Thursday, January 29, 2009

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act - SIGNED!


President Obama just signed this morning the bill that protects everyone from pay discrimination. A BIG step for WOMEN and minorities! History has been made today.

The following information is from the White House Blog:

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act will restore the law to where it was before the Supreme Court's decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. Justice Ginsberg's dissent summarizes the facts of Ledbetter's complaint:

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.

The Court ruled that employees subject to pay discrimination like Lilly Ledbetter must file a claim within 180 days of the employer's original decision to pay them less -- even if the employee continued to receive reduced paychecks and even if the employee did not discover the discriminatory reduction in pay until much later (check out Justice Alito's arguments in the Court's opinion). Restoring these rules means that complaints can be filed 180 days after any discriminatory paycheck.


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