Chuck Schumer Urges McConnell To Pass Equal Pay In Honor Of U.S. Womens Soccer Team

Lauding the extraordinary U.S. womens national soccer team for its excellence and heart, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) extended an invitation on Monday to the World Cup champions to visit the U.S. Senate saying it would be my honor to host Americas winning team.

His invitation followed a similar gesture by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who encouraged the womens team to visit the U.S. Capitol to celebrate your inspiring victory.

Speaking from the Senate floor, Schumer also urged his GOP counterpart, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and his other colleagues to pass equal pay legislation in honor of the victorious team.

They make us grapple with the deep unfairness in how female athletes are treated, and paid, compared to their male counterparts, Schumer said in an apparent nod to the gender discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. womens soccer team earlier this year. Similarly. its an unfortunate reality that women in the workforce see their male colleagues paid significantly more for the same work.

What the #USWNT did was extraordinary, and they deserve to be compensated fairly.

All women need to be compensated fairly. Period.

And we ought to pay attention to this not just once every four years during the World Cup, but year-in and year-out. pic.twitter.com/gtWgiHS2PH

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What the #USWNT did was extraordinary, and they deserve to be compensated fairly.

All women need to be compensated fairly. Period.

And we ought to pay attention to this not just once every four years during the World Cup, but year-in and year-out. pic.twitter.com/gtWgiHS2PH
Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) July 8, 2019

Schumer said the U.S. womens team, which bested the Netherlands for the FIFA Womens World Cup on Sunday, had shone a light on the fact that in our society women are simply not treated fairly because of their gender.

Something needs to change here. What the U.S. women did was extraordinary, and they deserve to be compensated fairly. All women need to be compensated fairly, period, the senator continued, before asking McConnell to introduce the Paycheck Fairness Act , approved earlier this year by the Democrat-led House, on the Senate floor.

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How about the equal pay amendment that the House has passed? Why dont we put it on the floor of the Senate in honor of the women who won the World Cup? Why dont we do that, Leader McConnell? Schumer said.

As CNBC noted , however, McConnell who also congratulated the womens team on its win and praised the players for their grit and teamwork and talent is unlikely to support the equal pay legislation, which hes previously condemned as just another Democratic idea that threatens to hurt the very people that it claims to help.

The GOP has voted at least four times to block the Paycheck Fairness Act from consideration since 2012, CNBC reported.