With the hubbub over the Senate votes on President Obama's cabinet nominations and the Republican stonewalling on the economic recovery package pending in Congress, little attention has focused on the change that has already happened.
This month Congress passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act which strengthens the ability of workers to seek redress against employers who pursue discriminatory practices in how they pay their employees.
A recent post at the new WhiteHouse.gov blog reveals that President Obama will be signing the Ledbetter bill once the two versions of the bill passed recently in both houses of Congress are reconciled and sent to his desk.
The blog post suggests that the Obama administration believes the Senate version of the bill will most likely be the final version.
"President Obama has long championed this bill," the White House blog notes, "and Lilly Ledbetter's cause, and by signing it into law, he will ensure that women like Ms. Ledbetter and other victims of pay discrimination can effectively challenge unequal pay."
The White House blog also quotes extensively from Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dissenting opinion in the 2007 case which led to the passage of the bill this month:
Lilly Ledbetter was a supervisor at Goodyear Tire and Rubber’s plant in Gadsden, Alabama, from 1979 until her retirement in 1998. For most of those years, she worked as an area manager, a position largely occupied by men. Initially, Ledbetter’s salary was in line with the salaries of men performing substantially similar work. Over time, however, her pay slipped in comparison to the pay of male area managers with equal or less seniority. By the end of 1997, Ledbetter was the only woman working as an area manager and the pay discrepancy between Ledbetter and her 15 male counterparts was stark: Ledbetter was paid $3,727 per month; the lowest paid male area manager received $4,286 per month, the highest paid, $5,236.
It is fitting that the first major piece of legislation President Obama will sign into law is one that will provide working people with another tool to fight discrimination in the workplace. It is a lesson that the struggles of workers can bring change and that the courage of one person can spur the movement to win that change.
