Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, is a co-sponsor of the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and provided the following statement to the Health, Education, Labor and Pension committee hearing today in support of the bill.
It is astounding to me that, in the 21st century, women are paid only 77 cents for every dollar their male counterparts are paid. A Government Accountability Office study found that 20 percent of that wage gap could not be explained by factors other than discrimination.
Of course, the Civil Rights Act outlaws such gender discrimination. But, the Supreme Court’s 5-4 verdict in the case of Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., made it extremely difficult for women to go to court to pursue these pay discrimination claims – even in cases where the discrimination is flagrant.
I would especially like to thank Ms. Ledbetter for being here today. Opponents of fair pay didn’t know what they were getting into by fighting Lilly Ledbetter. She has become a tireless advocate for equal pay since she sued her employer for paying her $6,000 less than her lowest-paid male counterpart. As we all know, the Supreme Court held that a person who has been discriminated against must file a claim within 180 days of their pay being set, even if they were not aware at the time that their pay was significantly lower than their male counterparts’. However, Ms. Ledbetter hasn’t given up. She’s determined to make sure that we change the law so no one else has to endure what she has.
As Justice Ginsburg said in her forceful dissent, this is totally out of touch with the real world of the workplace. In the real world, pay scales are often kept secret, and employees are in the dark about their co-workers’ salaries. Lacking such information, it is difficult to determine when pay discrimination begins. Furthermore, a small pay gap tends to widen over time, only becoming noticeable when there is systemic discrimination over a period of years.
So what this means is that, once the 180-day window for bringing a lawsuit has passed, the discrimination gets grandfathered-in. This creates a free harbor for employers who have paid female workers less than men over a long period of time. Basically, it gives the worst offenders a free pass to continue their gender discrimination.
Ledbetter v. Goodyear was a bad decision, and I am pleased we are moving forward on this legislative solution – to establish that the “unlawful employment practice” under the Civil Rights Act is the payment of a discriminatory salary, not the setting of the pay level. This is a good start, but it’s not enough. If pay scales are still kept secret – if there’s not transparency – how can women know if they are being discriminated against?
That’s why we also need to pass my Fair Pay Act, which I reintroduced last April. In addition to requiring that employers provide equal pay for equivalent jobs, my bill also requires disclosure of pay scales and rates for all job categories at a given company without disclosing individual pay levels. This will give women the information they need to identify discriminatory pay practices and negotiate better for themselves – which, in the end, could reduce the need for costly litigation in the first place.
I applaud Justice Ginsburg for her powerful dissent in the Ledbetter case. But there is a broader issue, here. Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion, and Chief Justice John Roberts, who sided with him, are taking the court in a direction that cramps and limits the interpretation of our civil rights laws. This is just what I predicted when I voted against these two new members of the Court.
Moreover, there is something unseemly when narrow majorities of five male Supreme Court justices are taking away women’s reproductive rights and narrowly interpreting women’s civil rights. This is exactly why we need more diversity on the Court – and why we need more justices like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who wrote the dissent, and Justices Stevens, Souter and Breyer who also sided with Ms. Ledbetter. They need more colleagues who have a genuine passion for justice and fairness, especially for those in the shadows of American life.
