Obama signs equal pay bill
President Obama signed the first significant bill of his administration this morning, a measure that will make it easier for women and others to sue employers for pay discrimination.
He was joined by Lilly Ledbetter, the 70-year-old retired tire worker from Alabama whose name is on the bill.
Obama walked to the lectern with Ledbetter at his side, and joined in the applause for Ledbetter, praising her persistence and tenacity. He also thanked Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to be speaker of the US House.
Obama said that it is "fitting" that his first bill upholds "one of this nation’s founding principles: that we are all created equal and each deserve a chance to pursue our own version of happiness."
"So in signing this bill today is to send a clear message: That making our economy work means making sure it works for everybody," he added. "That there are no second class citizens in our workplaces, and that it’s not just unfair and illegal – it's bad for business – to pay someone less because of their gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion or disability. And that justice isn’t about some abstract legal theory, or footnote in a casebook – it’s about how our laws affect the daily lives and daily realities of people, their ability to make a living and care for their families and achieve their goals."
He handed Ledbetter the last of the pens he used to sign the bill into law.
Obama's full prepared remarks are below.
Michelle Obama, making some of her first issue-related comments as first lady, also lauded Ledbetter at a later White House reception.
"She knew unfairness when she saw it, and did something about it," Michelle Obama said.
The House passed the bill Tuesday, after it was approved by the Senate. The Bush administration and Senate Republicans blocked the bill last year
Ledbetter was also the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that the bill overturns. The high court ruled in 2007 that a worker must file a claim of discrimination within 180 days of a company's initial decision to pay them less than another worker doing the same job.
The bill makes each paycheck a possible instance of discrimination. Ledbetter argued that she did not become aware of her pay problem until near the end of her 19 years at a Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. plant in Gadsden, Ala.
During his campaign, Obama vowed to sign the bill, which became a high priority for labor and liberal advocacy groups.
“This is a victory for everyone who cares about fairness and equality,” Alliance for Justice President Nan Aron said in a statement this morning. “The first law signed by President Obama shows that this White House is committed to justice for people who work hard every day.”
“We owe a debt of enormous gratitude to Lilly Ledbetter,” Aron said. “This woman from Gadsden, Alabama never gave up the fight, despite enormous odds and personal sacrifice. She stood up for millions of working Americans, even though she will not personally benefit from the law the bears her name. Lilly Ledbetter shows that we can win if we are willing to fight back. We thank Lilly for leading the way to fairness and justice for all.”
It is fitting that with the very first bill I sign – the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act – we are upholding one of this nation’s first principles: that we are all created equal and each deserve a chance to pursue our own version of happiness.
It is also fitting that we are joined today by the woman after whom this bill is named – someone Michelle and I have had the privilege of getting to know for ourselves. Lilly Ledbetter didn’t set out to be a trailblazer or a household name. She was just a good hard worker who did her job – and did it well – for nearly two decades before discovering that for years, she was paid less than her male colleagues for the very same work. Over the course of her career, she lost more than $200,000 in salary, and even more in pension and Social Security benefits – losses she still feels today.
Now, Lilly could have accepted her lot and moved on. She could have decided that it wasn’t worth the hassle and harassment that would inevitably come with speaking up for what she deserved. But instead, she decided that there was a principle at stake, something worth fighting for. So she set out on a journey that would take more than ten years, take her all the way to the Supreme Court, and lead to this bill which will help others get the justice she was denied.
Because while this bill bears her name, Lilly knows this story isn’t just about her. It’s the story of women across this country still earning just 78 cents for every dollar men earn – women of color even less – which means that today, in the year 2009, countless women are still losing thousands of dollars in salary, income and retirement savings over the course of a lifetime.
But equal pay is by no means just a women’s issue – it’s a family issue. It’s about parents who find themselves with less money for tuition or child care; couples who wind up with less to retire on; households where, when 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’s 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 discrimination.
So in signing this bill today, I intend to send a clear message: That making our economy work means making sure it works for everyone. That there are no second class citizens in our workplaces, and that it’s not just unfair and illegal – but bad for business – to pay someone less because of their gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion or disability. And that justice isn’t about some abstract legal theory, or footnote in a casebook – it’s about how our laws affect the daily realities of people’s lives: their ability to make a living and care for their families and achieve their goals.
Ultimately, though, equal pay isn’t just an economic issue for millions of Americans and their families, it’s a question of who we are – and whether we’re truly living up to our fundamental ideals. Whether we’ll do our part, as generations before us, to ensure those words put to paper more than 200 years ago really mean something – to breathe new life into them with the more enlightened understandings of our time.
