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Last week, as many of you already know, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that if you’re a woman who has gotten paid less than men of equal or less experience, you have to sue your employer almost right away from the time the pay discrimination started to happen or you’re out of luck as far as the courts are concerned.
Nevermind that it’s unlikely that any employee would know within a few months whether they are being paid on par with their peers or not. It doesn’t matter, said the majority, if it takes years to find out that the discrimination occurred. It just wouldn’t be fair to employers, as the law is now written, to hold them accountable years down the road.
(Pardon me while I take a second to rant in private. Then I’ll go on!)
Fortunately, the lone female voice of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in a wonderfully powerful dissent, pointed out for the world that:
“In the [dissent's] view, the Court does not comprehend, or it is indifferent to, the insidious way in which women can be victims of pay discrimination.”
Fortunately, Democrats in Congress are going to try to do something about that majority opinion by introducing legislation that would expand the 180-day limit that the Supreme Court held exists for an employee to sue an employer for discriminatory pay decisions based on gender, race, religion or national origin.
As Senator Edward Kennedy said at a news conference to support legislation to change this ruling:
“With women earning only 77 cents for ever dollar earned by men, the nation needs strong laws against pay discrimination.”
Amen.
This entry was posted on Thursday, June 7th, 2007 at 11:49 am and is filed under Uncategorized.
June 7th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Ok, can you help me understand how women would even know that we’re getting paid less? Seriously, an honest question. When I worked at a venture firm it was a small employer - 7 investment professionals. I found out after a new guy was hired that they paid him more than me - and although he had more experience, our responsibilities would be the same. So I went to my boss and asked for a raise - which I got, probably because they were afraid that as the only woman, I would make a fuss. But that’s a small firm - how do you know in a bigger firm?
June 7th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
I’m personally not a huge fan of using the legislature to address this problem. I think it is not feasible and we could end up causing more problems for ourselves that way. Instead, we all need to go into every situation assuming we have been offered less than our male peers. We need to collectively do one thing -Negotiate! I know it is painful and difficult, but that’s why men are getting more. A recent book, “Women Don’t Ask”, highlights this problem: Women are far more likely to accept the first offer than men and it almost entirely accounts for the pay gap. We start out of college with $4000 less (because they asked for more than the first offer and we didn’t) and by the time we retire it can be more than a million dollars. How can we expect congress to force employers to give us more when we don’t even ask for more ourselves. Put your manager hat on for a moment. Do you routinely give out money to people who haven’t asked for it? Do you bump up an offer to someone after they have agreed to your proposal because you think they are leaving money on the table? And don’t feel guilty about asking. Since we already know we are getting less we KNOW THEY HAVE MORE TO GIVE! Further, it is completely irrellevant what other people are making. We need to begin to think of ourselves as valuable assets whose time and brainpower is worth money - in many cases more money than men. It’s time to go ask for what we want and what we objectively deserve.
June 8th, 2007 at 1:43 am
wasn’t this one of the opinons Justice Ginsberg read aloud? it’s very rare for the Justices to do that.
June 21st, 2007 at 4:16 am
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July 5th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
[...] the issue of wage discrimination against women, the Supreme Court gave us a major setback. And it got loads of [...]