Pay ruling ignores the real world

I notice that most people posting opinions here seem to be ignoring the actual court decision, which didn’t have anything to do with the specific discrimination, but the time frame within which you are allowed to sue over it.

Did anybody consider that Lilly Ledbetter was just plain inferior to her co workers?Or are women just supposed to be assumed to be always the smartest and hardest working.

Are you kidding me? Throw out anyone who supports this old ruling, it simply is not American! Aren’t we in 2007 for God’s sake? Over turn it!
Women at the plant should protest and show their strength (with out fear of loosing their job).
Have this women receive equal back pay for 20 years, full insurance coverage, a hearty pension plan and all the incentives and perks her male counterparts have been offered.
Just imagine if the shoe were on the other foot?
We would never be talking about it today.
Let justice be served!

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The man who pays a female less than a male for the same job is not a man! And the men in congress who will not take up the fight are equally less of a man and are trators to what it really means to be an American.

As a professional and extremely hard-working woman, I deeply resent the comment posted by Michael SF. I find it absurdly dated.

“Is it possible that men (as a rule of thumb) are more interested in getting the highest pay (even for the same position) and will actively work to maximize their pay while women are not as concerned about pay as much. They don’t push the envelope and thus won’t get as much.”

Contrary to Michael’s assumption I care very much about being fairly compensated. I am not simply doing my job to keep busy in between manicures and soap operas. I work just as hard, if not harder than my male colleagues for the same job, for the same (usually more) hours. I regularly keep 60-70 hour weeks and hold myself to the same standards of excellence I expect from anyone in my field.

As a woman I have noticed (sometimes glaringly) that I am more scrutinized for the validity of my opinion and the integrity of my work every day. I have seen countless men sail by and get promoted faster and more generously while doing piss-poor work in large part because of the good ole boy’s club mentality. I recently negotiated my raise but I know I am still paid less and will always be fighting to keep from being a step behind. I am well aware that deep and ugly discrimination is very prevalent for women in the work place. A great majority of men in this country feel that most women should leave the work place to make babies and scrub pots with smiles on their faces. I believe the current administration (and those who agreed upon this ruling) would love to take america back to the 1950s so women can be kept “in their place.” I loudly object! Interpretation is everything and we all know how easily the law can be used and bent to accomodate just about any focused interest.

As a personal case study to add to this blog – I will offer up my own. I will compare my husband and myself. We hold the EXACT same skill set, and the same degrees and work experience. We work for the same company. I have been working 9 months longer than him. Even with my demanded negotiated pay increase I am steps behind. He still makes 15% more than I do and regularly gets higher pay raises than I do even though my job reviews often come out better than his. How do you explain this? fair? no. truth? yes. He agrees that this disparity is shocking and troublesome. I absolutely will not waste vast amounts of time and money to fight tooth and nail for this nagging discrimination. As we all know the legal process is cumbersome and often, as in the Ledbetter case, fruitless. Instead I will reap as much learning as possible from this job and take my talents elsewhere with more knowledge, and more power than before. This type of fight unfortunately is one where a woman must prove herself and make educated decisions more loudly and more cleverly than ever before. Unfortunately ladies this may get you labeled as a manipulative ***** but don’t fret, this is just fear showcasing itself as hostility. More than ever knowledge is power. It is in your own hands to use it to the best of your ability.

This decision is as archiac as the
provision in the Constitution giving over 30 days to get the delegates electing the President together, but in reverse. While these members now can get anywhere in a day, employees often do not learn of their pay disparities for at least a year.

180 days is hardly enough time to file a suit, let alone learn of pay inequities and assemble substantive data in order to fight the disparities

This ruling shows again the necessity
for the Democrats to regain the
Presidency for at least the next four years. There will be Court openings
and better balance is needed.

This ruling has set back comparable
worth at least two decades. How nice
for big business!

I can not believe what I am reading here. “Women care more about meaning than money and men care more about money”?? How in the world could anyone come to this conclusion? It is irrational AND unenlightened – sure women are more caring than men – that, I think, is almost written in their genes. Men have learned over the centuries that they had to go out and provide for the family – in the old days, at the risk of their very lives. So, yes they became more hardened toward desire to maximize their “take home” and minimize their risks.

But in no way should this ever be interpreted that women do not care about their “returns” and anyone who thinks otherwise is blind to the facts. My wife is in a “helping profession” (a social worker who does care management for elders, does that mean she doesn’t care about how much she earns – absolutely not. She maximizes her earnings as well she should.

Why didn’t Michael of SF and his wife not stay in the Appalachians – costs are lower, quality of life is much higher, safety for their children is far, far greater? The impact (and attendant SATISFACTION would be far greater) that an RN could have there is far greater than in SF – too many leave for higher paying jobs elsewhere. They moved to SF so she could earn 5 times what she might earn in the Appalachians. This is not maximizing her potential earning capacity??? To say otherwise is disingenuous at best and an outright lie at the worst. Sorry to say it so forcefully.

Congress passed the EPA (Equal Pay Act) for a very good reason, women are underpaid PERIOD The Supreme Court with this ruling has virtually eliminated any chance that a woman would have of using the act to gain pay equity.

All is not lost, however, as I teach in my Business Law courses on basic law, the Supreme Court CAN and sometimes is overruled by the Congress. All the Congress has to do is read this decision and change the deadlines for an EPA challenge from 180 days or totally barred, to 180 days and ALL past acts related to that party or those parties, can be examined in the ensuing EEOC investigation of the complaint and those facts can be used in the trial of a complaint.

Women, start talking this up with your US Reps and Senators. Men if you have any guts whatsoever, you will join them. Unless you subscribe to the sexist idea that women don’t care about money but rather “satisfaction” is more important.

Per Brittany’s reponse,

I don’t believe that my comment was ill informed. From personal experience, I can tell you that my wife isn’t very interested in her pay (she is a professional making over $100k as a nurse in SF). She instead looks for work that is meaningful to her. If I didn’t press my viewpoint (as a stay at home father to a 1 and 4 year old), she probably would be working for $20k/year in the Appalacian mountains as a nurse to the poor.
From my experience with men and women in general, I have found that many, many men receive much of their sense of worth from how much they get paid and what title they have (not necessarily a good or bad thing). On the other hand, I have found that this is not as true in women. Women (but certainly not all of them) tend to be more interested in the meaning they derive out of a job. They are not as obsessed with getting the highest paying position.

You cannot simply compare what the average man makes and what the average woman makes to see if pay discrmination exists. You need to factor out other factors (as mentioned by other posts) and then compare. Good statasticians can do this using multiple regression. The reason different groups come to different conclusons is directly linked to what factors are consideed in their comparison.
I am not saying I don’t believe gender discrimination exists. I am merey pointing out another factor that needs to be taken into consideration.

Per the earlier post, I read the CNN coverage of the new “pay gap” study. Sorry, doesn’t fly. The gender pay gap disappears when you correct for *all* the things that are known to affect pay. If you want to know how much pay disparity is truly attributable to gender, and gender alone, you must compare the pay of women and men ONLY after ensuring that the study populations are identical for the following: same year of graduation, same major, same grade point average, same job (women notoriously educate themselves for,choose, an stay in jobs that meet personal / psychological criteria other than high pay), same amount of CONTINUOUS time in the workforce, and a few other things like hours spent on the job. When you correct for all that, the male / female pay disparity disappears, within a few percentage points–and sometimes swings in the women’s favor.

Doubt this? Even the *San Francisco chapter of NOW* has abandoned the argument that women aren’t paid equitably with accurately peer-matched men. NOW kept getting their chops busted on the facts, so they’ve moved on to an argument they think they can win–that women ought to be corrected upward, to compensate for various personal choices that the workplace penalizes (the bankrupt “comparable worth” argument again.) Here’s a link. http://www.hoover.org/publications/uk/3412886.html

Still believe it’s sexism? Men who drop out of the workforce have their subsequent earning penalized far worse than women do. Continuous time in the workforce is the single biggest variable affecting pay, but it’s not a sexist one–despite what the feminist rhetoric likes to claim.

Is it possible that men (as a rule of thumb) are more interested in getting the highest pay (even for the same position) and will actively work to maximize their pay while women are not as concerned about pay as much. They don’t push the envelope and thus won’t get as much.

Wow. That is probably one of the more ill-informed posts on this blog. For those of you men who don’t think pay discrimination exists, Google “woman pay discrimination study” and the first 20 links that pop up will be reputable studies by very reputable institutions that blatantly state is it quite obvious the pay gap exits.

I understand it isn’t the Courts place to change the law, that is Congress’s job. But I cannot tell you how disheartening it is to read so many people write that women deserve to be paid less. That women don’t advance above their male peers because they don’t work as hard or as much or don’t push the envelope as much as men.

That’s as ignorant as saying racism disappeared with the Civil Rights Act. (And no I am not a minority, I’m white and very much realize how pertinent racism still plays a role in our country. Do a little effing research for god sakes. Get to know someone who is a minority and try and understand some of the ways they are treated.)

And lest, for those of you who love to spout the greatness of “capitalism”, just remember this – Jesus was a socialist. He quite often went to bat against the “capitalists” of his time for the atrocities they poured (and still do) on the people who make them money. You tell me what CEO in this country would give the shirt off of their back to their poor brother.

I have to wonder if Justice Ginsburg is paid less. Does she know? Do we? The bottom line here is NOT legal nuance and nitpicking. The bottom line is simple.

Equal pay for equal work is PRECISELY the intent. Period.

This will probably upset people, but I am not convinced that there is pay discrimination based on gender. I am not an expert on the subject, but I wonder how much of the pay differentiall has to do with negotiation tactics. Is it possible that men (as a rule of thumb) are more interested in getting the highest pay (even for the same position) and will actively work to maximize their pay while women are not as concerned about pay as much. They don’t push the envelope and thus won’t get as much.

