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The New York Times | Pass the Fair Pay Act •
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GOP Set to Block Bill Easing Limits on Pay Discrimination Suits
By Carl Hulse
The New York Times
Wednesday 23 April 2008
Washington - Senate Republicans said on Tuesday that they were confident
they would be able to block legislation intended to reverse a Supreme Court
ruling last year that established tight time restrictions on lawsuits over pay
discrimination.
Even if the bill stalls, the fight over the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act -
named for the Alabama woman who lost her case at the Supreme Court - is
likely to resurface in both the presidential and Congressional campaigns. Democrats
and others argue that the legislation is needed to ensure pay equity, an important
issue with women.
But Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and other Republicans said the bill,
which is opposed by the business community and the Bush administration, could
create a flood of lawsuits.
"We think that this bill is primarily designed to create a massive amount
of new litigation in our country," said Mr. McConnell, the minority leader.
Leadership aides and other Republicans said they expected to be able to deny
backers of the bill the 60 votes needed to bring it to the floor in a showdown
scheduled for Wednesday.
Democrats and some Republicans say that the bill, approved by the House last
year after the court ruling in May, was necessary to give those who believe
they were discriminated against a fair opportunity to challenge their employers
in court.
Backers of the bill say the court overlooked extensive precedent when it dismissed
the claim of Ms. Ledbetter, a worker at the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Plant in
Gadsden, Ala., because she had not acted within six months of the first instance
of pay discrimination, even though she was unaware of it at the time.
Supporters of the legislation said the court decision did not reflect the reality
that many people do not know how their pay compares to that of their co-workers.
"It is a critical issue for women, and it has been a longstanding, persistent
problem and is all the more important right now," said Senator Olympia
J. Snowe, Republican of Maine and a co-sponsor of the bill, referring to the
current economic downturn. Ms. Snowe said efforts to derail the measure by her
fellow Republicans were unfortunate.
Other supporters said the bill would simply restore the legal playing field
to where it was before the ruling, with a two-year limit on claims for back
pay. It declares that discrimination can occur each time a person is paid and
that a challenge does not have to be filed within six months of the first instance
of bias.
"I can't think of anything more in keeping with American ideals
of fairness than equal pay for equal work," said Senator Edward M. Kennedy,
Democrat of Massachusetts and a lead sponsor of the bill.
Both candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Hillary
Rodham Clinton of New York and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, are expected
to vote Wednesday to open debate on the measure. In fact, Senator Harry Reid
of Nevada, the majority leader, said Tuesday that the Senate would not convene
until 5 p.m. Wednesday to make certain the two candidates could be on hand for
the crucial procedural vote, which typically is scheduled one hour after the
Senate opens.
Republican aides said they did not expect Senator John McCain of Arizona, the
party's presumptive presidential nominee, to vote.
Democrats were also prepared to make pay equity an issue against Republicans
in Senate races. The liberal advocacy group People for the American Way is already
using Ms. Ledbetter's case in an advertisement criticizing Senator Norm
Coleman, Republican of Minnesota, for his support of the Bush administration's
judicial nominees.
Ms. Ledbetter, who said she long received far less pay than her male colleagues
for doing the same job, would not get any benefit under the bill.
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Pass the Fair Pay Act
The New York Times | Editorial
Wednesday 23 April 2008
Last year, the Supreme Court tossed aside longstanding legal precedents and
government practice to make it much harder for an employee to sue over unlawful
pay discrimination.
The 5-to-4 ruling came in the case of Lilly Ledbetter, a supervisor at a Goodyear
Tire and Rubber Company plant in Alabama, who over several years received smaller
raises than men in comparable positions. A jury found that Goodyear violated
Ms. Ledbetter's rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
But a majority of the Supreme Court decided she was entitled to nothing based
on a cramped view of the 180-day deadline for filing such claims. They decided
that Ms. Ledbetter had to sue within 180 days of the company's discriminatory
raises and that the persistence of unfairness from check to check was not relevant.
Fortunately, the Senate is scheduled to consider a modest bill on Wednesday
that is aimed at restoring the original intent of the law. It poses a test of
each senator's commitment to combating pay discrimination.
Sponsored by Senators Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Arlen
Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, the bill would re-establish that the deadline
for making a charge of pay discrimination under Title VII runs from when a worker
receives unequal pay, not from the day a company first decided to discriminate,
as the Supreme Court wrongly insisted.
Many employers keep salaries and raises confidential, as Justice Ruth Bader
Ginsburg aptly noted in her dissent in the Ledbetter case. By making it clear
that the 180-day clock restarts with each discriminatory paycheck, the act avoids
rewarding employers that obscure lower raises given on the basis of such considerations
as gender or race.
Far from eliminating the current statute of limitations for filing pay discrimination
claims, as some opponents claim, it merely restores a reasonable notion of when
the clock starts running. The House approved the same measure in July, but it
remains to be seen whether enough Republican votes can be mustered to overcome
a filibuster threat in the Senate.
The act's defeat would please the Bush White House and the United States
Chamber of Commerce. It would be a significant civil rights setback.
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