New Law Clears Way for Older Claims of Salary Discrimination Against Women

With the stroke of a pen, President Obama made it easier for millions of American working women to claim that they are not paid the same as their male co-workers for the same jobs.

By signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law on Jan. 29, 2009, Obama effectively undid a 2007 United States Supreme Court decision, which had imposed a short deadline for the filing of such workplace discrimination claims. Many working women who were unaware that they were not paid the same as their male counterparts until that deadline passed had been barred from seeking damages in court.

The new law, named for the Alabama woman who was underpaid for 19 years while working at a Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. plant, was heralded as a huge step forward for working women, who for years have not always been paid the same as men in the workplace. With Ledbetter and prominent U.S. lawmakers including House Speaker Nancy Peloisi and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at his side, Obama proclaimed it “a wonderful day.”

Reversing a Court Decision

The law is a direct response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Ledbetter’s workplace discrimination lawsuit. Ledbetter claimed she had no idea that she was being discriminated against in her salary at the Goodyear plant until near the end of her 19-year career there. When she sued the company seeking back pay and other damages, the Supreme Court ruled, in a narrow 5-4 vote, that she had missed her chance, since workers had only 180 days to file pay-discrimination lawsuits.

Under the new law named in her honor, Ledbetter and other working women will now have 180 days after the receipt of each new discriminatory paycheck to file a suit alleging salary discrimination. Therefore, each successive paycheck would in effect extend the statute of limitations on the law for another 180 days.

Opposition from Congress, Support from Obama

Previous attempts to correct the filing deadline problem were met with opposition from the Bush White House and Senate Republicans, who most recently blocked the law’s passage in the last session of Congress. Opponents argued the law would encourage frivolous lawsuits and benefit only trial lawyers.

Obama, who became the first nation’s African-American President when he took office on Jan. 20, made passage of the law a priority during his historic campaign. The Democratic-controlled Congress moved it to the top of the agenda for the new session that opened this month. It was the first new law signed by Obama.

American Women Still Underpaid

According to the United States Census Bureau, as of 2008, American women still receive only about 78 cents for every dollar that men earn for doing the same jobs. Despite rising to the highest levels of the nation’s corporate, legal, professional, and political fields, many women are still widely treated as second-class citizens when it comes to their pay.

Just like the scourge of racism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of shameful discrimination which have scarred our nation’s history, the unfair treatment of women in the workplace is an ugly chapter that must be closed. Hopefully, with Obama’s bold move to extend the rights of women to seek fair compensation for the work they perform, the first lines of a new chapter have been written.

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