House takes up pay discrimination
The House is expected to pass a pair of civil rights bills today designed to give workers more power to sue over alleged pay discrimination. Mitchell Hartman explains why now is an important time for fairness law.
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Scott Jagow: Today, the House is expected to pass a pair of civil rights bills. They're designed to give workers more power to sue over alleged pay discrimination. Mitchell Hartman reports.
Mitchell Hartman: One bill is called the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. She's the former Goodyear Tire worker who sued because her male colleagues got paid more for doing the same work. In 2007, the Supreme Court threw out her case, saying she should have sued within 180 days of getting her first discriminatory paycheck.
The House bill would reverse that and start the clock ticking anew every time an employee gets paid.
Marsha Greenberger of the National Women's Law Center:
Marsha Greenberger: Now, it is so difficult for anyone to get justice or remedy for pay discrimination. By restoring the law to where it was, it will increase the litigation.
And more lawsuits is something Randel Johnson of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says businesses can ill-afford.
Randel Johnson: Any time you have increased litigation costs, that's got to be paid for from somewhere, and that's going to come out of the bottom line.
With Congress and the White House in Democratic hands now, business lobby groups will find themselves fighting off more worker-friendly legislation in coming months, including a bill to make it easier to organize labor unions.
I'm Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace.
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From Ashfield, MA, 01/09/2009
Randel Johonson of the US Chamber of Commerce seems to not understand the issue being addressed. Assuming non-frivolous law suits (which can easily be screened) and no counter litigation by business intended to financially overwhelm the suee, workers are currently paying the cost of lower discriminatory wages. Litigation is an after the fact remedy for unjustly lowered pay. It acts as a deterrent to illegal payment practices by business. If discriminatory business are so concerned about the increased litigation costs, they could simply refrain from the practice.
The majority of business, who do not, need not concern them selves with the issue.
take care, frederick
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