Equal Pay Day

Thu. Jan. 29, 02:18pm EST

Today is an important day for women in America and everyone who loves and depends on them.

In his first legislative act, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Act, named for a woman in Alabama who was paid less than men in her position for almost 20 years.

Please read more about it on my blog, which includes more background on this issue:

A victory for all women

Ladies, whether you've fought your own equal-pay battle or been one of the lucky ones able to take for granted that you're treated fairly on payday, Lilly Ledbetter's victory today is also your victory. And it belongs to your mothers, daughters, sisters and nieces. It belongs to your granddaughters, even if they haven't been born yet.

Men, it means that your little girls can expect that the paycheck they earn through years of education will accurately reflect their hard work. It means that the sacrifices your wives make in working outside the home will be rewarded on a scale equal to your own.

This means more to American families than any federal economic stimulus package.

Share this with your friends, who may not know about how their lives were impacted today. And take a minute to acknowledge and appreciate the progress that has been made by women who first blazed this trail.

Someday, you can tell your grandchildren about the day equal pay really happened in America.

And that's a big deal.

Comments

Jeffrey Chupp Thu. Jan. 29, 04:52pm EST#1

Looks like facebook mangled your link. this works, though:

http://www.gulfeast.com/index.php/OAN_Political_Blog/comments/a_victory_for_all_women

Very interesting stuff, thanks for sharing!

Jeffrey Chupp Thu. Jan. 29, 06:03pm EST#2

Joe Spears Fri. Jan. 30, 08:25am EST#3

I guess I am not understanding, Why continue working at a place if they don't pay you what you think you are worth? I have left jobs where my peers were getting paid more and the firm didn't want to up my pay.

It is business, they want to get labor as cheep as they can, if you under sell yourself you get in these situations. I keep up on what the average salary is for my skillset, education level, and experience level is so that I have a resonable baseline for negotiations when looking for a job. I also not get bent out of shape over minor diffrences in pay among my peers either.

Joshua Boulée Fri. Jan. 30, 06:42pm EST#4

Joe, as I understand it the problem was that the statute of limitations for discrimination suits was 180 days after the first discriminatory check, and this makes it 180 days after the most recent such check. I heard Tom Sullivan on Sirius Radio trying to say it was 180 days per check, which would mean a year of work would make your limit 26 years (1/2 year times 52 checks), but I don't read it that way at all. I'd love to have a legal voice chime in on the accurate interpretation. If it really is as I understand it, this is indeed a good thing.

Joshua Boulée Fri. Jan. 30, 06:45pm EST#5

One potentially sticky point would be the definition of "Equal work". I worked at a plastics plant that employed over 30 "machine attendants". While in theory anyone could be called on to run any machine at any time, there were a couple of machines that needed someone with serious upper body strength to keep up and not hurt themselves. In the interest of preventing injury, women were mostly kept off of those machines, and a few people that ran them on a regular basis got a pay bump because of it. Would that be considered discriminatory here?

Alex Schlotzer Sat. Jan. 31, 12:11am EST#6

I think it's great that there remains efforts to have equal pay for men and women. It's something we're still campaigning for here in Australia. From the research I've undertaken there is a significant amount of material from the early days of 'managerialism' to suggest that women were not as competent, less capable of maintaining focus and need to be actively supervised to maintain productivity. These kinds of notions are belittling and I think most would agree regardless of political persuasion.

Joshua - I don't think that would be discriminatory because it sounds to me that they're getting danger pay. You know getting extra because handling the machines regularly is probably really dangerous (not knowing the specifics of the machinery). However, if a woman were capable of handling the machinery without being in danger, became a regular operator of the equipment and didn't get extra, that to me would be discriminatory.

Jennifer Foster Mon. Feb. 02, 10:24am EST#7

I find it interesting that all the comments here have been from men.

I'll do what I can to answer your questions. First, as to the statute of limitations, the Court interpreted it in Ledbetter's suit as 6 months from the date of the issuance of the first discriminatory act -- i.e., the first paycheck. This was a problem because Ledbetter didn't become aware of the discriminatory act until almost 20 years later -- well beyond the six-month statute.

As for keeping up with colleagues' pay, that's a good suggestion; unfortunately, in Ledbetter's case (as in many businesses), employee pay was confidential. She had no access to other employees' records to see what they were being paid. She only found out about the problem when someone slipped a still-anonymous note in her locker. They didn't even explain the situation; they only wrote down salary numbers. I would have to think it would have had to have been a male colleague situated laterally to her, since no one else would know what other managers were being paid.

As for the statement about "minor differences in pay," I guess that's open to interpretation. Maybe a few dollars every couple of weeks wouldn't be a big deal to you, Joe, and maybe it wouldn't have been a big deal to Lilly Ledbetter. But the discrimination perpetrated against her in her paycheck cost her approximately $20,000 in salary alone -- and that's not even considering the impact her comparatively lower salary had on her pension and Social Security earnings. Lilly Ledbetter lost the equivalent of what some people make over an entire year or work. I wouldn't call that a "minor difference."

As to the question about job responsibilities, you make a good point about physical strength. This is an issue when it comes to standards for law enforcement personnel, etc. When exceptions aren't made because of an inability to perform physical activities, I don't consider that gender discrimination. It's my understanding that Ledbetter was one of several floor managers, and that her direct contact with machines was limited. So that wouldn't apply in her groundbreaking case.

The point of the Ledbetter Act is to ensure that courts can enforce the Civil Rights Act. And it's important to note that it doesn't only apply to women; it applies to discrimination based on race, religion and disability. Who knows? It could end up protecting you someday.

Thank you, everyone, for your comments. I'm new at this, and it's pretty cool!

Joe Spears Mon. Feb. 02, 08:38pm EST#8

Ma'am I didn't mean to sound insensitive, and I do not consider 20K minor by any means. One or two K deviation is OK with me. All companies keep pay secretive for a reason, and that is perception. IF someone has a better education and/or experience and is paid more but perceived as doing less (or as being paid that due to gender) make for difficult work environment.

I keep up not via my immediate workers salaries, many websites today give salary ranges for job titles, heck there are even government sites that estimate it. I also "network" within my "work pool" in my city/region. I get most of my promotions via networking.

I know I am a guy, but I think it is a bit presumptuous to think when you get to the salary negotiation phase to say "I want what Bob is getting". I think myself and my work are a commodity, keeping up with the price of it is like knowing what my house is worth to me. If were to take 100k for my house only later to find out it was worth 150k, who should I be mad at?

I always enjoy a good debate, and welcome to the site.

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Jennifer Foster

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