Today, the Senate will vote on the Fair Pay Act, which would overturn the Supreme Court's disastrous decision last year severely limiting workers' rights to sue for pay discrimination. In Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire, a 5-4 majority of the Court ruled that a pay discrimination complaint must be filed within 180 days of an employee's salary being set. The Fair Pay Act would side with lower courts in reversing that decision and viewing each paycheck as a new act of discrimination with its own statue of limitations . After all, it can take years for workers to learn that colleagues are unfairly making more money than they are.
But the Fair Pay Act, which has already passed the House, will likely fail to earn the votes of a veto-proof majority in the Senate. What's saddest about that is how modest a piece of legislation it truly is. Hillary Clinton last year introduced a much more aggressive bill called the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would make it easier for women and minorities to bring class action lawsuits against discriminatory employers, and would require firms to keep detailed statistics correlating pay with gender, race, and national origin. It would also stop employers from penalizing workers who share salary information with one another. Those are the steps truly needed to close the pay gap.
Also see Ann's interview with Lilly Ledbetter on the main site.
--Dana Goldstein
