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[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 3 (Thursday, January 8, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S226-S229]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Ms. MIKULSKI (for herself, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Harkin, Mr. Leahy, 
        Mr. Reid, Ms. Snowe, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Bingaman, Mrs. Murray, Mr. 
        Reed, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Sanders, Mr. Brown, Mr. Byrd, Mr. 
        Inouye, Mr. Levin, Mr. Kerry, Mr. Rockefeller, Mr. Kohl, Mr. 
        Lieberman, Mr. Akaka, Mrs. Feinstein, Mr. Dorgan, Mrs. Boxer, 
        Mr. Feingold, Mr. Wyden, Mr. Durbin, Mr. Johnson, Ms. Landrieu, 
        Mr. Schumer, Mrs. Lincoln, Mr. Carper, Ms. Stabenow, Ms. 
        Cantwell, Mr. Nelson of Florida, Mr. Lautenberg, Mr. Salazar, 
        Mr. Menendez, Mr. Cardin, Mr. Webb, Mr. Casey, Ms. Klobuchar, 
        Mrs. McCaskill, Mr. Whitehouse, Mr. Tester, Mr. Udall of 
        Colorado, Mr. Udall of New Mexico, Mr. Warner, Mrs. Shaheen, 
        Mr. Merkley, Mrs. Hagan, Mr. Begich, and Mr. Pryor):
  S. 181. A bill to amend title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 
the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, and to modify the 
operation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the 
Rehabilitation Act of 1973, to clarify that a discriminatory 
compensation decision or other practice that is unlawful under such 
Acts occurs each time compensation is paid pursuant to the 
discriminatory compensation decision or other practice, and for other 
purposes; read the first time.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I'm proud to join Senator Mikulski in 
introducing this legislation. Equal pay for equal work is a fundamental 
civil right. Over the past 4 decades, America has made enormous 
progress toward ensuring that all its people have an equal chance to 
enjoy the benefits of this great Nation. Bipartisan civil rights bills 
have been enacted to expand and strengthen the law to ensure fair pay 
for all workers. Despite these advances, civil rights is still 
America's unfinished business. It is therefore fitting that we open the 
111th Congress with introduction of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
  This bill will restore the basic right of all workers, regardless of 
their race, sex, religion, national origin, age, or disability, to be 
paid fairly, free from discrimination. It will restore workers' rights 
to challenge ongoing discrimination and hold unscrupulous employers 
accountable.
  This legislation is needed because the Supreme Court turned back our 
Nation's progress on equal pay with its Ledbetter decision, which 
undermined a core protection of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 
1964 and overturned decades of precedent that had established a fair, 
workable rule for challenging pay discrimination claims.
  This needed bill will restore the long-standing rule that each 
discriminatory paycheck is a separate wrong that may be challenged by 
workers within the required period after receiving the check. In the 
Ledbetter case, a jury had found that Lilly Ledbetter was paid less 
than her male coworkers because she was a woman. The jury awarded back 
pay to Ms. Ledbetter, but the Supreme Court reversed that award, 
holding that she had waited too long and should have filed her lawsuit 
within a short time after Goodyear first began discriminating against 
her. Never mind that the company discriminated against her for decades, 
and that the discrimination continued with each new paycheck she 
received.
  Far too often, workers like Lilly Ledbetter put in a fair day's work, 
but go home with less than a fair day's pay. Women, African-American, 
and Latino workers all earn a fraction of what white male workers make. 
Many qualified older workers and workers with disabilities also are 
paid less than their coworkers for reasons unrelated to their 
performance on the job.
  It's more important than ever that we attack the problem of pay 
discrimination and correct the injustice caused by the Ledbetter 
decision. In the current economic crisis, millions of American workers 
are struggling to make ends meet. Pay discrimination makes that 
struggle harder, and workers can't afford to lose more economic ground. 
