Ledbetter Pay Act Passes Senate
The Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 passed the Senate yesterday by a 61 - 36 vote. Here's a synopsis from the Library of Congress. It will become law when signed by President Obama.
We've blogged on this subject before, so you can review our previous posts for background. Both the Republican and Democratic Senate Policy Committees have lengthy statements online, so you can read their dueling versions of what the bill means.
And if you're in the mood for a little laugh on a Friday, check out the video clip of primary sponsor Sen. Barbara Mikulski crowing about how her grandparents' doughnut shop served up the best doughnuts in Maryland.
What will be less amusing to businesses is that part of the clip in which Sen. Mikulski seems to dismiss as unimportant the 180 day statute of limitations issue that was the basis of the Supreme Court's Ledbetter decision. She says that the remedy for businesses is to "pay fair" for equal or comparable work. Or stated another way, if I can indulge in a bit of editorial license, on this issue the Congress "don't care about no stinkin' reasons" why virtually every law on the books is subject to a statute of limitations. The unintended (at least I think it's unintended) impact may be to extend, virtually without limit, every statute of limitations in most employment discrimination cases.
Dan Schwartz of the Connecticut Employment Law Blog has a good summary and some other interesting observations.
NJ Senators Lautenberg and Menendez co-sponsored the bill.