Workforce Management
January 9, 2009
Only three days after beginning a new session, the House approved two bills Friday, January 9, that would make it easier for employees to sue for pay discrimination and collect larger damages.
The House votes, mostly along party lines, marked the second time that the bills have passed during the past two years, but they have to be acted on again because they previously did not make it through the Senate.
After an election that increased the Democratic majorities in both chambers and put a Democratic president in the White House, the prospect for the bills becoming law has improved dramatically, so House leaders moved them to the top of the legislative agenda.
The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/thomas), which was approved 247-171, would restart the statute of limitations for filing a lawsuit with each paycheck diminished by discrimination. The Paycheck Fairness Act (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/thomas), approved 256-163, would allow employees to pursue unlimited compensatory and punitive damages in pay lawsuits.
The House considered the bills under a rule that prevented amendments and then sent them as one package to the Senate. But it doesn’t look like the Senate will take the same approach as the House.
Within the next two weeks, the Senate intends to bring up only the Ledbetter bill, according to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada.
“We’re going to do just that narrow issue,” Reid said at a press conference Wednesday.
Critics say the bills would significantly change civil rights law and foster costly lawsuits at a time when businesses are struggling to survive the recession.
The measures were put on a fast track by House Democratic leaders to address what they call pressing economic and social problems for women caused by workplace bias.
Full Story: http://www.workforce.com/section/00/article/26/08/79.php
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