Make sure you check out Slate’s extremely cogent analysis of the decision. In essence, the point made in this article is that the Supremes screwed this one up by erroneously distinguishing between discriminatory intent and discriminatory action. While the last intentionally discriminatory pay decision may have occurred far more than 180 days ago, the employer took NO action to adjust her pay so that she was being compensating equitably — and therefore was continuing to pay her less than her male peers, for discriminatory reasons, right up until she retired (and then provided fewer retirement benefits for discriminatory reasons).

http://www.slate.com/id/2167286/

Any one of the previous posters who don’t believe that sexual discrimation in the marketplace is not still a problem, ought to read this study in this CNN article
http://money.cnn.com/2007/04/23/news/economy/gender_gap/index.htm
If the fact that a female college graduates earn only 80% of what a male college graduate does only one year after graduation, doesn’t tell you how pervasive sexaul discrimation is, don’t know what will.

The math is not wrong. Her salary is 14% lower than the lowest-paid male, but could be 40% lower than average.

The law needs to be changed NOW, and effective retroactively. I could understand a 180 day deadline from the date the employee/plaintiff first DISCOVERED a pay disparity due to sex discrimination. In fact, that’s what I would advocate.

You are completely correct in suggesting that an employee (male, female, black, white, or belonging to any other group or groups possibly subject to discrimination) may not KNOW what employees in comparable positions with comparable experience may be receiving in the form of pay and benefits.

I liked MBS’ suggestion that all employees’ salaries be posted publicly, but I’d like to suggest that they be posted without the employees’ names and WITH the employees’ job title and years of service with the company. Sure, some identities could be deduced from that information, but it would provide as much privacy as possible under those conditions.

What’s outrageous are some of these posts. As pointed out before, it’s up to Congress to pass laws. Congress is directly elected by the people and can best reflect the views and morals of our society. There is no way that 9 non-elected people should have veto power over a Congress elected by the people. We don’t need a system like Iran’s where Mullahs can nullify or change any law based on their whims.

If anything, it is men who are discriminated against these days. Companies actively seek out women to promote and are aware of the numbers. They will promote women just because of their gender because they are afraid of lawsuits like this one, and the one recently against GE. That’s the reality of today.

Your argument ignores the actual function of the Supreme Court. It’s not their job to overturn laws that are bad, just to evaluate whether they are constitutional. Congress, where you should really be pointing your dislike, can pass laws that only give you 180 days to file if they want to. There’s nothing unconstitutional about that, even if it doesn’t seem like such a great idea. Don’t blame the court if a law is bad.

As a woman who has also been paid significantly less than male employees (working UNDER me!), I am outraged by the Supreme Court’s decision. I, too, filed a lawsuit in an attempt to regain my lost wages but was halted by a similar technicality in the state of Massachusetts. Lets hope congress has the good sense to rectify the court’s error.

Points to consider:
1. It is the Supreme Court’s job to interpret the laws not Congresses (SP?) BUT if the Supreme Court does it incorrectly- like in this case, Congress needs to correct it and re-write the law more fairly.
2. It is important to vote for the President who will put the right people on the Supreme Court- like Justice Ginsburg.
3. In personal injury cases the time limit for filing a suit doesn’t start until you discover the injury- and you have 2-4 yrs to file depending…It should be the same here. Economic injury is a severe injury.
4. Leaving a company is not always the optimal solution. If women did that, our career fields & businesses would be even more segregated than they are now. Change must come from within in most instances and it IS HARD TO DO. With the consolidation of businesses, outsourcing abroad, tax credits for off-shoring, importing of cheap labor–it is harder to just “up and leave” for something else, and most start-up businesses fail in the first 5 yrs.
5. The Supreme Court and Congress should be encouraging those who want to make this a country worth fighting for, not support just those who fight those who never attacked us in the first place. It’s a pretty sorry situation when the people doing you the most harm on a day-to-day basis are USA citizens and not so-called “terrorists”.

The Supreme Court has legallized sex discrimination in the workplace. Period. Now companies like my own can continue getting away with paying women 20% to 30% less than men doing the same amount of work. I know I didn’t find out until a year later, when the pay disparity was thrown around the entire department as evidence of my male counterpart’s inherent superiority over the “girl statistician.”

I think that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has a point. Let’s see how we even learn about what others are paid – through informal conversations, if others dare to speak at all. These happen with people that we’ve known for a while and that most probably will not happen within the first 6 months on the job, since we have to build people’s trust.
Or the other option would be in an ideal world, where the salaraies & bonuses of everyone are posted by HR along with the reason’s why the decision was so and explanation of why they may be outliers to company pay ranges and market in either direction. Yeh right – anyone imagine this happen. It is a matter of women taking matters in their hands and learning more about market ranges and why they deserve to be paid at or above market (e.g. skillsets, accomplishments, etc. and fighting for this during hiring and performance reviews).
Just my five cents.

