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Dear Friends:
April 22 is Equal Pay Day - a very important day for American women who are in the workforce. Never heard of it? It marks the approximate time that it takes a woman to make up the salary difference from the year before between her and a typical male co-worker.
The statistics are alarming. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, on average American women earn only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. In Maryland, according to the American Association of University Women (AAUW) Educational Foundation, the median annual income for men with a college degree or more is $73,000 vs. $57,000 for women. Minority women face an even larger gap.
Every day millions of American women are denied equal pay for equal work - and many of them don't even know they are being paid substantially less than their male counterparts.
While American women are being discriminated against financially in the workplace, a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision only worsened the problem. In 1998, Lilly Ledbetter, a 19-year employee at the Goodyear Tire plant in Gadsden, Alabama discovered that annually she had been paid $15,000 less than her male colleagues. She filed suit with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to recover the difference. The EEOC, however, ruled against her, stating she had not filed her complaint within the 180 days required by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. She then brought suit in federal court and was awarded $223,776 in compensatory damages.
In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-to-4 against Ms. Ledbetter. The Court ruled that under the law Ms. Ledbetter had not met the 180-day requirement for filing a claim for pay discrimination - even though she had not been aware of the pay differential between herself and her male colleagues that had existed for many years.
I do not believe the Supreme Court's decision reflected the intent of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employers from discriminating against workers on the basis of race, color, gender, religion or national origin. In fact, I think the Court's decision was in clear violation of the core purpose of the statute.
I have co-sponsored the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to ensure that victims of pay discrimination have a fair chance to seek justice. It's time for Congress to act to clarify and restore the intent of the original law. Equal pay for equal work should be a cornerstone of our nation; to negate it is to deny our basic principles of equality and justice for all.
Sincerely,
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