But I still agree with you fsteele, that although Alice Paul deserves such a thing, it would make a fine “see, we support women’s rights” action, without any substantive action.

Agreed, and never mind who does the picking of who would get it, and why… but I’d noticed it in my surfings, and figured I’d toss it out there.

To award a Congressional Gold Medal in recognition of Alice Paul’s role in the women’s suffrage movement and in advancing equal rights for women.

http://www.govtrack.us/congres.....l=h111-406

Re: your comment to Digger, I forgot that that is also part of the Paycheck Fairness Act:

“(d) Nonretaliation Provision- Section 15(a)(3) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 U.S.C. 215(a)(3)) is amended–

(2) by inserting before the semicolon the following: “or has inquired about, discussed, or otherwise disclosed the wages of the employee or another employee…”

In other words, the PFA also would protect employees from getting fired for doing what one of Ledbetter’s colleagues finally had the courage to do (albeit anonymously): tell her that she was getting jacked. It also would protect someone like Ledbetter from getting fired for asking her male co-workers, “Hey, how much do you guys get paid?” At the moment, many employers forbid discussion of pay and will fire employees for comparing paychecks.

Interestingly, this is a provision that has come under less attack by conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation, than the provision I noted earlier (the requirement of a *bona fide* factor), so it’s really a pity that no one seems to have thought to insert it in the Lilly Ledbetter Act. Like the rest of the LL Act, it would apply to a law of general applicability rather than specifically to the issue of sex discrimination, which makes it a more appropriate fit for the LL Act than the PFA.

Thank you so much for your summary of these two different pieces of legislation. I greatly appreciate it! Greatly! Thank you, much!

Digger

Meant to comment last night about one of yours regarding HOW a person would even come to know if they’re being paid unfairly. That’s a huge issue and if employees don’t have a way of becoming educated and informed, all of this legislation will mean not a wit. I hope TNA will develop a Resource Center, and if they do, your links should be included under an easily identifiable heading.

The Fair Pay Act was drafted specifically as a response to the Supreme Court’s ruling (by Republican appointees, for those who may believe that the parties are equal on issues like this) that Ledbetter could not file a claim for discrimination that had occurred decades ago in the first decision to pay her less than male colleagues, even though that decision reverberated to the end of her career, because every subsequent raise was based on a percentage increase of that first, too-low paycheck. Indeed, this system of compensation simply exacerbated the initial disparity over time.

This was Congress slapping down the Supreme Court and saying, “No, we DO mean for the Civil Right Act and other anti-discrimination legislation to allow people to sue for acts of discrimination that took place a long time ago, so long as that discrimination has had effects that continue to hurt people today.” If the people at Goodyear had ever stopped to think, “I wonder why Ms. Ledbetter gets paid less than men who are junior to her?” the lawsuit wouldn’t be possible even under the Fair Pay Act, because then they would have corrected the disparity and the paychecks at the end of her career would have been on par with her male colleagues’. But no one ever did stop to think about that, and under the Supreme Court ruling, there was no reason for a company to think about it. Now companies have an incentive to look at how longtime employees are getting paid and making sure there’s no disparity. It’s a lot better for society for companies to correct this themselves than for every person to have to litigate it.

The Paycheck Fairness Act does something quite different: it changes what companies can use to defend the differential in pay. At the moment, companies can go scot free if there is ANY factor other than sex itself that caused the pay difference. Of course, there are things that aren’t sex itself that are nonetheless wrongfully discriminatory. For example, if an employer says, “I paid her differently not because she’s a woman, but because she has three kids and I knew she wouldn’t spend as much time at work compared to my childless male employee.” That’s a factor other than sex, but that’s NOT a good reason to pay someone less. Employers should evaluate employees based on the actual performance, not based on assumptions. If one employee really does clock fewer hours — OK, pay that person less. If the employee with kids works just as hard — discrimination shouldn’t be legal.

So Paycheck Fairness would require that for defense against discrimination lawsuits, companies have to show that there is a “bona fide” factor, i.e. one that is in good faith, that distinguishes one employee from another. Assumptions about women with children probably wouldn’t suffice to be in “good faith,” but a demonstrated difference in hours worked probably would be.