Progress Illinois

Wondering how the soon-to-be sworn-in House of Representatives will pass the time before they move forward on a financial stimulus package in February? Here's your answer: by ensuring working women and people of color are protected under the law.

According to Roll Call (subscription required), the House will consider two labor-related bills next week: the Paycheck Fairness Act, sponsored by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, sponsored by Education and Labor Chairman George Miller (D-CA). The New York Times has more on the latter:

President-elect Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress are planning swift action to overturn a Supreme Court decision that made it much harder for people to challenge discrimination in employment, education, housing and other fields. [...]

The legislation would essentially relax the statute of limitations under various civil rights laws, giving people more time to file charges. President Bush threatened to veto the bill, but Mr. Obama is eager to sign it.

As you may recall, after working for nearly two decades at a Goodyear Tire plant in Alabama, Lilly Ledbetter brought an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) complaint against the company after discovering that for years she had been paid less than male co-workers with the same job. In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled against Ledbetter, arguing that companies that discriminate against employees shouldn’t face any legal repercussions if the impacted worker doesn’t file a complaint within 180 days of the first alleged unlawful employment practice. Liberal justices asserted that each paycheck that Ledbetter received violated the law, an argument the conservative majority rejected. But House Dems plan to use that same logic as they revive the legislation this month. If they succeed in doing so, workers would be able to file complaints based on the latest paycheck received.

This isn’t the first time such a measure has been brought to the floor. The House passed a similar bill in July 2007 along party lines, but Senate Republicans blocked its passage.

The Paycheck Fairness Act met a similar fate.  The bill -- which would have strengthened penalties for violations of the Equal Pay Act and required employers to show that wage disparities between men and women performing the same work stemmed from factors other than their gender -- passed the House 247-178 last July but stalled in the Senate. The entire Illinois Republican delegation voted against the measure.

As we noted at the time, 10th District residents were quite angry with Rep. Mark Kirk’s “nay” vote, including local blogger Ellen Beth Gill, who wrote a scathing post critiquing Kirk’s position:

In the name of helping women, Kirk is actually seeking to prevent women from building viable class size to maintain class action suits. This is a common corporate defense strategy against class action suits.

These bills are important because the gender wage gap is not some relic of the 1960s. Over the course of a 40-year career, the Center for American Progress estimates that a male worker in Illinois will on average earn $538,000 more than his female equivalent, over $100,000 higher than the national average. For those with a bachelor degree or post-graduate degree, the income disparity jumps to $781,000. Those are figures Kirk and his colleagues ought to remember.

Image: AP/Haraz N. Ghanbari