That is what Lilly Ledbetter challenged us to do. And today, I sign this bill not just in her honor, but in honor of those who came before her. Women like my grandmother who worked in a bank all her life, and even after she hit that glass ceiling, kept getting up and giving her best every day, without complaint, because she wanted something better for me and my sister.
And I sign this bill for my daughters, and all those who will come after us, because I want them to grow up in a nation that values their contributions, where there are no limits to their dreams and they have opportunities their mothers and grandmothers never could have imagined.
In the end, that’s why Lilly stayed the course. She knew it was too late for her – that this bill wouldn’t undo the years of injustice she faced or restore the earnings she was denied. But this grandmother from Alabama kept on fighting, because she was thinking about the next generation. It’s what we’ve always done in America – set our sights high for ourselves, but even higher for our children and grandchildren.
Now it’s up to us to continue this work. This bill is an important step – a simple fix to ensure fundamental fairness to American workers – and I want to thank this remarkable and bi-partisan group of legislators who worked so hard to get it passed. And this is only the beginning. I know that if we stay focused, as Lilly did – and keep standing for what’s right, as Lilly did – we will close that pay gap and ensure that our daughters have the same rights, the same chances, and the same freedom to pursue their dreams as our sons.
Thank you.
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hell yes, ex worker for travelcenters of america
Just what we need, more lawsuits. That will help employers keep more employees. Much easier to outsource to countries that don't have stupid laws.
She was willing to do the job for what they paid, if she didn't like it she could have left. That's a free market.
Great just what we need - more lawsuits. The Obama administration is getting off to a great start.
This equal pay for equal work is a load of crap. The mantra 'a women makes only $.76 to every $1 a man makes is arrived at with psychotic math: take all the money women make and divide it by the number of women in the workforce. Do the same with men. The formula does not take into account length of employment, time out of the work force for raising children, etc. To do this comparison correctly, take two people one male one female with equal experience, education and time on the job that work for the same companies and compare those wages. Think about., If a women would work for less pay, they would be hired over their male counterparts.
so now every person who thinks they have the same abilities as someone else should receive the same pay if they are in the same job? Take for instance two salesmen. One is lazy and makes one sale, one is outgoing and makes 20 sales. This bill basically says they should be paid the same because they are doing the same job. I don't think you should be paid less for being a woman or from a foreign country or anything but everyone should be paid on their productivity and ability. This bill might make the US lose some of that
I love C-H-A-N-G-E.
Equal pay for equal work is fine.
One thing: Can a employee sue the company for EQUAL pay even though 1 employee has more work experience at the same company ? There has to be a fine line there.
Ex: Worker A works at Company for 4 years doing work, Company hires worker B just out of high school for the same work. Should Worker B make the same salary starting at Day 1 of hire ??
That will be one big sticking point since that President just more lawsuits to fill up the dockets in the courts. Im not saying the bill isnt bad but,,, there is a bigger picture and I hope for every workers sake , that the can of worms dont engulf the courts with maybe some frivilous lawsuits. If that starts happening, watch out for OUTSOURCING..... In this day and age, anything can happen.
Legislating the Lilly Ledbetter lie
Posted: 28 Jan 2009 11:31 AM PST
President Obama is set to sign into law, as the first legislation of his tenure, the so-called Lilly Ledbetter Act. It changes the rules for bringing lawsuits for alleged pay discrimination, enabling plaintiffs to bring stale claims, as Ledbetter herself attempted to do.
It is fitting that this law will be the first legislative product of the Obama presidency, for it is based on a lie. I demonstrated this last year in a post called "Lilly Ledbetter, Living a Lie."
The Lilly Ledbetter lie is today peddled in this Washington Post story, which suggests that she had no idea she was the victim of pay discrimination until she supposedly received an anonymous note tippling her off. So is the White House. (Hat tip, Openmarket.org.)
In honor of the occasion, I have re-posted my piece on Lilly's lie:
Lilly Ledbetter, the unsuccessful plaintiff in an equal pay case that went to the Supreme Court, has become ubiquitous this political season. She spoke at the Democratic National Convention, has testified in congressional hearings, and appears in an ad for Barack Obama. Congress is considering legislation that bears her name. The Washington Post, in a piece by Matthew Mosk, reverentially described her as "the Alabama woman whose fight for equal pay led her to the United States Supreme Court and inspired. . .fair pay legislation."
