The Supreme Court has made a string of decisions that signal a troubling shift in the meaning and effectiveness of the nation's core civil rights statutes.
The latest wrong perpetrated by our nation's highest court will have a huge impact on the working lives - and livelihoods - of Americans across the country.
In Ledbetter v. Goodyear, a 19-year Goodyear Tire employee in Alabama was paid thousands of dollars less than her male counterparts. But Ledbetter got no justice when the court heavily reinterpreted past cases by saying she filed her complaint too late. Now, even though pay information is usually secretive, employees only have 180 days to sue employers after a discriminatory pay decision is made!
How can workers sue employers before they even realize they're being discriminated against? The Ledbetter v. Goodyear case is a painful and costly step backward for the nation!
Thankfully, Congress has introduced bills to fix the Supreme Court's blunder on workplace discrimination!
Important legislation is making its way through Congress. Urge your Senators to co-sponsor the Fair Pay Restoration Act today!
Dear [Decision maker],
I urge you to co-sponsor and fully support the bipartisan Fair Pay Restoration Act (S. 1843). The Fair Pay Restoration Act is an important legislative fix to a May U.S. Supreme Court decision (Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber), which severely limited the ability of victims of pay discrimination to sue under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The Ledbetter decision is fundamentally unfair to victims of pay discrimination - and it ignores the realities of the workplace. Employees generally don't know enough about what their co-workers earn, or how pay decisions are made, to file a complaint shortly after a discriminatory pay decision is made. However, without that knowledge, the Supreme Court has declared that victims of ongoing pay discrimination have no claim - regardless of how egregious the discrimination is.
The Supreme Court's misinterpretation of Title VII has ignited a firestorm of criticism from civil rights groups, including the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, for being inconsistent with Congress' intent and the Court's own precedent. Now, as Justice Ginsburg pointed out in her strongly worded Ledbetter dissent, "the ball is in Congress' court" to provide a legislative fix to this harmful decision.
I urge you to help make it clear that rights have enforceable remedies by co-sponsoring and supporting the Fair Pay Restoration Act (S. 1843).
[Your Comment]
Sincerely,
[Your name]
[Your address]
