Obama signs workforce anti-discrimination law

[UpInArms]

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama signed his first bill into law on Thursday, handing his labor and women's rights backers a victory by reversing a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision that made it harder to sue for pay discrimination.

With the woman for whom the law was named at his side, Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act at a White House ceremony. The Democratic-led Congress passed the measure this week.

Pay equity was a sensitive issue during the presidential election campaign last year, especially among labor unions and women voters. On average, women in the United States are paid 23 percent less than men, while minority women receive even less.

"In signing this bill today, I intend to send a clear message -- that making our economy work means making sure it works for everyone, that there are no second class citizens in our workplaces," said the Democratic president, who is in his second week in office.

Ledbetter is an Alabama woman who discovered after 19 years on the job at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. that she was the lowest-paid supervisor at her plant despite having more experience than several male co-workers.

A jury found she was the victim of discrimination. But during the Bush administration, the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision reversed what critics described as decades of legal precedent by declaring that discrimination claims must be filed within 180 days of the first offense.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE50S4S3200...

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[question everything]

1. Lilly Ledbetter from Alabama

I could not help wondering whether she grew up in a segregated community and now being hugged and honored by a Black President.

George Wallace is turning in his grave.

[liberal N proud]

2. Bravo

With two daughters, I must cheer this

[TwilightGardener]

3. Thank you, Mr. President!

[treestar]

4. Obama looks progressive today

Wonder if he'll get a break on DU!

[kimmylavin]

5. Good!

That SC decision has ALWAYS pissed me off.
I figured that if they were going to stay with the insane 180 days rule, they would have to remove the provision from every employee handbook that you were not allowed to discuss salary.
Talk about a Catch-22.

President Obama did the right thing.

[Jefferson23]

6. Beautiful! It is absolutely wonderful to see this happen.

[williesgirl]

7. Now this is the type of issue we worked so hard to get him elected for. Rec'd

[entanglement]

8. Obama Signs Equal-Pay Legislation

Source: NYT

WASHINGTON — President Obama signed his first bill into law on Thursday, approving equal-pay legislation that he said would “send a clear message that making our economy work means making sure it works for everybody.”

Mr. Obama was surrounded by a group of beaming lawmakers, most but not all of them Democrats, in the East Room of the White House as he affixed his signature to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, a law named for an Alabama woman who at the end of a 19-year career as a supervisor in a tire factory complained that she had been paid less than men.

After a Supreme Court ruling against her, Congress approved the legislation that expands workers’ rights to sue in this kind of case, relaxing the statute of limitations.

“It is fitting that with the very first bill I sign — the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act — we are upholding one of this nation’s first principles: that we are all created equal and each deserve a chance to pursue our own version of happiness,” the president said.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/30/us/politics/30ledbett...

[JeanGrey]

9. It is NOT equal pay legislation. That is quite misleading.

It simply extends the statue of limitations to sue. Several people are getting confused on this.