The modern-day fight for equal pay. It needs your help.
More than forty years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — which was supposed to help level the playing field in the workplace — Black men still make 75 cents for every dollar that White men make, and Black women make only 68 cents.1 One factor contributing to the gap is discriminatory pay based on race, ethnicity, and gender, which was outlawed by the Act.
Last May, the Supreme Court made it nearly impossible for employees to challenge discriminatory pay under the Civil Rights Act. Congress now has the opportunity to restore equal pay protections by passing the Fair Pay Restoration Act. The bill passed the House of Representatives along party lines but is stalled in the Senate — will you join us in calling on your senators to support it?
http://www.colorofchange.org/equalpay/?id=1829-173305
Pay discrimination is a real problem for people of color and women — in 2006, 4,905 pay discrimination claims were filed. 2,038 of those claims were about race-based discrimination, 2,308 were gender-based, and 577 were based on national origin.2 As bad as the problem is, serious progress has been made since Congress passed pay discrimination protections in the 60s. But the Supreme Court’s decision threatens to reverse that progress and widen the wage gap.
Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, employees have 180 days to challenge an act of discrimination. Until now, courts have treated each discriminatory paycheck as a discriminatory act. But last year, in Ledbetter v. Goodyear, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that only the initial decision about an employee’s pay can be considered, meaning employees must act within 180 days of being hired at discriminatory wages or being given a discriminatory raise.3
It takes most employees much longer to discover they are being discriminated against — discussing wages with co-workers is illegal in some states, and many employers have strict policies against it. Lilly Ledbetter, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case, had been working at Goodyear for years before she was sure her male colleagues were receiving higher pay for the same work. And when she was sure, she hesitated to sue, trying first to work it out directly with her employer. The Court’s decision means that employees won’t be able to take that approach. It also creates a greater incentive for employers to hide discrimination, knowing that if they can get away with it for 180 days, they will never be held accountable.
The Fair Pay Restoration Act would correct the Supreme Court’s decision by clarifying that each new discriminatory paycheck constitutes a discriminatory act. We shouldn’t have to pass legislation just to keep our civil rights protections real and effective, as Congress originally intended them. But unfortunately, we do, and it’s largely the Senate’s fault. When Samuel Alito was nominated to the Supreme Court in 2006, ColorOfChange members urged the Senate to reject his nomination because of his terrible record on civil rights issues. The Senate failed to stop him, and he’s tipped the balance of the Court against civil rights.
With Alito on the bench, we can expect to see more decisions like this one. Members of Congress –- and especially senators who could have done more to stop Alito — need to be extra vigilant in defending civil rights protections that the Court will try to strike down. With the Fair Pay Restoration Act, the Senate has an opportunity to defend an essential civil rights law, and send a strong message that Congress won’t accept an assault on civil rights from the Supreme Court.
Please join us in calling on your senators to support the Fair Pay Restoration Act: