still incoherent.

Any success the Tories scrape from the Rwanda scheme will be blotted out in thick ink in the papers by vindictive, anonymous quotes speculating about the leadership. It feels like parliamentary Conservatives are trying to start a car while half of their MPs are deflating the tyres and the other half refuse to turn the ignition. The partys disunity precludes any success. Sunak held off a seismic defeat in the Commons but opposition to the bill will continue into the new year.

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What rang true in Jenricks speech was this: illegal migration as an issue is not going away. If we assume that the Rwanda scheme fails and that Labour wins the election, then this will become a problem for Starmer a leader who pumped up expectations in his speech yesterday that he will reduce immigration. He claims to want to chart a new approach, but is he destined to follow the path of raising voters hopes only to be constrained by what that means in reality?

This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substackhere.

[See also: Labour is failing to build a new political consensus]

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The Rwanda plan has become another Brexit for the Tories - The New Statesman