By Carol Kemp / Chronicle contributor
On January 22, the Senate passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act by a vote of 61-36. The House had previously passed the bill by 247-17.
Who is Lilly Ledbetter? She was the sole female supervisor at a Goodyear Tire plant in Gadsden, AL, for 19 years. Only months before she was to retire, she learned that she was being paid thousands of dollars less than her male co-workers. Someone had left an anonymous note in her mailbox showing her pay compared to the three males doing the same job. She filed suit and won her case before a jury. While preparing for her case, Ledbetter learned that men in other jobs with less experience were also making more than she was.
Last May, the Supreme Court reviewed her case and ruled 5-4 that Ledbetter waited too long to file her case, even though she was unaware of her lower wage all during her working career. The Court said that she should have complained within 180 days of the first discriminatory event (her first paycheck).
Federal courts had for decades ruled that each new paycheck extended the statute of limitations for filing discrimination lawsuits. This Supreme Court, for all the hype about not “making law” did just that! Not only did the Ledbetter ruling overturn employment-law precedent, but it gutted the equal-pay provisions of the Civil Rights Act. Those activist judges voting against Ledbetter were Justices Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Kennedy and Scalia.
Congress drafted the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to correct this obvious injustice. In the House three Republicans joined with 244 Democrats to pass the bill, while 166 Republicans and five Democrats voted “Nay.” Our Congressman Lincoln Davis voted with the majority. All Democratic Senators present voted for the bill. (Senator Kennedy was not there due to medical reasons.) The four Republican women, Collins, Hutchison, Murkowski and Snowe, all voted for the bill, as did Republican Senator Arlen Specter. All other Republicans voted against the bill, including Tennessee’s Alexander and Corker.
On a personal note, my first job out of college was as an accountant for a large television station in Los Angeles. I was replacing a man who had been promoted. He had graduated one year ahead of me at the same university, so he had no more experience than I did when I was hired. After we became friends, he told me that I was hired specifically because the station could pay me less. I was astonished and upset, as I knew that my gender was the only reason for my smaller paycheck.
Today, American women still earn only 77 cents for every dollar earned in comparable jobs held by men. My question to Senators Alexander and Corker is, “When exactly, Senators, will we achieve equal pay for equal work, and what is it that makes you think women are worth less than men?"
