At the United State of Women Summit earlier this week, the White House announced the Equal Pay Pledge, asking companies to commit to ending the wage gap. A handful of retailers and designers were among the 28 companies that have signed on thus far: Stella McCartney, Gap Inc. and Rebecca Minkoff, as well as the far-beyond-just-fashion e-comm behemoth that is Amazon. The pay discrepancy currently stands at 79 cents to the dollar; for African-American women, it's 64 cents to the dollar, and for Latina women, an even more staggeringly low 56 cents to the dollar, per the White House's blog.
Other companies across a variety of industries that have also taken the Pledge include Airbnb, American Airlines, Expedia, Spotify, PepsiCo, and Staples. In the beauty space, L'Oréal USA and Johnson & Johnson are currently on board, too. The sole social-media player on the list (so far) is Pinterest. And while currently businesses in the retail/fashion space account for less than a quarter of the list, Gap Inc.'s inclusion is pretty substantial, since the company's portfolio includes major mass brands like Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, and Athleta, to name a few.
Each of the 28 brands created a brief statement about why (and, in some cases, how) they're committed to ensuring salary parity, which can all be found here. "Women occupy 67% of our leadership team and we have an even higher number of women across the brand," Stella McCartney's statement says. "We place gender equality as a strategic imperative across our talent pipeline."
Rebecca Minkoff's statement underscores how female leadership makes it all the more important to vow to ensure equal pay. "As an organization conceived and led by a female entrepreneur, we understand the importance of supporting women early in their careers," reads the brand's statement. "While progress has been made in the fashion industry, we pledge to work to empower future generations of female entrepreneurs by providing them with equal opportunities in our organization." The accessories-centric brand will be ensuring that wages for its male and female employees are 100% equal.
For other brands that joined the Pledge, equal pay has already been a reality: "In 2014, Gap Inc. became the first Fortune 500 Company to announce that we pay female and male employees equally for equal work on average across our global organization," according to Gap's statement. "This is an important step globally, as well as in the U.S., where a woman earns on average 79 cents for every dollar a man earns... We believe pay equality should not be an accomplishment; it’s the way the world should work and it’s time to get it done."
As more companies get on board with the Equal Pay Pledge, here's to hoping there will be lots of retailers and fashion names in the mix.
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