Growing complaints of discrimination against new mothers

Employers experience a swell in pregnancy discrimination cases

Taken from article by U.S. Chamber of Commerce and PAI

Endangered by discrimination?

Bradley Brigham

The number of women complaining to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ballooned by 45% over the past 15 years. Usually this involves a woman claiming she was denied a job because she might have to take time off from work during her pregnancy, or was fired or denied certain job benefits because she's pregnant.

The Chamber of Commerce notes that in 1996, businesses were fined $10.4 million for discriminating against pregnant women. Chamber attorney Larry Lorber advises businesses to communicate more clearly and make sure they understand the Family and Medical Leave Act, which guarantees employees of a company with 50 or more workers 12 weeks of unpaid leave for the birth or adoption of a child and outlaws discrimination on the "basis of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions." He says they can avoid an investigation by mediating with the EEOC.

Chamber chapter caught discriminating

The advice comes none too soon -- the Chamber itself was caught illegally firing the marketing director of its Norway, Maine chapter for nursing her new-born baby.

In that case, Lisa Dunham worked out a leave agreement so she could nurse her new-born baby and still do her job as marketing director. But when Dunham couldn’t make the arrangements, she was canned by the new executive director who, in so many words, said “Get that baby out of here, or else,” a newspaper in Lewiston reported. The Maine Department of Labor held a hearing and reversed Dunham’s firing on August 13.

 

Defying Bush veto threat

House acts to restore pay rights

Taken from PAI story by Mark Gruenberg

Lilly Ledbetter

On July 31 the full House of Representatives voted to tear down barriers erected by a recent Supreme Court decision that makes it hard to sue for pay discrimination on the job. Democrats voted 223-6 to put teeth back into laws against pay discrimination, with only two Republications joining them.

The “Lilly Ledbetter Act” is named for the Goodyear Tire Co. supervisor in Gadsden, Ala., who was stripped of her right to sue over continuing discrimination by a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling. The Court said workers must sue within six months of when discrimination starts, even if a worker doesn’t yet realize that other workers are paid more. (More on the bill that came out of committee and the Supreme Court decision.)

Bush OMB distorts the facts, sides with company

While union leaders praised the House action, Bush’s Office of Management and Budget came out against it. The OMB ignored the facts when it said this would “allow employees to bring a claim of pay or other employment-related discrimination years or even decades after the alleged discrimination occurred.” In fact, the bill grants the right to sue for long-term discrimination if it continues, not injustices that ended years ago. How that would, as the Bush team claims, “impede justice and undermine the important goal of having allegations of discrimination expeditiously resolved” is a mystery. The bill now goes to the Senate.

 

7,000 Maryland child-care providers win right to organize

Governor O’Malley signs executive order August 6

Information from PAI

If a union gets signed support from at least 30% of Maryland’s child care providers, it can petition for a recognition election, says an order signed by Gov. Martin O'Malley. Other unions could then get on the ballot if they get signatures from 10% of the providers within 15 days. The election would take place 60 days after the petition is filed.

A child care providers’ union would have the right to bargain over wages, participation procedures, reimbursement rates and benefits, and if more money was needed, the state agency and the winning union would jointly lobby for it. O’Malley specifically said his executive order would not limit parents in choosing a child care provider for their kids, including family child care. O’Malley defeated a Republican running for re-election last November.

 

NLRB action & inaction: The good, the bad & the ugly

Taken from PAI & Workers Independent News stories

Santa Barbara paper ordered to bargain with new union

A fter months of chaos, the NLRB unanimously rejected management's protests of a union election held last September at the Santa Barbara News-Press, and ordered the paper to bargain with the union. 33 out of 39 voting newsroom employees wanted to be represented by the Graphics Communications Conference, a branch of the Teamsters.

A number of editors had quit, accusing the paper’s publisher of interfering with news operations,and eight employees were fired for supporting the union; the NLRB is still deciding whether those firings ere illegal.

After six years, hospital told to obey the law

It's now official: St. Margaret Mercy Hospital in Hammond, Ind., broke labor law when it told nurses to follow no-solicitations/no distribution rules, and removed union literature from backrooms and threatened to discipline a nurse who asked a colleague to sign a union card.

The hospital did all that nurses, represented by Service Employees Local 73. before May 2001, but the NLRB didn't tell it to stop until June 29, 2007.

Union presidents led march last year to reform labor law.

Mark Gruenberg of TNG/CWA Local 32035 for PAI

Computer operators not allowed to join bargaining unit

The NLRB ruled that Operating Engineers Local 399 will have to try again to organize computer operators at Silver Cross Hospital in Joliet, Ill. The board’s regional director had given the union a green light to include computer operators in a bargaining unit of skilled maintenance workers. But the board instead ruled 3-0 that computer operators “neither possessed the skills nor performed the kinds of job duties common to other skilled maintenance” workers, so there was no common interest between the groups.

