Ledbetter Fair Pay Act Not Enough

President Obama is set to sign his first piece of legislation this week - the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. You may remember Ledbetter's case. She worked for Goodyear tire and rubber for most of her career, and found out after many years that she had been paid less than the men doing the same job all along. To add insult to injury, she had trained a couple of these guys.

The George W. Bush/ Roberts/Alito Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that though Ledbetter had indeed experienced discrimination, she was not entitled to damages because she hadn't filed her lawsuit within 180 days of that first short paycheck - never mind that she didn't discover the discrimination for more than a decade. The ruling overturned 40+ years of precedent. Up until Ledbetter v. Goodyear, courts had always ruled that a victim of wage discrimination had 180 days from the day she found out about it to file suit, and that each new short paycheck started the countdown clock over again. In passing the new bill, Congress and President Obama have restored the law to the way it has been interpreted for the last four decades.

But if you think that's the answer to women's pay inequity prayers, you're dead wrong. Just getting us back to even is not nearly enough to overcome that stubborn wage gap. Women still make only 77 cents to the dollar a man makes for full time year round work. We need more - much more. The main reason Lilly Ledbetter got shafted was that she didn't know her situation compared to the men. Employers are under no obligation to report pay statistics, and in most companies you can get fired for talking pay with co-workers. Though federal legislation to fix these two problems is in the pipeline, it's been in the pipeline for over a decade, and the light at the end is nowhere in sight.

The governor of one state - New Mexico - is not waiting. Bill Richardson (Obama's choice for commerce secretary who voluntarily dropped out of consideration) has just signed an executive order in his state that is ground breaking. Not only will the state as an employer have to study and report it's own pay practices when it comes to gender and race, so will private sector companies that want state contracts. Richardson has declared overcoming pay inequity and job segregation a priority, and established a high-powered task force to implement the needed changes.

Employers are likely to wail and gnash their teeth. Won't this cost money? Well maybe, but probably not that much. They already know who works for them, the gender and race of their employees, and how much they're paid by job category. So gathering the data ought to be relatively simple. Besides, all employers won't have to do it - just those that want state contracts, paid with dollars from taxpayers. In this day of bailouts and boondoggles at taxpayer expense, citizens footing the bills have a right to expect that any company getting government business pays its workers fairly. And there will be technical assistance and reasonable exceptions for small business.

By doing internal pay equity analyses, companies that have a problem and don't know it will be able to find out and fix it before they get hauled into court for discrimination. And if they're not doing anything wrong, they ought to be proud of it and willing to tell the world. Sure would cut down on all those "frivolous lawsuits" if employees could see the statistics up front and know they weren't being shorted in the pay envelope.

Congress did the right thing by bringing us back to a 40 year old standard when it fixed Ledbetter. But the State of New Mexico is way ahead of the curve, looking forward, not backward. Women should challenge the other 49 governors to follow suit, particularly one self-described "feminist" who can see Russia from her house.

Comments

[Pearlswan]

Transparency is one of the free market principles required for fair competition. Imagine going to the grocery store and not being able to compare prices between similar products until you get the information at the cash register. You would have to buy all the products at least once to find out what they cost. Or, you would have to rely on fellow shoppers for the information you need to make the most economical choice to meet your budget, an imperfect source of price info for sure. Why are wages kept secret for anyone? Wages are labor market prices and should be open information to all. It only benefits the employer, not the employees when wages are kept secret. And, it violates one of the most basic economic assumptions at the foundation of our free market system--tr­ansparency and perfect information. We all need to wise up and stop participating with our employers to keep our wages secret.

[SantaFeConservative]

I know at least one woman in my department (we all do the exact same work) is paid a lot more than me. What law firm do I contact?

[LeftRight]

Did she earn it through something that you're not telling us about, like a better education? Cause that's the assumption made in that 77 cents figure. It's also the AVERAGE, which means that someone like the woman at your work (assuming that she's close enough in all ways to make a comparison meaningful) is increasing the average by a small amount.

[celticjag]

Ms. Burke, the Supreme Court did not find that Ms. Ledbetter was discriminated against, it found that her claims were not filed in the time line that the law allowed!

[LeftRight]

Don't know why the last one got deleted, but here goes again.

The SCOTUS found that Ms. Ledbetter WAS discriminated against, but they found that the 180 day limit on filing applied to when the discrimination STARTED, not when you found out about it.

In other words, you and I start work at the same company at the same time, but they give me $10,000 more per year because I'm a white male, and you're, for example, a black female. You had less than 6 full months to file a complaint or else refuse your rights to a fair paycheck. Under the new law that erroneous interpretation by the SCOTUS is gone, and you now have six months from when you were last discriminated against to file a complaint.

[StephanieInCA]

This is long overdue, but I'm not sure it's going to make much of a difference. As a society we need to start raising our daughters to ASK for what they want rather than politely waiting for someone to notice them:

a href="http://urbzen.com/2009/01/29/lilly-ledbetter-and-the-tough-girl’s-guide-to-negotiation/

[Marcia G. Yerman - Huffpost Blogger]

Don't forget the stats that come in under the radar of the 77 cents to the dollar a man makes.

