http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/07/23/lilly-ledbetter-congress-needs-to-tackle-unfair-supreme-court-ruling/Lilly Ledbetter doesn’t think much of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s listening skills.
Alito was part of the 5-4 majority that in May ruled Ledbetter was simply too late in filing suit over 20 years of pay discrimination at a Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. plant in Alabama where she was paid less than the men doing the same job.
The court said she should have initiated her lawsuit no more than 180 days after she received the first short paycheck, even though it took her years to discover the difference–and longer to dig up the proof. The decision tossed out a lower court’s award of $3.8 million for her for two decades of pay discrimination.
In a just-posted interview (see video)—passed along by Josh Aaron Glassteter at People for the American Way—Ledbetter says:
I felt that Alito from Day One when the case was heard, that he had a closed mind and was not going to listen to the arguments…They voted me down. They voted 5–4. I lost by one vote; it was not fair. It wasn’t even close to being fair. We must go to Congress, to the House and the Senate to prevent this from happening in the future to other females and minorities. I have a granddaughter who will come along in the workforce in about 20 years, and I hope that the law is changed and things will be much easier for her.
It could be a lot sooner than that. In June, the House Education and Labor Committee approved the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act that now awaits floor action. Last week, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and a bipartisan group of 14 co-sponsors introduced the Senate version, the Fair Pair Restoration Act.
Prior to the Supreme Court ruling, many courts allowed workers to sue for pay discrimination years after the initial discrimination because the courts considered each new paycheck a new discriminatory act.
Generally speaking, both bills would clarify that every paycheck or other compensation resulting, in whole or in part, from an earlier discriminatory pay decision constitutes a violation of the Civil Rights Act. As long as workers file their charges within 180 days of a discriminatory paycheck, their charges would be considered timely.
Says Kennedy:
It is unacceptable that some victims of ongoing pay discrimination are unable to hold their employers accountable. Yet that’s what happened to Lilly Ledbetter. I hope that all of us on both sides of the aisle can join in correcting this obvious wrong.
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