To protect these workers, we must move quickly to pass the Lilly 
Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
  I urge my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats alike, to do so, and 
to send a strong signal that this new Congress is dedicated to standing 
up for fairness and equality in the workplace. The Lilly Ledbetters of 
our Nation deserve no less.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senators Mikulski, 
Kennedy, Snowe and others in introducing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay 
Restoration Act of 2009. This legislation is long overdue and I am 
pleased that the majority leader will try again to move this 
legislation in the opening days of this new Congress. The Supreme 
Court's divided decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire struck a severe 
blow to the rights of working families across our country. More than 40 
years ago, Congress acted to protect women and others against 
discrimination in the workplace. In the 21st century, equal pay for 
equal work should be a given in this country. Unfortunately, the 
reality is still far from this basic principle. American women still 
earn only 77 cents for every dollar earned by a male counterpart. That 
decreases to 62 cents on the dollar for African-American women and just 
53 cents on the dollar for Hispanic-American women.
  For nearly 20 years, Ms. Ledbetter was a manager at a Goodyear 
factory in Gadsden, Alabama. After decades of service, she learned 
through an anonymous note that her employer had been discriminating 
against her for years. She was the only woman among 16 employees at her 
management level, yet Ms. Ledbetter was paid between 15 and 40 percent 
less than all of her male colleagues, including several who had 
significantly less seniority. After filing a complaint with the Equal 
Employment Opportunity Commission, a Federal jury found that Ms. 
Ledbetter was owed almost $225,000 in back pay. However, 5 members of 
the Supreme Court overturned her jury verdict because she had filed her 
lawsuit more than 180 days after her employer's original discriminatory 
act.
  I was honored to invite Ms. Ledbetter to testify at a Judiciary 
Committee hearing I chaired in September to examine how the Supreme 
Court's recent decisions have affected the lives of ordinary Americans. 
Ms. Ledbetter's case is but one example of how the Supreme Court has 
dramatically misinterpreted the intent of Congress and offered a 
liability shield to corporate wrong-doers.
  This decision is yet another example of the Supreme Court's 
increasing willingness to overturn juries who hear the factual evidence 
and decide cases. A recent study revealed that in employment 
discrimination cases, Federal courts of appeal are 5 times more likely 
to overturn an employee's favorable trial verdict against an employer 
than they are to overturn a verdict in favor of the corporation. That 
is a startling disparity for those of us who expect employees and 
employers to be treated fairly by the judges sitting on our appellate 
courts.
  In the 110th Congress, the House passed the bipartisan Lilly 
Ledbetter Fair Pay Act by a vote of 225-199. In the Senate, despite the 
support of 57 Senators who urged its consideration, the majority of 
Republican Senators objected to even proceeding to consideration of 
this bipartisan measure. One

[[Page S229]]

Republican Senator who supported the filibuster introduced an 
alternative bill, claiming to offer a solution for victims of pay 
discrimination. In reality, that partisan alternative proposal would 
fail to correct the injustice created by the Ledbetter decision. At the 
Judiciary Committee hearing in September, Ms. Ledbetter confirmed that 
the alternative bill would not have remedied her case, but instead 
would have imposed additional burdens and increased the costs of her 
litigation.
  Congress passed Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to protect 
employees against discrimination with respect to compensation because 
of an individual's race, color, religion, sex or national origin--
however the Supreme Court's cramped interpretation of this important 
law contradicts Congress's intent to ensure equal pay for equal work.
  This Supreme Court decision goes against both the spirit and clear 
intent of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, and sends the message to 
employers that wage discrimination cannot be punished as long as it is 
kept under wraps. At a time when one-third of private sector employers 
have rules prohibiting employees from discussing their pay with each 
other, the Court's decision ignores a reality of the workplace--pay 
discrimination is often intentionally concealed by employers.
  Equal pay is not just a women's issue, it is a family issue. With a 
record 70.2 million women in the workforce, wage discrimination 
continues to hurt the majority of American families. As a working 
mother, the discrimination inflicted on Ms. Ledbetter affected her 
entire family and continues to affect her retirement benefits. As the 
economy continues to worsen, many Americans are struggling to put food 
on the table and money in their retirement funds. It is regrettable 
that recent decisions handed down by the Supreme Court and Federal 
appellate courts have contributed to the financial struggles of so many 
women and their families. In the next weeks, I hope we can act to 
overturn the wrongly-decided Ledbetter decision to prevent the 
devastating consequences of pay discrimination.
                                 ______
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