Senate Passes Lilly Ledbetter Bill 61-36
The Senate voted 61-36 yesterday to pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which is intended to overturn a U.S. Supreme Court decision that limited the time frame for bringing pay discrimination claims. The bill now will have to be reconciled with the House's version of the bill (H.R. 11), approved on a 247-171 vote Jan. 9, before President Obama can sign it into law.
The bill is named after Lilly Ledbetter, a former supervisor at a Goodyear tire plant in Alabama, who discovered that she had been receiving less pay than her male counterparts who were doing the same work. She discovered this by an anonymous note after working for the company for nearly 20 years. Her subsequent lawsuit was fought all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In May 2007, the Court ruled in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 550 U.S. 618 (2007), that the time limits for filing a discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission start to run when the employer makes a discriminatory decision about the employee's compensation, not each time the employee receives a paycheck affected by discrimination. Though she lost her lawsuit, Ms. Ledbetter became a champion for equal pay for women.
The bill would reverse the Ledbetter ruling by amending most federal anti-discrimination laws to provide that the charge-filing periods—300 days in most states and 180 days in the few states that do not have a fair employment agency—would be triggered whenever an employee is affected by application of a discriminatory compensation decision or practice.
ADAAA Update: Senate Approves ADA Amendments Act
The U.S. Senate yesterday approved the ADA Amendments Act (ADAAA) by unanimous consent, making enactment of the ADAAA likely. As the World of Work previously reported, the ADAAA would overturn several U.S. Supreme Court decisions that many critics claim have too narrowly interpreted the Americans with Disabilities Act's coverage. To read the Senate version of the ADAAA, click here.
The ADAAA passed the House of Representatives in June by a 402-17 vote. There are minor differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill, and the House is expected to adopt the Senate version on September 17. After that, it's on to President Bush to sign the bill, which he is expected to do. Keep watching the World of Work for further updates.
California Paid Sick Leave Bill Dies in Committee
A California bill to provide universal paid sick leave died in committee last week, following intensive lobbying efforts from small businesses and their lobbyists. The bill would have granted employees of small companies in California up to five days of paid sick leave each year, while workers at larger companies could take up to nine days a year. To read more, check out this article from the L.A. Times.
The bill was scuttled primarily due to the cost of implementation and enforcement in a year in which the state faces a $15 billion deficit. Even if it had passed, the bill faced a likely veto from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The bill's sponsor, Fiona Ma (D-San Francisco), vowed to reintroduce a similar measure next year.
If passed, the law would have made California the first state to have a mandatory paid sick leave program. However, the program is not entirely unprecedented: employees is San Francisco already have a paid sick leave program. Further, since January 1, 2004, California has offered wage replacement benefits for employees who take time off from their jobs in order to care for a family member or child with a serious health condition. Want to learn more about the legislative process? Watch this.
