President Barack Obama has signed two executive actions to make federal contractors' pay practices more transparent and to make it easier to identify gender and race pay discrimination.

Available to discuss the strengths and limitations of the new policies aimed at addressing the issue of unequal compensation is William Bielby, UIC professor of sociology. He says the measures are likely to have a significant impact as most large corporations are government contractors and about one fourth of the labor force would be affected.

"The impact will be similar to, if not greater than, that of President Nixon's executive order establishing the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs in 1973," he explained. "That executive order established the requirement that contractors submit information on the racial and gender composition of their work forces and that they take 'affirmative action' to remedy deficiencies."

Bielby is an expert on workplace discrimination and corporate compensation practices and he has testified in numerous class action employment discrimination cases.

Please note that Bielby is only available for phone interviews at this time.