Committee on Education and Labor : U.S. House of Representatives

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Congress Must Act to Rectify Supreme Court Decision on Pay Discrimination, Witnesses Tell Labor Committee
If Allowed to Stand, Supreme Court Decision Will Have Broad Harmful Consequences for Workers; House Democrats Plan Legislation

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

 

WASHINGTON, DC -- The Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling in Ledbetter v. Goodyear, which severely limited workers' ability to sue when their employers discriminate against them by basing their compensation on factors like sex or race, will have far-reaching and harmful consequences for American workers if Congress does not act to rectify it, witnesses told the House Education and Labor Committee today.

Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the chairman of the Committee, announced today that he and other House Democrats would soon introduce legislation to rectify the Supreme Court’s decision.

"With the Ledbetter decision, the Court is telling employers that to escape responsibility all they need to do is keep their discrimination hidden and run out the clock," said Miller.  "As Justice Ginsburg suggested, the ball has now fallen into Congress' court. And make no mistake -- Congress intends to act to correct the Supreme Court’s grievous insult to American workers."

Lilly Ledbetter, the plaintiff in the case, worked for nearly 20 years at a Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company facility in Alabama. She sued the company after learning that she was the lowest-paid supervisor out of a group of 16 supervisors at the facility, despite having more experience than several of her male counterparts. A jury found that her employer had unlawfully discriminated against her on the basis of sex. 

In a sharply divided, misguided 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled against Ledbetter's claim, saying that she had waited too long to sue, despite the fact that she filed a charge with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as soon as she received an anonymous note alerting her to pay discrimination and within 180 days of receiving a paycheck based on discriminatory pay decisions. The Court ruled that the law requires plaintiffs to sue within 180 days of an employer's decision to discriminate, not within 180 days of receiving a discriminatory paycheck.

"My case is over and it is too bad that the Supreme Court decided the way that it did," testified Ledbetter.  "I hope, though, that Congress won't let this happen to anyone else. I would feel that this long fight was worthwhile if, at least at the end of it, I knew that I played a part in getting the law fixed so that it can provide real protection to real people in the real world."

Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, said that the Ledbetter ruling will enable unscrupulous employers to make discriminatory compensation decisions without fear.

"The outcome in Ledbetter is fundamentally unfair to victims of pay discrimination," said Henderson.  "By immunizing employers from accountability for their discrimination once 180 days have passed from the initial pay decision, the Supreme Court has taken away victims' recourse against continuing discrimination."

The court's ruling is unworkable in practice because pay discrimination is difficult to uncover and has lasting affects through retirement, said Deborah Brake, a law professor and expert in gender pay discrimination at the University of Pittsburgh.

"Employees are highly unlikely to have access to the kind of information necessary to raise a suspicion of pay discrimination.  Employers rarely disclose company-wide salary information and workplace norms often discourage frank and open conversations among employees about salary," said Brake. "Pay discrimination that begins in a starting salary may follow a woman throughout her career, adding up to a tremendous discrimination deficit over the course of her working life and even following her into retirement."

 


 

 

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