For a black woman it is 67 cents; for a Latina woman it is 58 cents.

[sdskelton03]

What about Asian women?

I never see that statistic.

[Pearlswan]

Statistics show that Asian pay rates are comparable and sometimes even higher than majority pay rates. Education is the factor that lifts the pay of this group of workers. Education always pays more, no matter what your gender or race. That is why equal access to education has been such a big issue in the past and is the root of the affirmative action laws. Education is the best investment we can make in raising wages in the workplace.

[Rrhain]

You do realize that this is a true-but-misleading statistic, yes? We know that women, as a group, do not work in the same way that men, as a group, work. Women are much more likely to work part-time than full-time, but the "77 cents" stat does not break that down. Even among full-time workers, men tend to work more hours than women. Again, the "77 cents" stat does not break that down.

When you compare groups that work in similar ways, factoring in things like full-time/­part-time, number of hours worked, etc., you find that women earn only slightly less than men.

Now, none of that has anything to do with the need for the Ledbetter Law and New Mexico's ground-breaking push to have transparency in pay. I personally feel that any employee at any job should be able to go to HR and get a look at the payroll list. It should be scrubbed of personal information, but a person should be able to see what the pay is for everybody who, say, has worked at the company for four years or has a certain job title. Individuals are not groups. No matter how good the group is doing, we need to make sure the individuals are doing just as well.

However, "77 cents" completely distorts what's going on. If you want it to be a dollar for every dollar, we need to examine why women don't work like men.

[Pearlswan]

Part-time, Full-time, long-term, short-term, intermittent work or uninterrupted work. Who cares? Your work should be valued by what it produces, not by the loyalty you show to the employer by working more or continuously. Your work should be valued by what it contributes to the bottom line, just like the CEO wages are set. All these false classifications only confuse the issue. Equal pay for equal production. The reason women make less is because employers can get away with paying them less. All these variables they add to justify the pay differential are faulty and misleading. There are plenty of men who work part-time or intermittently and their wages are still higher than the women who work with them. Its blatant discrimination. Remember, women have only been in the workplace in mass numbers for the past two generations. The pay differential between men and women is a remnant of the patriarchal economy of the past. Its time for some results after 40 years of hard working women proving their worth alongside their fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons in the same workplace doing the same jobs yet earning less merely because of their gender and not their performance. That's change we can believe in!

[RightWingMarine]

it's telling who has owned a business and who has not when it comes to deciding how companies should be run. Most politicians haven't run or owned a business it's no big deal to add on an additional cost and blow it off as being only a minimal cost. Others understand about profit margins and how a little extra cost can have a big impact.

What exactly is New Mexico going to do if the electric company there decides they aren't going to play ball and shut off the juice to the capital building and all state and city govt buildings? What are they going to do if the major airlines decide they won't play ball and end all air traffic in the state or just prohibit any state or local govt employee from traveling on govt business?

[jan4insight]

Don't you worry, New Mexico is doing fine. The isn't the first piece of forward-looking legislation we've adopted in Richardson's tenure and it won't be the last. And our two largest cities, Albuquerque and Santa Fe, have both adopted minimum wage standards that exceed the federal minimum. As tough as times are, we're weathering the storm. We never took as much of a hit in the housing market that other areas did, for example.

This is why I am proud of my governor Bill Richardson, and was so disappointed to see him drop out of consideration for Commerce Secretary.

(And before anyone else says it, I will repeat the standard joke that NM weathers recessions because we're always in a recession. There's long been some truth to that, but this time it feels different).

[RightWingMarine]

I'm not sure I want my country mimicing a state that is known for their recessions. I would rather imitate a successful place.

[Rockerbabe]

So you think that fairness and equity is what, not American? Or women should just accept that they are
inferior and accept whatever someone wants to give them? As far as profit margins, well, get rid of the overpaid men and that ought to fix the problem. Balancing the books on the backs of those who do not make much money is just plain stupid and unrealistic.

The electric company NEEDS the state and its millions or billions to survive. Their "playing ball" is just part of the business plan. Like giving executives who do very little, a bonas. Compeech?

[overd0g1]

I'm still trying to grasp how private employment contracts are any business of the government.

[LeftRight]

When they are doing business with the government, then the government has every right to ensure that they are paying their people correctly before the government will do business with them. And once it becomes an actual national law, it's also reasonable for the government to place in the contract that they have with the business (called a business license!) that they must pay their people fairly and prove it!

[Eclectic Radical]

For a start, most employees no longer receive 'contracts.' Thanks to the legalizing of 'at will employment' policies, employees are at the mercy of their employers' whims on a wide range of issues (vacation, sick time, wages, medical insurance policy) at great cost to employers and great loss of personal liberty to employees. Meaningful reform on these issues would, ultimately, make business more profitable and improve the quality of life for American citizens who work for a living.

First conservatives bashed welfare, to disenfranchise the poor, unemployed, and disabled. Now conservatives are bashing employment regulation to disenfranchise working American citizens. They have taken an axe to anti-trust and financial regulation and disenfranchised many small business owners, but still have the gall to claim to advocate for small business.

