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President Obama Signs Lilly Ledbetter Pay Equity Bill Into Law
The very first bill signed into law by President Barack Obama will benefit those who believe they have been affected by wage and gender discrimination in the work place.
On Thursday, January 29, 2009 U.S. President Barack Obama signed legislation into law making it easier for employees to sue for wage discrimination, a measure he said is an important step toward “fundamental fairness” for U.S. workers.
At a White House bill-signing ceremony President Obama said:
“It is fitting that the very first bill that I sign … is an important step, a simple fix to ensure fundamental fairness for American workers.”
The bill known as the Lilly Ledbetter bill in honor of an Alabama woman who worked for Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, passed the House in a largely party-line vote Tuesday. The bill was approved by the Senate last week. It was a priority for the Democrat-controlled Congress, and becomes the first law to be signed by Obama.
The legislation effectively reverses a U.S. Supreme Court decision from 2007 that limited Ledbetter’s ability to sue for pay discrimination. Ledbetter, who joined Obama at Thursday’s ceremony, worked for Goodyear for almost 20 years before discovering her employer was paying higher salaries to her male colleagues.
Previously, in 2007, the Supreme Court ruled Ledbetter had not filed her discrimination suit within the required statute of limitations. The court said workers had to file suits within six months of when their employer first decided to pay the female employee less than her male counterparts.
Under the new law, employees can sue six months after the last paycheck they receive that is less than other employees at their level.
Ledbetter first realized she was being paid less in 1998 and an initial court ruling awarded her $3.8 million. Because of the Supreme Court decision, however, she won’t personally benefit from the legislation that bears her name, a fact she acknowledged at a White House reception following the bill signing.
“Goodyear will never have to pay me what it cheated me out of. In fact, I will never see a cent from my case, but with the … president’s signature today, I will have an even richer reward. I know that my daughters and granddaughters and your daughters and your granddaughters will have a better deal.”
When asked for comment a Goodyear spokesman said Ledbetter’s pay at the firm was comparable to other workers with similar performance, including men. The spokesman for the world’s largest tire company with its US and international subsidiaries and joint ventures, further referenced a judicial finding of no discrimination with respect to pay in the years just before Ledbetter took an early retirement.
On Thursday at the bill’s signing ceremony President Obama noted women in the U.S. make 78 cents for every dollar men earn, but said equal pay isn’t simply a women’s issue.
“It’s about parents who find themselves with less money for tuition and child care, couples who wind up with less to retire on, households where one breadwinner is paid less than she deserves. That’s the difference between affording the mortgage or not, between keeping the heat on, or paying the doctor bills, or not.
And in this economy, when so many folks are already working harder for less and struggling to get by, the last thing they can afford is losing part of each month’s paycheck to simple and plain discrimination.” President Barack Obama
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