Legal Momentum Celebrates the Passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (HR 2381)

August 3, 2007 -

 

The harm is ongoing. The remedy should be as well.

WASHINGTON DC, August 2, 2007-- Legal Momentum, the nation's oldest organization that advocates for the rights of women and girls, applauds the 225 members of Congress who stood up for U.S. workers and voted to pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2007. More than four decades ago, Congress outlawed wage discrimination based on gender. Then nearly two months ago, the Supreme Court severely undercut employees' ability to remedy wage discrimination. "On July 30, the House of Representatives took the first step to restoring the law, and protecting women who have been victims of pay discrimination," said Vice President for Government Relations Lisalyn R. Jacobs.

Far from imposing a new or retaliatory rule on employers, Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2007 would return the industry to the longstanding "paycheck accrual" rule, and allow a pay discrimination action to accrue every time the employee receives a paycheck that is affected by a discriminatory action. Rather than extending the employee's rights, this legislation recognizes that initial discriminatory decisions regarding pay can have consequences that last far into the employee's career, including raises and pension plan contributions.

Contrary to the viewpoint that this would encourage employees to delay challenges based on pay discrimination in hopes of a big payout, this rule does not allow the employee to "sit on their rights." Still active and very much applicable, would be both the 180-day rule for filing a timely claim and Title VII's two-year limitation on the recovery of back pay. (The 180-day rule is the minimum amount of time in which a plaintiff has to file a claim.) The majority of states have extended the time period to 300 days. Therefore, plaintiffs who knowingly delay in filing may find that the timeliness of their claim has expired or that their delay has caused them to sacrifice recovery of any pay that is owed for periods that fall outside of the two-year limit.

The Senate and Beyond

The Senate has a counterpart bill, the Fair Pay Restoration Act (S.1843), upon which we expected to see movement in the upcoming months. Together, these two bills will send a strong message to employers that this Congress is committed to protecting all workers from discriminatory pay practices. We encourage the Senate to act swiftly and urge the President to sign the bill promptly when it arrives on his desk.