Lily Ledbetter (sp?) Act
- Thread starter cawacko
- Start date
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
Equal pay? Oh....read the title wrong. I thought you said Lily Bedwetter Act. Thought it was maybe about new regulations for bedding manufacturers.
SmarterthanYou
rebel
fair pay act of 2009. Amends the Civil Rights Act of 1964 stating that the 180-day statute of limitations for filing an equal-pay lawsuit regarding pay discrimination resets with each new discriminatory paycheck. The law was a direct answer to the Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 550 U.S. 618 (2007), a U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that the statute of limitations for presenting an equal-pay lawsuit begins on the date that the employer makes the initial discriminatory wage decision, not at the date of the most recent paycheck, as a lower court had ruled.
I understand it to be a bill which gives women more time and leverage to file a complaint against an employer for unequal pay.
LOL at Mott. Yes, cawacko, I think you have the gist of it about right. Don't usually use Wikipedia but they do have a pretty good synopsis of the whole deal. I'm all for it. If the woman is doing the same job equally as well as a man then she should get paid equally as well. Not a big deal for me to support something so logical.
Going off of memory here. The Supreme Court ruled in a pay discrimination case that the statute of limitations (the period for in which you can file a lawsuit, I think its relatively short for discrimination claims, like 180 days or something) begins to run at the time the first discriminatory pay decision was made, whether the victim of discrimination is aware that she is being discriminated against or nor. Lily Ledbetter was the plaintiff in the lawsuit and she had received substantially less in compensation for the same work as her male counterparts over a number of years. Under the Supreme Court's ruling, she was out of luck notwithstanding the fact that she proved discrimination on the basis of sex, because she failed to file suit (or a complaint with the EEOC of its state counterpart) within the statute of limitations period running from the first discriminatory pay decision.
In response, the Democratic Congress passed a law to overrule the SCOTUS decision and rewriting the statute so that (again, to my memory), the statute of limitations restarts each time a discriminatory pay decision is made. It was titled the Lily Ledbetter Act.
This was an issue in the 2008 campaign so I bet if you run a search on it you will find more information on this here board.
Edit: What STY said.
cawacko
Well-known member
Ok. Cool, thanks.
SmarterthanYou
rebel
welcome. it was a pretty big deal when this went down. i totally disagreed with the majority on this one.
cawacko
Well-known member
I was being partially lazy by not looking it up myself but I also like to hear the (often differing) opinions people hold on issues on the board. If I may ask why did you disagree with the majority?
SmarterthanYou
rebel
If I remember correctly, ms ledbetter did not notice a pay discrepancy until sometime after she'd held the position. Once she did find out is when she filed the suit, some years afterward. I felt that the statute of limitations should have started at the time of notice and not at the time of the discrepancy, especially considering that HR keeps personnel salaries private.