No, the Supremes DON’T make the law; they intrepret it, are guided by legal, moral and societal principles and are appointed, and confirmed by elected officials.

Power is multi-dimensional and the Golden Rule rules here, five to four.
Money, priviledge and power prevail, perpetuate abominable past practice and can be corrected by a knowledgeable electorate AND by renewed Supreme Court intrepretation. (Plessy/Ferguson, 1896) Overturned (reinterpreted?) and it took more than 50 years!

My best wishes to a reenergized Congress, collectively and Senator Hillory Clinton, specifically. Profits are good and shared with stakeholders. Employees are stakeholders. All stakeholders can be empowered if power is shared. I would hope we don’t have to wait 50 years for it.

What’s wrong with just negotiating your compensation and finding a new job if it is inadequate? That’s what I do and it works quite well.

I understand that not properly researching competitive salaries over the course of the last 20 years may have saved the plaintiff a substantial amount of time—but, quite frankly, if you display such a callous disregard for your own compensation then perhaps your employer was free to understand that it wasn’t very important to you…

I research my compensation at least once a year to ensure that it is in line or exceeds that of my peers in my industry. And if it doesn’t then I put the resume out and find some offers.

Your compensation is your responsibility, not the court’s.

time and time again we see this in corporate america. When we have more women speak up or take a stand is when this will be taken more seriously. I feel the reason is that most women have men backing and assisitng financially?? Not me. Divorced, barely surviving and left my last job because of unfair pay practices…….

This ruling is just ridiculous. Ms. Ledbetter did not have access to the information during those years, so how could she make a complaint? Good Year did have this information and the ability to oversee the pay decisions of its front line supervisors. But apparently equal opportunity is not a priority for Good Year or they would have settled this case and made things right. I hope every woman and anyone who cares them will refuse to buy Good Year products now that they know just how much they appreciate us.

Not only do we need term limits for the house and senate, it looks like we now need them for the Supreme Court. Somehow these people forgot when they had to work for a living in industry. Six months give you long enough to find the rest rooms. Congress don’t miss this opportunity to reintroduce sanity that the Court has lost

To reporter Anne Fisher: It’s “Ginsburg” for the Supreme Court justice, not “Ginsberg,” and—a much more important correction–the pay disparity calculates to 13% below the pay range of the males–not 40%.

Employees’ rights to discuss their pay with one another are *already* protected. Ask any union steward. As 20-year head of HR for an S&P500 Silicon Valley company, we always made pay decisions as if they were going to be posted on every bulletin board in the company. Yet, we in HR treated pay rates confidentially because of employees’ expectations of privacy– not because we were trying to hide our pay practices. But we assumed people compared their paychecks all the time. We heard plenty of grumbling about such comparisons, to support our belief.

If you don’t like what happened to Ledbetter, blame Congress! The reason that Brown v Board of Education and other historic Civil Rights Era landmarks were associated with the Court instead of Congress was that the legislators back then lacked the vision and courage to change the laws–until LBJ came along. The country arrived at the right outcome, by the wrong method. Why repeat that? Put the ball back on the legislators’ side of the net–if there’s really anything to fix.

No *current* discriminatory act or practice was alleged in Ledbetter. RE: the merits of this case: If every retiring employee had a chance to try and get millions to “correct” a cumulative 13% pay disparity at retirement time, it would be a new favorite pastime of millions of retirees who suddenly have time on their hands–and a seriously unreasonable burden on employers.

I agree that the law’s 6 month limitation doesn’t seem to make much sense. IF this law doesn’t solve the problem it’s intended to solve (and it looks like it doesn’t), a new one could be written.
The main problem with mandating equal pay is that it’s pretty difficult to enforce in an even-handed manner. But a 40% pay discrimination seems to indicate something is wrong.
Really, I think policies (and culture) prohibiting employees from sharing their pay are the easy target here. As long as discrimination is allowed to hide from the light, it will exist.

This is on the employee not the employer. If you do not want to do the job based on the salary offered go someplace else. Otherwise do the job and prove you deserve a higher pay. The government should not be dictating how employee raises and hiring should be conducted. This is part of a free enterprise.

Looks like Goodyear got the go-ahead from Bush’s new compassionately conservative court to put tread marks all across Ms. Ledbetter’s back…across all our backs. In total, her compensation for 20 some years of discrimination would have been $500K minus legal fees. Goodyear probably spent 3 times that amount to fight this case, and in providing the court the lamest possible interpretation of Title VII, just handed the discrimination hen house keys back to our dear corporate foxes. Make no mistake; this decision will have broad impact across all forms of discrimination, sex, age, race, religion, disability…injustice for all. Activist judges indeed…the henchmen-five just gutted Title VII. Hopefully Congress will act quickly, per Justice Ginsberg’s pleading, to nullify this decision, either by clarifying the 180-day deadline as it was originally intended (from the point of discovery of discrimination, not from its conception), and/or full disclosure of pay statistics by the employer upon employment.

