URGENT: Urge Congress to Fix Pay Discrimination Ruling!

URGENT: Urge Congress to Fix Pay Discrimination Ruling!

Dear Readers, 

There is an URGENT need for calls to the House of Representatives 
ASAP! Please make calls to your Representative TODAY - do not 
delay - urging him or her to vote YES on H.R. 2831, the Lilly 
Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. H.R. 2831 addresses wage disparities based 
on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, and 
disability. On May 29, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision 
that workers cannot sue for pay discrimination if they learn of it 
beyond 180 days after the employer's original decision to unfairly 
pay the employee less than his or her coworkers - a hidden 
employment action that in practical terms is very hard for an 
employee to discover in such a short period of time. H.R. 2831 
would reestablish the law as it was prior to this decision by 
acknowledging that each and every unequal paycheck constitutes 
ongoing discrimination for purposes of bringing suit. 

The following action alert comes to us from the Leadership 
Conference on Civil Rights, and provides how you can take the next
step TODAY.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Urge Your Representative to Vote YES on H.R. 2831, to Fix Recent 
Supreme Court Ruling on Workplace Discrimination

July 27, 2007 - As soon as today, the House of Representatives may 
vote on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act
http://civilrightscoalition.org/ct/87xMaxM1lByI/ (H.R. 2831).
This important legislation was introduced to address a May U.S. 
Supreme Court decision (Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber
http://civilrightscoalition.org/ct/i1xMaxM1lByu/), which
severely limited the ability of victims of pay discrimination to 
sue under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In Ledbetter, 
the Court ruled (5-4) that Lilly Ledbetter could receive no 
recourse from her employer even though - for years - she was 
discriminatorily paid less than her male colleagues. The Court 
said that Ledbetter had filed her discrimination complaint too 
late, calculating the law's 180-day deadline to sue from the day 
Ledbetter received her last discriminatory raise rather than -
as the law had previously made clear - from the day she received 
her last discriminatory paycheck.

Urgent action is needed! Call your member of Congress TODAY at 
(202) 224-3121 to urge him/her to vote YES on H.R. 2831, which 
would correct the Court's misinterpretation of Title VII in the
Ledbetter case.

The Ledbetter decision is fundamentally unfair to victims of pay
discrimination - AND it ignores the realities of the workplace.
Employees generally don't know enough about what their co-workers 
earn, or how pay decisions are made, to file a complaint shortly 
after a discriminatory pay decision is made. However, without that 
knowledge, the Supreme Court has declared that victims of ongoing 
pay discrimination have no claim - regardless of how egregious the
discrimination is.

The Supreme Court's misinterpretation of Title VII has ignited a 
firestorm of criticism
http://civilrightscoalition.org/ct/8pxMaxM1lBy7/
from civil rights groups for being inconsistent with Congress' 
intent and the Court's own precedent. Now, as Justice Ginsburg 
pointed out in her strongly worded Ledbetter dissent, "the ball is 
in Congress' court" to provide a legislative fix to this harmful 
decision.

Take action!
Congress must make it clear that rights must have enforceable 
remedies by passing H.R. 2831, correcting the Supreme Court's 
misinterpretation of Title VII regarding when a pay discrimination 
claim is timely filed. 

Call your member of Congress at (202) 224-3121 and urge him/her to 
vote YES on H.R. 2831!
 
SOURCE: Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
________________________________________________________________

For more legislative issues, see:
http://www.aapd.com/News/legislature/indexlegislature.php

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