The House Made it Right, Will the Senate Follow?

by Fatima Goss Graves

We’ve told you about the recent 5-4 Supreme Court decision, Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., which severely weakened employees’ ability to remedy wage discrimination by ruling that employees only have 180 days after their employers’ original discriminatory pay decisions to file wage discrimination complaints.  Not only does the ruling undermine employees’ ability to get equal pay, but it also ignores the realities of the workplace where employees often do not know their co-workers’ pay and creates perverse incentives for employers to hide pay discrimination until it is too late for employees to challenge it. 

In her strongly worded dissent, Justice Ginsburg made clear that it was up to Congress to correct the Court’s misinterpretation of Title VII.  And today the House of Representatives heeded her call and passed the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act by a vote of 225-199, with two Republicans voting for the bill and six Democrats voting against.  The bill restores the law that existed prior to the Ledbetter decision to confirm that each reduced paycheck represents an act of discrimination.  We are delighted that the bill has passed the House and hope the Senate will quickly follow by passing its version of the bill, the Fair Pay Restoration Act.  As Justice Ginsberg said, the ball is now in its court.