Don’t complain about the Court’s ruling. They did their job correctly. Got a problem with the law, complain to Congress. It’s their job to write good laws.

What ignores workplace reality is what happens to an employer who is not the size of a Fortune 500 company. It costs employees almost nothing to file but it costs the company untold thousands to defend. If you have a 50 person operation the cost and time to defend can eat up a years profit, and no telling what a ruling might be. There are penalties to an employer who retaliates, but no penalty to an employee who files a frivolous suit in order to enter the “lottery”. The answer is often to avoid hiring those who have potential to file a work claim, denying opportunities to those who want to get into the workplace in the first place. The cure, of course, is to follow the rest of the world and assess the losing side the legal costs of the winning side. Instant end to frivolous lawsuits of all kinds. The market for employees is such that no sane company can afford to discriminate and lose out on the best available workers, and most companies do not.

The law states 180 days. Change the law. That is the Congress’s job not the Supreme Court’s.

I’ll bet if Congress doesn’t change the ruling, it will result in pay disparities between white males and minorities getting bigger. That’s clearly not what Congress was trying to do with equal employment opportunity laws. Employers already pervert “market forces” that might correct the problem of discrimination by profiting from informational advantages they have over employees. Secretly making pay decisions that are announced 181 days after they are made will only be one more example of the type of “inefficient” behavior (e.g., fighting union organization campaigns, forcing employees into mandatory arbitration, prohibiting employees from participating in civil rights class actions, etc.).

Fighting for a wage increase based on discrimination is incredibly hard to prove. Even if one can prove it to be true, this person will have spent so much time and money on lawyers that getting a ruling in this person’s favor will not even be worth it. It is better for an employee who feels undercompensated to use a company for one’s own gain. Get some experience and a title and move on. Fighting a company is such a hassle. Why waste time “fighting the good fight” when you can be thinking and executing ways of getting ahead? Work is only one way to make money. Come up with a side gig.

Wow, a ruling that actually backs the law as written!! Amazing that the SC chose not to legislate from the bench. Maybe there is hope for the Separation of Powers doctrine.

For all of you that want this to change, the answer is simple; get your legislators to change the freaking law.

Wow, what a concept!!

Congress set the deadline. Take your complaints to Nancy Pelosi!

How Many Ways Can A Woman Be Raped?

Well, now I know of at least two.

Under this ruling when could a woman sue? This sort of discrimination usually happens gradually over a period of time. It may or may not be immediately apparent. File a complaint too soon; not enough evidence. Wait until it’s very obvious what’s going on; oops, too late. Even given their time considerations, why was the part which WAS within 180 days dismissed?

Wikipedia says; “The jury system was established because it was felt that a panel of citizens, drawn at random from the community, and serving for too short a time to be corrupted, would be more likely to render a just verdict than officials who may be unduly influenced.”

Maybe now we know why.

What does this say to a woman who may find herself in that situation? It says “Just take it like a woman Honey, and stop whining ’cause there is nothing you can doabout it”.

I know how to solve this problem forever. Post all employee salaries (NOT Ranges – but actual dollar amount including benefits) in a public place.

This is one of the stupider things our Supreme Court has done. There is such a thing as a continuing tort, and the statute of limitations do not begin to toll until the tort is no longer occurring. The Court just completely ignored that to come up with a ridiculous result in favor of corporations. It is truly a sad day in this country.

And joining a union is a great way to make sure you and your colleagues get paid equally poorly. The person who puts in a lot of effort gets the same predictably poor wage as the person who does the bare minimum. If that’s fair, I’ll pass. The sooner you figure out that government meddling in your wages does you no favors, the sooner you can stop playing victim and get on with finding a truly successful, merit based career.

The Supreme Court ruled correctly based on how the law is written. The Court does not make law. It interprets it. The 180 day limit was placed in the law for a reason. The court cannot rule as if it was not there. In our country, the way to rectify this problem, if indeed there is one, is to petition congress to write a new law that does not contain the 180 day limit. It is totally disrespectful of our system to expect the Supreme Court to interpret a law as if something that was in it is not there.

And new employees in particular are often so relieved to have been hired that they’re the last ones who are going to ask awkward questions.

Exactly! If you are a new employee, then you agreed to a wage that was “fair”. Not only do you not yet know what your peers are making, you do not know their productivity relative to yours, male or female. That’s why this equal wage stuff is ridiculous to begin with. If you deem the wage your are offered to be worth the time and effort that it takes to do the job, then take the offer, if not, look elsewhere.
Yes, the purpose of a business is to make a maximum profit, as is your purpose in seeking higher paying employment, no? It is in this discussion and negotiation that a mutually beneficial agreement is reached for both parties. Limiting profits for private enterprise is the surest way to see it seek to exist altogehter and the entire engine of commerce grind to a halt.

join a union & you won’t have this problem!