Not since the equally alliterative and industrial-sounding Rosie the Riveter, has a working woman become such a folk hero. But like Rosie, the Lilly Ledbetter being presented for public consumption is largely mythical.
The real Lilly Ledbetter worked for Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company from 1979 until she retired in 1998. After she retired, she sued Goodyear under Title VII of the Civil Rights of 1964 for alleged pay discrimination.
Ledbetter's pay discrimination claim went to a jury which found in her favor. However, the court of appeals reversed this verdict on the grounds that she did not file a charge of discrimination with the EEOC within the required statute of limitations period.
In her appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, Ledbetter raised the following issue:
"Whether and under what circumstances a plaintiff may bring an action under Title VII. . .alleging illegal pay discrimination when the disparate pay is received during the statutory limitations period, but is the result of intentionally discriminatory pay decisions that occurred outside the limitations period."
Ledbetter framed the issue this way because she did not claim that the relevant Goodyear decisionmakers acted with discriminatory intent during the limitations period. Instead, she asserted that the paychecks she received during this period were unlawful because they would have been larger if she had been treated in a nondiscriminatory manner prior to the limitations period.
In other words, the alleged intentional discrimination had occurred years earlier, outside of the limitations period. But Ledbetter felt its ongoing consequences every time she received a paycheck, until the end of her career, because her pay never caught up to where she believes it would have been absent the early discrimination. An employee's pay at any given point in time is typically a function of years of pay decisions.
The Supreme Court agreed with the court of appeals that Ledbetter's challenge to pay decisions that pre-dated the limitations period was time-barred. In doing so, the Court correctly applied three decades of its own precedent in cases where Title VII plaintiffs have attempted to rely on the current effects of past discrimination to defeat a statute of limitations defense.
The Court also emphasized the common sense proposition that stands behind these decisions: in discrimination cases "the employer's intent is almost always disputed and evidence relating to intent may fade quickly with time." Thus, an employee who waits until years after the underlyng alleged intentional act of discrimination to sue, as Ledbetter did, undermines the ability of the justice system to conduct a fair trial. For example, by the time Ledbetter brought her case to trial, the supervisor whose decisions formed the main basis for her pay discrimination claim was dead.
There is, of course, nothing novel in the Supreme Court's reasoning. Statute of limitations period exist precisely to prevent the injustice inherent in situations where a plaintiff "sleeps" on his or her rights for years.
Ledbetter and her Democratic fan club argue, however, that the result in her case permits hidden discrimination. They would have the public believe that the Ledbetter decision leaves plaintiffs who don't discover concealed discrimination for many years unable to overcome the statute of limitations defense, and thus unable to remedy wrongdoing.
This is nonsense. For decades the Supreme Court has recognized that the limitations period in a Title VII case can be extended or tolled in such circumstances. Tolling is available where, among other situations, the plaintiff has no reason to suspect discrimination at the time of the disputed event.
But Ledbetter did not argue that the limitations period should be tolled in her case, and for good reason. Ledbetter testified that she knew by 1992 that her pay was out of line with her peers. In 1995, she spoke to her supervisor about the problem, telling him that "I knew definitely that they were all making a thousand at least more per month than I was and that I would like to get in line." Yet Ledbetter waited until 1998 to file her EEOC complaint.
This delay is particularly difficult to understand given the fact that, in 1982, she had filed a sexual harassment complaint with the EEOC. That dispute was settled without litigation shortly thereafter. Had Ledbetter followed the same course with her pay claim, she would have had her day in court, and Goodyear would have had a fair chance to defend itself. That this did not occur is Ledbetter's fault.
Prevented by the facts from arguing in a real court that she didn't have enough knowledge about her pay situation to bring a timely EEOC charge, Ledbetter (and those who seek political advantage through her) now raise this false claim in the court of public opinion. For example, Ledbetter claims that "the only way that I really knew [about the pay discrimination] was that someone left an anonymous note in my mailbox showing my pay and the pay for the three males who were doing the same job, just on different shifts." According to Ledbetter, "when I saw that note, it just floored me. I was so shocked at the amount of difference in our pay for doing the same exact job. And I went immediately to EEOC."
This claim, of course, cannot be reconciled with her sworn testimony that three years before allegedly receiving the "anonymous note," she told her supervisor that she definitely knew that she was making thousands less than her male counterparts for the same work.
Lilly Ledbetter is living a lie, one that Barack Obama hopes will help propel him into the White House.
Go Obama!
Women should get equal pay as long as there is no heavy lifting or math involved.
Great timing Mr. President with employers sucking major wind already!!!!
