House Votes to Overturn U.S. Supreme Court Wage-Bias Decision
Julianna Goldman 2 hours, 26 minutes ago
July 31 (Bloomberg) -- The House of Representatives voted to overturn a Supreme Court ruling by allowing workers to sue for wage discrimination long after a deadline the court imposed.
The House measure, approved 225-199 today under a veto threat from President George W. Bush, responds to a decision by the Supreme Court in May. The justices ruled 5-4 that workers can't sue under a federal job-bias law to claim they are underpaid because of gender or race discrimination that occurred years earlier. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested Congress would move to reverse the decision.
The court rejected a $360,000 award to Lilly Ledbetter, an Alabama Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. worker, who said that almost two decades of discrimination meant her salary was 15 to 40 percent lower than what her male counterparts earned.
``With this vote, the House reaffirmed its commitment to America's promise of fair and equal treatment for all people,'' Democratic Representative George Miller of California, who chairs the House Labor Committee, said in a statement. ``The Supreme Court has tried to roll back the clock on this issue of basic fairness, but Congress will not stand for it.''
The 1964 Civil Rights Act generally gives workers 180 days from the time of the alleged discrimination to file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The question was whether workers can claim that their most recent paychecks are affected by bias that took place outside the 180-day window.
July 31 (Bloomberg) -- The House of Representatives voted to overturn a Supreme Court ruling by allowing workers to sue for wage discrimination long after a deadline the court imposed.
The House measure, approved 225-199 today under a veto threat from President George W. Bush, responds to a decision by the Supreme Court in May. The justices ruled 5-4 that workers can't sue under a federal job-bias law to claim they are underpaid because of gender or race discrimination that occurred years earlier. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested Congress would move to reverse the decision.
The court rejected a $360,000 award to Lilly Ledbetter, an Alabama Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. worker, who said that almost two decades of discrimination meant her salary was 15 to 40 percent lower than what her male counterparts earned.
``With this vote, the House reaffirmed its commitment to America's promise of fair and equal treatment for all people,'' Democratic Representative George Miller of California, who chairs the House Labor Committee, said in a statement. ``The Supreme Court has tried to roll back the clock on this issue of basic fairness, but Congress will not stand for it.''
The 1964 Civil Rights Act generally gives workers 180 days from the time of the alleged discrimination to file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The question was whether workers can claim that their most recent paychecks are affected by bias that took place outside the 180-day window.
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 4:50 PM
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