Senate Republicans filibustered a bill Apr. 24 that would have helped women workers achieve pay equity. Republican presidential nominee John McCain expressed opposition to the bill but refused to take responsibility for his position by returning to the Senate to cast his vote on it.
The Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was named after Lily Ledbetter who after 19 years Goodyear Tire Inc. discovered that her supervisors deliberately paid her male co-workers more than she. A jury awarded compensation for back pay plus punitive damages. Republican appointees in appellate courts, however, overturned the jury's decision and used a technicality to throw out the award.
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to uphold the jury decision even though it agreed the company's behavior was illegal. The conservative majority cited a rule that required Ledbetter to sue the company within six months of her first unfair pay check. Of course, Ledbetter did not find out about the inequity until years after her first paycheck.
The Fair Pay Act changes the rule to give workers who face discrimination, including by gender, race, disability, religion or age, the power to sue six months after their last unfair paycheck.
The sponsor of the bill, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) said, "Workers shouldn't have to be mind-readers to protect themselves from discrimination. Those who suffer from pay discrimination shouldn't run out of time to file a claim for back pay simply because the employer initially managed to hide its illegal behavior."
Supporters of the bill argue that without revising current law, companies will have no incentive to ensure fair pay for all of their employees.
Rosalyn Pelles, director of the AFL-CIO Civil, Human and Women’s Rights Department, told reporters that the bill was about basic workplace fairness. "Like our founding fathers—and mothers—we in the labor movement have some basic beliefs that we hold to be self-evident," she said.
"We believe in paychecks that reflect an honest day on the job," Pelles added. "We believe in fairness. We believe that there is dignity in work—all work. Paying a woman less than a man is an affront to human dignity."
Deborah L. Frett, CEO of Business and Professional Women/USA, expressed strong disappointment at the Republican filibuster. "None of the Senators voting against the bill will admit that they favor pay discrimination," Frett told reporters. "Yet by voting against this bill they are saying that during the first six months you are hired you must aggressively find out what your peers are making, because if you don’t – too bad."
Democratic presidential frontrunner Barack Obama voted for the bill and told a crowd in Evansville, Indiana that unequal pay "is not just bad for women, it's bad for their families. It makes it harder for working families to make ends meet. That kind of pay discrimination is wrong and it has no place in the United States of America."
Obama cited McCain's opposition to the bill and his refusal to even cast a vote on it as yet another sign of his being out of touch with the majority of working Americans.
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) also voted for the bill.
Passage of the bill was backed by a broad coalition of labor, civil rights, and women's organizations including the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the National Organization for Women, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the two major labor federations.