If this keeps up the only employers left will be local, state and fed. government
Gee, how about actually telling us what's in the bill or aren't you finished with your Obama love fest yet?
Wonderful news. What a refreshing change! Government that stands up for workers and families!
Great...just what our economy needs....MORE LAWSUITS!!!
I can imagine there are plenty of lawyers wiping the drool off their chins after hearing of this bill signing!
O.k. so its going to be equal then how about affirmative action and metco and college entrance exams , are these bias programs going to be done away with ?
This is not about Lilly Ledbetter..Its about Obama trying to Unionize the country and make sure that comapnies cannot factor things like experience and skill and performance into a salary..and this law also allows claims for pensions too.
All this does is reward trial lawyers and hurt companies.
Until we are all employees of the federal govt Obama wil lnever rest.
Here we go....the begining of the end! Was this the, " Change", all of you had in mind? This is regression not progression. You want "equal pay" put in the effort, gain the skill set, and stop complaining what the other guy has. There is enough litigation within our flawed legal system.
It's about time something was done............Sick of doing as good a job if not better than the men I worked with and they got better raises because well......they were men. sic!
Great bill. But what I take away from this story is a very strong desire to never buy a Goodyear tire again. Any company that would not pay fairly for equal work does not deserve my consumer dollars.
ok, so the lawyer lobbyists are paying Obama..any real news today?
Thank you, President Obama!
Ok.....so Lily Ledbetter is a hero? I think she's a dope. You work someplace for 19 years and don't figure out you're underpaid? You deserve what you get.
Equal pay is great. Pandering to the stupid is something else entirely.
Good law. The SCt decision seemed like a tortured read of the statute.
PS I am an employment atty who represents employers so I have no axe to grind.
Easier to sue...what a country....no wonder he got so many votes, nobody had to go to work.
Here comes the payback. Let's stimulate the economy buy clogging the courts. The rest of you, get in line. Be sure to keep your hand out as you pass through. If you supported him I'm sure they'll be something in it for you.
Where's my comment that had the opposing view?
Sounds to me like Lilly Ledbetter deserves a MacArthur Fellowship...
It is about time we have a president whose courage and compassion are equal to that of his rhetoric. On behalf of all those who have suffered discrimination in compensation. Women should be very, very proud of Lilly Ledbetter and our president.
What did you do lilly whatever? this all just bullshut to me, I wished she go to
hell with my ex husbands all in one that's all. She did all the work. Who lose
26 pounds in 2 months. Who move in and move out that place within weeks
who the hell make that deciisoion created that jobs for more than hundred of
people work on it. and Who got arrested so many time treated like an aanimals like that shackle and caged, who luck up for no reason just beceaue some
stupid bitch women wants to be monkey to monkey around. And who created
the hell for me, that I still have yet see my two young sons. and I wishe she and
her daughter dies becuse I hate my mother in laws for not loving my sons.
for wanting to have. For my stupid ex husband who thinks that green card can just
pick up from the sidewalk makes me cheaper than hooker is that what you call
justice.
Do any of you actually understand what it is Obama signed into law today? The new law merely changes when the statute of limitations begins to run and expires on employment discrimination claims. Now instead of having 180 days after your first discriminatory paycheck (usually the first paycheck), you have 180 days from the issuance of each discriminatory paycheck. It doesn't change what is and isn't discriminatory. It just makes it a lot more likely that those who are discriminated against will be able to enforce their rights.
This is not about equal pay... It is a gift to trial lawyers every where.
Equal pay for heterosexuals and LGBT employees. That's a first. How many overpaid LGBT attention-deficit disordered or intellectually deficient employees or employers do you know?
I can't believe all the negative backlash I am hearing about the signing of the bill. It's not a handout for workers. This is to make it easier for everyone to enforce their rights as workers.
Yes, there are factors to take into consideration (such as hours put in, the status, experience associated with salary). But if a man and a woman are at equal rank, and putting in the same hours, and have the same experience, shouldn't their salaries be the same? If the man's salary is higher than the woman's, simply just for being a man, shouldn't she have the right to fight for getting the same pay for doing the same work?
Think about THAT for a minute. This bill does not mean they want a handout. They want to level the playing field to make it easier to get what they're entitled to: equal pay for equal work.
I , for one, am glad to see that the first bill signed by President Obama is one that enforces equality and protects the rights of every American employee. We must remember to be fair and equitable in every aspect of our Constitution. If we are not, we only diminish our own rights protected therein. Eagerly I look forward to his endorsement and signings of other bills which will serve to reinforce that same thought - equality.