It is the government's job to guarantee and protect the Constitutional rights of its citizens and the personal liberties of its citizens. The biggest threat to individual liberty, at this moment in history, is unrestrained corporate power run rampant. It is a bigger threat to national security and human rights than global Communism or global Jihadism, because it doesn't recognize national boundaries.

[sdskelton03]

"By doing internal pay equity analyses, companies that have a problem and don't know it will be able to find out and fix it before they get hauled into court for discrimination."

You must have never met an attorney in your life.

This report will be all that is needed to gurantee the company is hauled into court.

[lingonberry]

Maybe it is just the kick in the a s s that companies need to start paying their employees fairly. I see that is the very best option to avoid the courts.... but maybe that is just me???

[luziannagirl]

If this new/old ruling inspires more employers to follow the law on gender pay equity, then it will surely improve the nation's economy by improving the economic situation of millions of families entirely or partially supported by the income of women.

After all, it is a well-known fact among sociologists and those specializing in anti-poverty measures that women tend to spend a much greater percentage of their income ---such that it is----on caring for their families than do men. In fact, non-governmental global anti-poverty relief organizations now routinely build entire giving campaigns around empowering Third World women, and it's not because these orgs are champions of feminist rights. They know that when women obtain wealth and control, CHILDREN and FAMILIES (including husbands and sons) and entire communities are fed and clothed. When men have resource control, they use the wealth for entertaining themselves. In other words, drinking, drugging, gambling, whoring around, fighting, and making war.

So, kudos to the Obama Administration for this bit of economic stimulus!!!!!!!!

[glitzqueen]

Good for Bill. Now, if we actually had a decent number of decent jobs in New Mexico, this would be more than a recipe for equal misery.

[Beachrunner]

"Not only will the state as an employer have to study and report it's own pay practices when it comes to gender and race, so will private sector companies that want state contracts."

What's to keep a private company from reporting that they pay everyone the same, then, in reality, pay differant wages for the same work? Unless the State is going to totally crawl up the backside of every private firm they do business with, they won't know who gets paid what.

[schatsie]

oh give me a break, of course they will need to be spot audited just like the auditing of the financial statements by the accounting firms....

[LeftRight]

Um... They will be required to present actual proof of that, and I'm sure that they will be spot audited, and if they fail that, then a FULL audit can come into play!

[qofdisks]

I suffered from sex discrimination throughout my career especially in my wage compensation. I was always afraid of being blackballed if I made trouble. I was always having enough trouble getting good work as it was. When you are having to get someone to give you a job number at the end of each day to charge your time, you don't make waves.
I do think that engineering and science is improving for women as the next generation graduates from college. Those discriminatory and sexist old goats are dying off and about time.

[lingonberry]

I understand your frustration. As a women in a professional field as well, it angers me that the pay gap gets wider the higher up the corporate ladder you go. What kind of inspiration is that to young women who want to be taken seriously? I hope it changes.

[Angelus2007]

I agree with Ledbetter, but I have a problem with my sex and race being including in anything involving my job. Yes, my job has me fill out the EEO, but that is voluntary, also would Obama be black or white? He could check both, heck, I check African-American even though both my parents are white (Scottish and Italian heritage) but I was born in Africa and I am an American citizen (both my parents were born here, but I was born in Edgemead, a suburb of Cape Town, so I consider myself African-American) I think the term is too vague, would a person of aboriginal heritage be African-American? They have not ties to Africa.

[LeftRight]

The definition of African American is actually quite simple. Do you have African heritage in your genes? Is it enough of a heritage that you consider it to be your heritage? If you can answer both of those questions in the affirmative, then you are an African-American. In YOUR case, Angelus, you are not an African-American, you are a Caucasian, since your heritage is Scottish and Italian. In MY case, I am also a Caucasian, since I have mostly English, Irish, and Scottish, with a hint of Germanic heritage.

[ReadyNow]

So I guess Charlize Theron, if she becomes a US citiizen, would be an african american?? and the same for all the white folk from South Africa?

[dajuice7]

Angelus2007 is indeed African-American. The term refers to nationality, not skin color or race. Just as there are black South Africans, there are also white South Africans. Either would be considered African-American upon gaining US citizenship.

[Eclectic Radical]

As you can see, the various replies to your comment merely re-enforce the confusion related to racial issues. I agree with your concern on race/sex issues. We need a genuine commitment to human rights as human rights.

[LeftRight]

And THAT is something that I can TOTALLY agree with!!

[reverendadam]

Not to mention that "frivolous" lawsuits get thrown out. If a lawsuit is frivolous, the plaintiff loses. So what exactly are all the Congressional Republicans who voted against Ledbetter really afraid of?

[rjmiller]

Frivolous lawsuits waste a company's money on lawyer fees and slow down the court system, therefore it is in the state's interest to minimize frivolous lawsuits. Having open and honest pay statistics solves that problem pretty quickly.

[LeftRight]

Of course, if it's a corporation, the courts will often award lawyers fees to the defendant if the case is thrown out.....