First on the Agenda for the New Congress: Fair Pay
Posted January 25th, 2009 by Speaker Nancy PelosiIn today’s economic crisis, women and families have been hit the hardest. Women struggling in this tough economy have had to make impossible decisions between health care for their children and paying rent or mortgages. But even in the best of times, women are still at disadvantage. After decades of struggle for equality, women still earn only 78 cents for every dollar earned by a man. It is long past time for this inequality to end.
The new Congress set to work immediately to do just that. After gaveling the 111th Congress into session on Tuesday, today the House passed two bills that will help ensure equal pay for equal work. Today’s passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act sends a strong message to women across the country: your work is valued.
When I accepted the Speaker’s gavel two years ago, women everywhere felt the marble ceiling had been shattered. Hillary Clinton’s historic campaign for the Presidency this year showed women everywhere that women are ready to lead our country.
But despite much progress, the struggle for equality in the workplace is far from over. More than 40 years after the passage of the Equal Pay Act and Title VI, women continue to be paid less for doing the same job as their male colleagues. This wage disparity costs women, and their families, anywhere from $400,000 to $2 million in lost wages over a lifetime. Lilly Ledbetter was paid less than her male counterparts at the Goodyear factory in Alabama where she worked for 19 years, simply because she is a woman. A jury sided with Ledbetter, but the Supreme Court overturned the verdict. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act helps ensure all workers who have been discriminated against in the workplace get their day in court.
The second bill passed today, the Paycheck Fairness Act, helps women and families by strengthening the 1963 Equal Pay Act, ensuring that employers cannot avoid responsibility for discriminating on the basis of gender. As millions of American women struggle in today’s economy, equal pay for equal work is often about daily survival for families. Single women who are heads of their household are twice as likely to be in poverty as single men, and closing the wage gap will help women become more financially secure, especially in retirement.
For more than a decade, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut fought to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, but it took Democrats assuming control of Congress in 2006 for the bill to be given a hearing. Both of today’s bills were passed in the last Congress, but were blocked by Senate Republicans. Now, the Senate has a second opportunity and I urge you to contact your Senators to tell them how critical this legislation is to you.
Today’s bills are only the beginning of this exciting era of change. Next week, the House will take up key legislation to bring health insurance to more than 10 million American children, legislation that was vetoed twice by President Bush. Pay equity, fairness to women in the workplace, the Lilly Ledbetter Act, these are our priorities. This Congress has heard the message of change in the election. This Congress knows the needs of America’s women. This Congress has begun and will continue to act decisively on behalf of America’s working families.
7 Comments
Anyone who has engaged in a lawsuit has got to know that it is nothing to be taken lightly – and employment litigation is especially time consuming and costly. Rather than encouraging women to seek litigation, I do, however, have suggestions and recommendations on how to handle wage discrimination without the use of legal intervention which would involve a third party mediator, the employee, and the company.
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January 25, 2009 at 8:07 am by Kevin CrossHi Nancy, it is just good to know that the Congress has prioritized women and children. It’s time that the government give their support in this undertaking. We are all after change and fair practices.
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January 27, 2009 at 5:57 pm by AnonymousTo quote you, “men and women are equal,” but they are not paid the same. Of course “they” are not the same. It is the “pay” that should be equal, for the same work.
If a woman chooses to be a stay at home mom, she is paid the same as a stay at home dad. It is the same pay, yes!
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January 22, 2009 at 10:37 pm by AnonymousFor the same work, women are paid just as much as men, if not more.
What about a woman who decides to quit her job to become a stay at home mom? She’s no longer earning a salary, does this mean that her pay isn’t equal to that of a man?
Men and women are equal, but they are hardly the same. Enough of the bs.
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January 29, 2009 at 12:10 am by AnonymousI wonder if it is necessary to put so much money into HeadStart? I have worked as a substitute in the various HeadStart classes in our area. Of course I have training. However I see too many children not accepted because they have a mother who is willing to all but scrape the barrel to make ends meet. Then HeadStart says you make more the the poverty level. No HeadStart. Only 10 % of the openings are for children with disabilities. I work as a sub in the public schools. We have 4 year old Kindergarten and for those with LD CD ED EBD or other handicaps there is Early Childhood. All children are elegible for the 4 year old kindergarten. Children with disabilities are able to go to Early Childhood. Of course we also have Even Start which has more then proven itself.
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January 14, 2009 at 4:34 pm by WorkingMomSupport Fair Pay – Vote Yes!
http://www.floodthelines.com/supportfairpay/
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January 13, 2009 at 2:13 pm by AnonymousDear Ms. Pelosi,
While I applaud you for making the passage of Lilly’s Ledbetter’s fair pay act a Congressional top priority issue, I hestitate to endorse it without outlining the stark realities and repercussions that a early or mid career female faces once a wage discrimination lawsuit is filed. First of all, Lilly Ledbetter was at the end of her career, retired, and had nothing to lose professionally by seeking what she rightfully deserved, equal pay.
The question I need to ask you is what kind of message are you sending to working women in the peak of their careers, who have been laid off and/ or job hunting but can’t find another job because their reputation has been damaged for filing a wage discrimination lawsuit and are considered ‘at risk’ hires, or trouble makers by outside hiring companies.
I know this (only too well) because I recently settled a high profile wage discrimination lawsuit with a Wall Street financial institution in which I worked for ten years. My lawsuit was filed immediately after I lost my job, dragged on for four years, and cost me over $100k in legal fees – not to mention untold hours of my time to prepare for the case. That money was intended for my children’s college education and my retirement. It was by far, one of the most stressful events in my life (I went into financial debt, divorced, and lost my last job a month after the legal decision was published in a prominent legal publication).
I would have loved nothing better than to take my case to court and expose the many inequities I encountered at my job. It was my goal to ensure that my daughter and her generation would never have to experience any type of discrimination in the workplace, which is why I sued my former employer. But in the end, I did not have the financial resources to take it to court and instead settled the case – which in itself was excruciating and was delayed for another 8 months by my former employer. I never saw the $500K of lost back wages; it was essentially an earmark for my trial lawyers who mishandled the negotiation proceedings but still made $100K, while I received a fraction of that amount.
Based on my experience, below are a few lessons I learned from my Equal Pay Act lawsuit:
1. The legal process bankrupts you financially and psychologically, and the judicial process can take years before it is deemed ‘trial worthy’, if the case survives summary judgment.
2. Career suicide – Recruiters and HR personnel use search engines like google, and research in order to vet a person for hire. Any employment lawsuit is easy to find once its been filed through the court system and employment law firms who specialize in defending employers proactively blog their opinions (some unfavorable ) of such cases in order to ‘advertise’ their employment litigation services to potential customers (defendants). This information is very difficult to remove from the search engines and can linger for years after the case has either been settled or completed.
3. Lawyers – Employment litigation is unique in that it requires a vast knowledge of ERISA law. A wage discrimination lawsuit mostly likely includes a series of complaints, and it’s financially advantageous to a law firm to throw in as many complaints at the beginning of a lawsuit in order to make the lawsuit ‘stick’ during the summary judgment process.
A final note: Anyone who has engaged in a lawsuit has got to know that it is nothing to be taken lightly – and employment litigation is especially time consuming and costly. Rather than encouraging women to seek litigation, I do, however, have suggestions and recommendations on how to handle wage discrimination without the use of legal intervention which would involve a third party mediator, the plaintiff (employee), and the defendant (company). I would be happy to share my experience and do anything I can to help shape the passage of this bill. I am composing a more detailed letter to you regarding my lawsuit to: AmericanVoices@mail.house.gov.
Thank you
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