Business World Index: Lilly Ledbetter Bill and Harassment Cases

Business World Index
unityfirst.com

---Historic Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act---The Officers and Caucus Chairs of the Democratic National Committee applauded President Barack Obama's signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act to ensure all American workers are treated fairly under the law. DNC Vice Chair Donna Brazile, Linda Chavez-Thompson, Rep. Mike Honda, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Ray Buckley, Secretary Alice Germond, Treasurer Andrew Tobias, Finance Chair Jane Stetson, together with DNC Caucus Chairs Mame Reily (Women's Caucus), Ramona Martinez (Hispanic Caucus), Bel Leong-Hong (APIA Caucus), Virgie Rollins (Black Caucus), and Rick Stafford (LGBT Caucus) issued the following joint statement: “President Barack Obama signed his very first piece of legislation. It speaks volumes that it was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, which promises to move our country forward to help ensure that every American worker is treated fairly under the law. Democrats have long fought to achieve this important legislation, passing the bill as recently as last year, recognizing that under no circumstances should women continue to make only 78 cents for every dollar men earn. Today's signing, ensuring that the principle of equal pay for equal work is the law of the land, is exactly the change the American people voted for in November. As we work together to heal our nation's economy, the step of working toward ending disparities and discrimination that hurts women and families is a step in the right direction. We applaud the Democratic Congress for getting this bill quickly to the President's desk, and the President for signing it.”
Congresswoman Lee on signing of Lilly Ledbetter Bill “The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act helps ensures that all Americans are paid equally and fairly for the work that they do,” said Congresswoman Lee “Although the wage gap between men and women has narrowed since the passage of the Equal Pay Act in 1963, gender-based wage discrimination remains a significant problem for women in the U.S. workforce. It is a shame that women, particularly minority women, earn a fraction of what men earn for the same job. For women of color, the gaps are even more severe. African American women earn just 63 cents on the dollar and Hispanic women earn far worse at 52 cents. In my own state of California, Black women working full-time, year round earned only 61 percent, and Hispanic women only 42 percent, of the wages of White men. This legislation is a positive step towards equity for women in the workplace.”

---Workplace racial harassment decisions in US Federal Court affected by judges' race--- Long-held assumptions that the judicial decision-making process is always objective and color-blind is challenged by new research conducted by the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. A study of hundreds of U.S. federal court cases shows that the race of federal judges frequently affects the outcome of cases in the area of workplace racial harassment. The researchers found that African American judges --- which currently represent about 11 percent of all federal court judges --- rule in favor of the plaintiff nearly 46 percent of the time, more than twice as often as White judges (20.6 percent) and the overall average plaintiff success rate (22 percent). This finding is the result of an analysis of a randomly selected sample of 428 federal cases representing 40 percent of all reported workplace racial harassment cases from six federal circuits between 1981 and 2003. Robert E. Kelley of Carnegie Mellon and Pat Chew of Pitt conducted the study. "These findings reveal that judges do not always leave race at the door when entering the courtroom," said Kelley, an adjunct professor of organizational and behavioral theory at the Tepper School. "Rather, differences in their social and cultural experiences, due to race, can influence their interpretation of laws." Interestingly, the study also found that a judge's gender had almost no impact on outcomes of cases involving workplace racial harassment.