I wonder what factors went in to deciding how much of a raise the managers would get. Could store performance be among the factors? And how did she measure up in profitability to her male peers? More info about the 20 years of raises is needed before we can determine if it is sexism. Which if it is, they should pay dearly for it.

In response to equalpayforequalwork, a CEO is paid as any other employee, and it is based on his value to the company. CEOs get a salary, bonuses, stock options, etc., just like any other employee. And if the company goes under, they join the ranks of the unemployed, just like any other employee. Their jobs are much more visible than most employees, and involve much more ability and stress. That is why they are paid more.

As for the ruling, it appears to me to be the right call. As for the law, it stinks, as do most of these types of laws. For the most part, the job market in this country is an open market. If you are not paid what you think you are worth, find a job with a company that values you more.

Why don’t you tell us who the majority on the Court was? I’m willing to bet a lot of money that it was Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, Alito, and Roberts. And that Ginsburg was joined by Stevens, Breyer, and Souter. My point is this– it’s time for the media to stop ignoring the obvious political sides taken on issues by members of the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches. Republicans/Conservatives will always screw the worker, the woman, or the minority every chance they get. Yet, our media just says “5-4″ in Supreme Court cases or “some in Congress say…” Let’s get real! Anyone who is an employee (i.e., any non-supervisor), a woman, a racial minority, or a gay person and who votes Republican is an absolute moron!

Those posters who point out that the Supreme Court should not be making new law are correct. Your argument is addressed to Congress. From a standpoint of due process, the 10-day Statute of Limitations makes sense in our increasingly mobile society. If Congress lengthens the time to several years, many witnesses on either side of the case will have moved on and be next to impossible to locate. If there is no subpoena power, one cannot compel testimony even if the witnesses can be located.

The majority voted for the administration that made this decision possible. Maybe now a larger number of women will consider voting their interests in the next election.

Where the heck did Susan from New Jersey studey economics? I never heard of “CENTRAL PURPOSE” before. But it is not hard to figure out why. It is doomed to failure>

It is beyond ridiculous. It has to be politcally motivated. It is one of those situations where the outcome is so dumb it has to get overturned.

There are two issues and it seems that most people are confusing the two. One issue is whether it is reasonable to have to file a complaint within 6 months of the offense. The other issue is whether or not the Supreme Court is there to interpret the meaning and constitutionality of the law, or to decide what they feel the law should be.

I think if it’s unreasonable (the law), it’s unreasonable because of the legislation passed by Congress. It’s not up to the Supreme Court to ignore the law and supplant the law with their own opinion of what the law should state.

The Supreme Court is there to decide if the law is constitutional, and to interpret the law based on Congressional intent. They are not there to fix stupid laws, that’s not their role.

We have checks and balances in this country, which we should have all learned in school. The Supreme Court is not a dictatorship of 9 able to decide whatever they want on any issue. They could very reasonably state “This law is stupid, it’s ineffective, it makes no sense, it’s an impossible hurdle, however it is not unconstitutional and it’s being interpreted correctly, so we side with Goodyear. We recommend Congress address the law.”

We should be careful how much power we desire the Supreme Court to have. The founding fathers were pretty smart. I don’t want 9 unelected unremovable persons having any more power than they already have.

When I heard about this on the radio, this did seem a bit ridiculous. But I believe one of the justices pointed out that it is extremely hard to prove discrimination when you get into pay decisions that happened DECADES ago. Just take a look at it from the Employer’s side for a moment (I know this is hard for some people). Is it really fair for you to be held liable for decisions that were made DECADES before you even had a hand in the decision? Now – 180 days may be way to short. Congress should possibly make the time limit 5 years, I’m all for that.

NOTE to employers out there – any HR/compensation department worth it’s salt should be doing YEARLY reviews of everyone’s salary and seeing where everyone lies within the salary range. (Actually, you should be doing YEARLY reviews of everyone’s salary anyway, but I know some don’t.) If there are significant outliers, those people should be given adjustments to bring them more within the norm. When I was managing in a corporate environment we had to do this as a matter of course, and we had a budget to make adjustments (in a merit cycle) for those who were low in the range. It did not matter race-gender-religion-etc.

The courts logic escapes me in light of all the current state and federal laws that hold people accountable for decisions often made years ago. Take the RICO laws and the governmant confiscation laws. Have a “ON going Criminal Enterprise” as described by the goverment. Or some past indiscression discoved and you can be charged and property seized. BUT IF EMPLOYERS AND CHEAT THEIR WORKERS FOR SIX MONTHS THEY CAN DO IT FOR EVER????

Who said crime does not pay? especially if you are rich, connected..or both.

It must have something to do with “The new way forward”?

It is blatantly clear that if it were a man being paid less that the general opinion on this would have changed. Women in fact tend to work harder than men at the same job because we KNOW that we will have to continually prove ourselves over and over and over again. Changing jobs will not fix the problem. Holding employers accountable for questionable pay practices and employment practices will go a long way towards fixing the imbalance. However, since it was a majority of men who responded to this, it is easy to see that men still believe that women belong barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen.

