Congresswoman Lee Supports Ledbetter Bill
For Immediate Release
January 27, 2009
Contact: Nicole Y. Williams
(202) 225-2661
Washington, DC – Today, Congresswoman Barbara Lee today voted in favor of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, a bill that seeks to restore the law as it was prior to the Supreme Court Ledbetter decision that narrowly decided to dismiss longstanding employment nondiscrimination law making it much harder for women and other workers to pursue pay discrimination claims.
“The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act helps ensure that all Americans are paid equally and fairly for the work that they do,” said Congresswoman Lee. “Although the wage gap between men and women has narrowed since the passage of the Equal Pay Act in 1963, gender-based wage discrimination remains a significant problem for women in the U.S. workforce. It is a shame that women, particularly minority women, earn a fraction of what men earn for the same job.
“For women of color, the gaps are even more severe. African American women earn just 63 cents on the dollar and Hispanic women earn far worse at 52 cents. In my own state of California, black women working full-time, year round earned only 61 percent, and Hispanic women only 42 percent, of the wages of White men.
“This legislation is a positive step towards equity for women in the workplace.”
The Institute of Women’s Policy Research concluded that this wage disparity will cost a woman anywhere from $400,000 to $2 million in lost wages over her lifetime.
The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is named for a woman who was a clear victim of sex-based pay discrimination but was denied any remedy in the 2007 Supreme Court Ledbetter decision. Lilly Ledbetter worked for nearly two decades at a Goodyear Tire and Rubber facility in Alabama. She sued the company after learning that she was the lowest-paid supervisor at the plant, despite having more experience than several of her male counterparts. A jury found that her employer had unlawfully discriminated against her on the basis of sex. However, the Supreme Court said that Ledbetter had waited too long to sue for pay discrimination, despite the fact that she filed a Title VII charge with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as soon as she received an anonymous note alerting her to pay discrimination.
# # #