I may be wrong here (it’s been a busy week so I probably haven’t watched enough news), but does it seem odd to anyone else that women aren’t up in arms over the Ledbetter v. Goodyear decision? Perhaps its because men seem to run the media outlets that could supercharge this story… Where is our Million Woman March? Shouldn’t females nationwide be walking out for a day of protest? Could be that, between bringing home the bacon, frying it up and juggling baby baths, laundry and sex, we don’t have the energy to mobilize. But how fair is that to the women who came before us and fought so hard for our rights to work alongside men instead of under them? This decision and its potential impact actually make me want to cry. Literally.

How can the Court/legislature put such a small timeframe on wage discrimination claims? It’s one thing to limit government employees whose wages are often public knowledge, but private employers rarely disclose their salary policies and usually put muzzles on their employees discussing salary. In states where it’s not illegal, perhaps women need to start pushing down the “money wall” and discussing their compensation. If we have to meet this 180-day burden, the only way to know that our companies are discriminating is to know what they are paying. Granted, wage disparities can be due to education level, experience, and other factors. But when there’s a 40 percent pay differential between a female and her male counterparts, employers can’t possibly claim that education and experience are the only reasons behind such a disparity.

Anne Fisher laid out the facts in her article for Fortune magazine:

So how much sense does it make to decide, as the U.S. Supreme Court did Tuesday in a 5-4 ruling, that employees who want to take legal action against a discriminatory employer must file a formal complaint with a federal agency within 180 days of that employer’s explicit offense (i.e. either hiring a woman for less pay than a man or giving her a smaller raise because she’s female)? In too many instances, it takes far longer than that for an employee to realize what’s going on.

That was what happened to Lilly Ledbetter, on whose case the highest U.S. court ruled yesterday. Ledbetter was a supervisor at a Goodyear Tire plant in Gadsden, Ala., and the only woman among 17 managers at the same level. Although she was hired at the same pay as her peers, she received smaller raises than theirs over a 20-year period. By the time she realized it, in 1998, her salary fell short of male supervisors’ by 40%. She was earning $3,727 a month, while the lowest-paid man in her position made $4,286.

While I understand that the Court is somewhat limited by the legislation, I don’t understand why our female representatives aren’t howling about this decision. With more females in power in the legislature than ever before, this outrageous decision should be the top story of every newscast until remedied. Especially as men step out of the shadows, emboldened by this decision, to make such claims as

I am not convinced that there is pay discrimination based on gender. I am not an expert on the subject, but I wonder how much of the pay differentiall has to do with negotiation tactics. Is it possible that men (as a rule of thumb) are more interested in getting the highest pay (even for the same position) and will actively work to maximize their pay while women are not as concerned about pay as much. They don’t push the envelope and thus won’t get as much.

Posted By Michael SF, CA : May 31, 2007 7:22 pm

NOW points out that

Chief Justice Roberts characterized the idea of equal pay for women as a “radical redistributive concept.”

WHAT?!?! So, as usual, the corporate bottom line is much more important than the rights of individuals.

In 2005, the most recent year for which data is available, women continue to earn only 77 cents on the dollar to their male counterparts. To match men’s earnings for 2005, women have to work from January 2006 to April 2007 — an extra four months.

Of course my rantings on this topic are not that interesting. For targeted, substantive analysis of this decision, please see Paul Secunda’s post on the Workplace Professors Blog:

In sum, this decision is inconsistent with the purposes of the Title VII to both make victims of discrimination whole and to eradicate employment discriminatory practices from society at large. It leads to an absurd situation where employees either must bring pay claims prematurely when there is not enough evidence that there has been unlawful pay discrimination or wait to a later time when there exists more substantial evidence of pay discrimination and be barred from bringing such claims by the statute of limitations (as in Ledbetter).