Obviously Annie and most of you were absent the day they taught civics in school. The Supreme Court doesnt write the law. Its Congress’ job to write the law. Congress wrote in the 180 day requirement. Congress could have easily resolved this by adding a “Discovery Rule.” The Discovery Rule – often used in Fraud cases – doesn’t start “the clock” (in this case 180 days) until you discover or with due diligence should have discovered the discrimination. Simple resolution. Its not the Court’s “job” to add in sections of a statute.

Congress wimped out. Also, blame the woman’s attorneys who didnt appeal the FPA claim as to why she (in this particualr case) got hosed. She had some bad lawyers and the Court all but said so.

Its not – nor should it be – the Supreme Court’s province to substitute its judgment and re-write laws because people feel like they make for bad policy. Simply a recipe for diaster in our system of government..no matter wide side of the aisle you are on

Statutes of limitation (also known as “statutes of repose”) have many purposes. One is to have people assert their rights while evidence is fresh so all parties can fairly present their cases.

Another purpose is to allow defendants to know that they might be doing something incorrectly so they can change their ways. Letting it go for years and years while an unknown clock was ticking is not fair to the company, its shareholders and its creditors. (Recalling that secretly granting options that had the result of mis-stating financial statements has many companies in hot water currently.) If the long delayed action had been successful and if the company had to restate its financial statements because they did not accurately reflect a liability for a lawsuit that had never been filed, it would turn into a feeding frenzy for trial lawyers.

If someone “someone does you wrong,” the claim needs to be presented within the statute of limitations or it is lost. In short, if you snooze, you lose.

Apart from the ruling, it is really strange when problem of inequal pay based on gender perceived by the male part of the society with irony and scepticism.
It is a living myth that because women take some time off to raise families, they put less hours, therefore lack professionalism, drive, etc. Not in this country, not anymore…
It is known and becoming more obvious that women drive the economies, their presence in “used to be only male crowded” top management make it possible for safer and wiser investments and decisions…
Men do not rule the Planet Earth in 21st century…

Pay disparities can not be eliminated by laws or otherwise. I agree with one of the earlier post – whoever takes the risk should be rewarded. However, how many hired CEO’s risk anything? That’s the disparity congress or lawmakers need to eliminate.

Sorry, but you’re absolutely wrong. Most of us know what our peers make, atleast informally. Also, this ruling gives you 180 days to file a complaint. It is in the complaint process that you determine what the facts and numbers are. The Supreme Court got it right.

Put your trust in the marketplace to bring justice to the workplace; not the courts or the government and you will not be disappointed.

As a minority woman I do understand the fight for equality in pay when the work presented is deserving. The reality is… “the man” will never pay you “your worth” — pay yourself, own or sub-contract your talent. I left corporate America because I realized the “iron- roof” which has replaced the “glass ceiling” could not be penetrated at a comfortable level for me.

Stupid decision, but only to be expected with the “new look” post-Bush Supreme Court.

In essence, an employee has to be a mind reader to receive the protection of the law against pay discrimination. Congress put in a 180-day limit to incentivize quick resolution of complaints, not to effectively gut any realistic chance of enforcement.

It is amazing how people think that it is the courts decision to write law. 1)If we all remember it is the Democrats that wrote this law. Democrats have had a majority of the house and senate for most of the history of this country. Only for the past 10-12 years were the Republicans in power. 2)It is not a right to work it is a priveledge. If you don’t like your job quit. Stop sueing the company because it is not fair. Life is not fair, if it was we would all be rich. Oh I forgot all Americans are rich. We have the highest average of pay in the world. Quit crying woe is me and get out there, kill something, and drag it home. 3) Communism and socialism states that companies are there to give people jobs first. I live in America and we are Capitalists. Businesses are first in business to make money. If the work becomes to much you hire someone to take some of the strain off the owner and so on and so on. Who has their money on the line? Not the employees. It is the owner. Start saving money and buy an ownership interest in companies and you to can make the rules.

Well, at least the court didn’t first waste some of Lilly’s time, and then decide against her on the basis of the time having run out, as in “Bush v. Gore” in 2000.

But shame on special interest based legislation that only offers relief to certain racist, ageist, sexist segments of the population. I’m afraid many liberals have learned nothing from the backlash of policies that favored the “very poor” over the “working poor,” for example.

I haven’t read the law, in this case, but I doubt the wording was as clear as some of the other posters seem to think, or the supreme court never would have agreed to hear the case.

Annie -
I agree with your points, but in reading through other people’s comments, the reactions seem to be gender-driven, as well. It looks like most of the men agree with the Court, and most of the women don’t.

I’m not interested in my response being posted, I just think there are still many gender and race issues at play in the workplace that are still to be resolved!

This ruling is about the law, not about fairness, etc. Congress could write a law that addresses this issue specifically. Let’s all remember that judges interpret law and the Supreme Court rules on constitutionality. They really should not be making new law on the fly. Congress has to make the law.

