January 6, 2009
Stop Feminist Wage Control!
EagleForum.org Alert
Tell your Representatives to vote NO on the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act!

The new liberal super-majority opens the very first week of the 111th Congress by making two pieces of feminist legislation their first order of business. Two bills that purport to institute the longtime feminist dream of "comparable worth," a fancy term for government wage control, have been scheduled for a floor vote this week in the House of Representatives. 

At present, we have no way of knowing which bill will be brought to the floor first, as neither bill has been officially reintroduced in this new congress, but we do know that getting both bills passed in the same week is the feminists' goal.  Your calls are urgently needed to prevent further damage to American businesses!

The most dangerous of the two proposed bills is the Paycheck Fairness Act, expected to be reintroduced by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT).  This bill garnered 230 cosponsors during the last Congress, and it would amend the Equal Pay Act (EPA) to allow for unlimited compensatory and punitive damages to be granted, even without proof of intent.  The bill would also unjustly amend the EPA in the following ways:

• Requires non-sex-related factors, like market rates and prior salary history, to pass a "job relatedness" or "business necessity" test that would be determined by a judge or jury.
• Redefines "establishment" to mean workplaces in the same county or political district rather than the same physical place of business.
• Invalidates the successful, Supreme Court-endorsed pay discrimination-determining system known as the Interpretative Standards for Systemic Compensation Discrimination, and it would be replaced with the highly inaccurate Equal Opportunity Survey, which has found true discriminators and non-discriminators 93 percent of the time.

The second bill the feminists aim to pass is the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, expected to be reintroduced by Rep. George Miller (D-CA), Chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee.  The bill, which gained 93 cosponsors during the last congress, purports to protect workers against pay discrimination by reversing the Supreme Court decision reached in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (2007) which held that employers are protected from lawsuits over race and gender pay discrimination if the claims are based on decisions made by an employer 180 days ago or more.  

The Ledbetter bill amends the 40 year old statute of limitations contained within Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that requires the timely filing of discrimination charges -- either 180 or 300 days, depending on his or her state of employment -- after the alleged workplace discrimination occurred.  The bill dismantles this statute, effectively eliminating any time limits for claims of employment discrimination.  This is dangerous because it would open the door to discrimination allegations that could have occurred five, ten, twenty, or even thirty or more years earlier by employees and executives that had nothing to do with the supposed wrongdoing.

At a time when the federal government has wrought financial disaster by interfering in the labor market, these bills will surely harm the American economy even further, especially if judges and juries are mandated to decide how much a private business pays its individual workers.  Please call your representatives today!

The House will be in session every day this week, so this vote could come as early as Wednesday, January 7th.  Call and write your Representatives and tell them you expect them to vote NO on both the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act!

Further Reading: Read this important letter signed by over 40 business groups explaining their opposition to these bad feminist bills.   Take Action!

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