OBAMA’S FIRST BILL PROTECTS WOMEN WORKERS
January 28, 2009
The first bill signed by President Barack Obama will make it easier for women and others to sue for pay discrimination by removing time limits that have blocked legal action in the past.
The bill, a top priority for labor and women’s rights groups, is a response to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that said a person must file a claim of discrimination within 180 days of a company’s initial decision to pay a worker less than it pays another worker doing the same job. Under the bill, every new discriminatory paycheck would extend the statute of limitations for another 180 days.
The plaintiff in the case, Lilly Ledbetter, argued that she did not become aware of the pay discrepancy until near the end of her 19-year career at a Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. plant in Gadsden, Ala.
The Bush White House and Senate Republicans blocked the legislation in the last session of Congress, but Obama strongly supports it and the Democratic-controlled Congress moved it to the top of the agenda for the new session that opened this month.
The House passed the bill Jan. 27 on a 250-177 vote and Obama was expected to sign it on Jan. 29.
Passage of this bill allows labor rights advocates to turn their attention to another bill with the potential to transform the workplace: the Employee Free Choice Act. That bill would let workers form a union when a majority of them sign cards saying they want to do so. Workers already have a right to form a union through this “majority sign-up” process—but only if their employer agrees to let them do so. The Employee Free Choice Act would give workers to form a union in this manner without their employer’s permission.
The Ledbetter bill focuses on pay and other workplace discrimination against women: The Census Bureau last year estimated that women still only receive about 78 cents for every dollar that men get for doing equivalent jobs. But the measure, which amends the Civil Rights Act of 1964, also applies to discrimination based on factors such as race, religion, national origin, disability or age.
The bill originally had been coupled with a provision making it easier to receive damage awards for discrimination. The Senate removed this provision, which could appear in another bill later in the year.