Where do you get she makes 40% less than her co-workers? Did I do the math wrong:

3,727 a month divided by $4,286 equals a 13.05 percent difference, OK maybe 14 percent less, NOT 40 percent less.

The Supreme Court is right. Employers pay market prices. If they paid women less then men for equal work, a man would not be able to find employment. The real problem is that the illegals drive down wages for us all because they work for less and we will not work for below poverty wages.

Before we excoriate the Supremes and the employer for unequal pay, let’s first see the job descriptions and make sure these were identical (not “similar”) jobs. I believe the political issue is “equal pay for similar work,” which is nonsense. Who assigns the value to the work done? It must be the employer. And, Ms. Norris of Plainfield, NJ: the central purpose of enterprise is to make money for the people who took the risk in establishing the business. Workers should be fairly paid for the value of their contribution to that end; the system you describe is not the system under which we function.

If she was being under paid why did she not quit and find a better paying job? That is everyone’s freedom of choice.

What were the punitive damages awarded by the jury for a $45,000/yr job: probably $20 million. That is the problem no balance. Everybody wants to be on the high end of the seesaw. The court’s decision attempts to even out both sides.

The Sup Ct made the right decision based on the law as written and passed by the Congress and signed by the President at the time. If you do not like the law, then the proper course of action is to seek changes in Congress. Based on her behavior, Ginsberg seems to think she should write law (a legislative function) rather than interpret the laws written and passed by Congress.

Please read the case and the underlying statue before you comment on the wisdom of the decision. BTW, it is within 180 days from the date of occurence or when the employee became aware of the violation. Also, there is an administrative step to avoid every employee grievance from being a federal case.

Why don’t we just create a BLOG where people can post the worst offenders of sex/pay discrimination so people can both invest and interview wisely. Information should be shared throughout the communities of middle and lower class employees so that we can send the offending CEO’s scrambling like cockroaches in bright light. BAD PR can be more powerful than any lawsuit. Why do THEY invest so much time and energy villifying Michael Moore? We should collectively spit in Robert Keegan’s food until he not only needs to live in a gated community, but he needs a restaurant food taster (preferably a female one so he can pay her 40% less money).

Let’s keep it simple. The lawyers who will prosecute the cases are the only ones who will gain. Isn’t that what controversial laws are for?

No matter how long the make the period for filing a grievance, some people will think it is too short. Businesses have a right to be free from past claims at some point and that point is currently defined as 180 days.

Everyone automatically assumes that the only reason she was paid less is because she is female. In a free market with competitive forces: if a woman is doing the same job as a man for less pay, any company would go out of business that does not hire mostly, if not all women.

Alabama is a state with “at will employment”.

At first glance, the law does seem unrealistic and should be changed by Congress (not the courts). However, seldom taken into account in these matters is the fact that many women with families take significant amounts of time off to care for their children and seldom put in the long hours tha male managers do (most managers are expected to work much more than the official 35-40 hour week). Equal pay for equal work should only be applied if equal work is indeed being done.

Congress Wrote “e) (1) A charge under this section shall be filed within one
hundred and eighty days after the alleged unlawful employment practice
occurred…”

It’s NOT the job of the Supreme Court to re-write the law.

Anne: Do you think that the Court should re-rwite the law to read at those APPOINTED people think it should read?

What do you expect, these 5 judges are in the pocket of this White house. That’s why he picked the 2 latest one’s. They will do anything & everything for big business & if that means selling out America & the people, that is exactly what they are going to do.

The law is the law… 6 months means 6 months.. its not the place of the Supreme count to change the law. Only congress can do that,
any other ruling would be judical activism. Like Ginsberg in her opinion said congress needs to act if the people want a different law.STOP looking for the court to MAKE law.

The Supreme Court made the correct, though hard, choice and interpreted the law as Congress wrote it, not the way they would like it to read. I agree the law is bad, but each of you whining morons are blaming the wrong entity.

What all the critic of this ruling seem to be ignoring is that the LAW, prohibits filing after 6 months. It is not the courts job to decide if its fair or not. They are there to interpret the law. If people don’t like it, have Congress change it. I’m afraid everyone gotten use to activist judges who make law, not interpret it.

Because of its obvious basis in nitpicking the law rather than a concern about justice this is the kind of ruling that over time calls the court into disrepute. Given that the chief justice has often expressed his concern with exactly that problem, I find the ruling amazing.

another push for business. The good old boys win again.

This is utterly outrageous. The worst of it is that in many cases it’s not about gender, it’s about paying as little as an employer can get by with paying – an attitude which speaks of the greed and stupidity of our current attitudes toward employment. When did we forget that the CENTRAL PURPOSE of having any enterprise was and always will be to adequately support the persons who work at that enterprise. Secondly to make a useful product or do a useful action, and only last to make any profit other than the modest amount needed to keep the business alive and growing.