Board protects union-busters

One week before workers at Medieval Knights LLC, a pageant entertainment firm in N. J., were to vote on whether to unionize with Actors Equity and Theatrical and Stage Employees, management brought in two outside “consultants” to stage a “collective-bargaining exercise.”

Workers had to attend an exercise where they were told that “bargaining could take weeks, months or more than a year” and the employer “could ‘stall out’ negotiations by giving in on lesser items…but not really getting anything done.” Because the consultant didn’t mention Medieval Knights by name, or say the company would actually do that, the Republican NLRB majority said the union-buster acted legally -- and upheld the 16-18 election loss.

The Democrat on the board protested that “under the circumstances” the “exercise” was more than a little suggestive that the employer would actually conduct such illegal “sham bargaining,”

Board okays company excuse for ending raise & bonus before union vote

Did a Georgetown, S. C., company’s decisions to end annual wage hikes and deny workers a semi-annual safety bonus, announced just before they voted on whether to unionize, break labor law?

No, said the NLRB in July, with a partisan 2-1 ruling. The Republican majority accepted the reasoning of 3-V, Inc., that it could not pay up in October 2004 because of a shortage of a production chemical, even though the announcement was made just before workers were to vote on whether to join the Steel Workers.

The board’s only Democrat criticized that “pretext,” and said that the raise and safety bonus are “terms and conditions of employment” that employers can’t legally change in the run-up to union votes.

PPG election victory thrown out

A year after workers at PPG Industries in Evansville, Ind. voted 186-158 to join the UAW, an all-Republican NLRB majority threw out the election on July 3. Overturning its own hearing officer’s recommendation, the board charged union supporters with making “statements threatening physical harm and property damage to employees who stated they would, or would be inclined to, cross a picket line.” That, they said, created “an atmosphere of fear and reprisal” tainting the election.

 

Nurses in California told to work overtime

N. Y. nurses aim to make mandatory OT illegal, just like in N.J.

Information from PAII & Workers Independent News

Nurse in action

THEfunkyman, flckr.com

If you're a nurse who engages in a "concerted refusal to volunteer for overtime work", without giving at least 10 days notice -- in writing -- you can be fired, the NLRB told the nation's nurses. That 2-1 NLRB ruling by a Republican majority was in response to a dispute pitting California Pacific Medical Center of San Francisco against SEIU-United Health Care Workers West.

The one Democrat on the Board retorted that the nurses' "refusal to volunteer for overtime did not constitute a ‘concerted refusal to work’” under labor law, and therefore didn’t violate the law. What’s more, she protested, “How is a union to comply with this requirement when the refusal to work is not a strike called for a set time, but rather the refusal of individual employees to work overtime, if and when the opportunity is offered to them by the employer? The employer exercises complete control over when employees will be asked to work overtime, and the union has no way of knowing when the employer might make that request.”

N.Y. nurses: There should be a law against mandatory OT

Meanwhile, in New York state, Unions representing nurses are pushing for legislation to ban all forced overtime – a measure already passed by states like New Jersey. Backers say it will help retain nurses in a profession that is seeing a shortage nationwide. And studies show that nurses forced to work extra hours are prone to make mistakes.

 

Ohio home health care workers win right to organize

"W ith a stroke of his pen," reported the Toledo Blade on July 18, "Gov. Ted Strickland extended collective-bargaining rights to about 7,000 nurses and other independent contractors working in Ohio's growing in-home health-care sector." He promised that in the near future independent child-care workers contracted by the state would get the same rights.

"By supporting the providers of care, we are promoting a higher quality of care for consumers,'' said Mr. Strickland, a Democrat. "It's not only the right thing to do, but it may be more cost-effective in the long run because consumers of home health care spend more time in their own homes and less time in nursing homes."

Up until now, the 2,000 nurses and 5,000 direct care aides were paid by Medicaid as “independent contractors” making as little as $15 an hour ($25 for nurses), with no vacation or health care benefits.

 

FedEx told to stop using "independent contractor" dodge

Information from PAI

On August 15, a California appellate court said FedEx could not arbitrarily classify its truck drivers as “independent contractors.” That dodge not only stripped the drivers of the right to organize, but also helped the company avoid paying Medicare, Social Security and workers comp, among other things.

in Hartford, Conn., an NLRB administrative law judge also rejected FedEx's claim that drivers in its Windsor terminal were "independent," and allowed their votes to be counted in an election the union won in April, 12-9.

 

Union wins neutrality pact to organize 3,000 nurses in Tenet hospitals

Information from PAI

CNA Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro

Thanks to a company neutrality and organizing pact negotiated with the nation’s second biggest private hospital chain, Tenet Health Care, the California Nurses Association is launching an organizing drive among 3,000 nurses at Tenet hospitals outside of California.

The drive comes just after CNA members at Tenet’s nine California hospitals overwhelmingly ratified a contract featuring raises averaging 25.5% over 4 years. CNA is the newest affiliate union in the AFL-CIO. The organizing pact sets up a process for elections to be held “in an atmosphere that allows them to be run in a fair and democratic manner,” a union spokesman told PAI.

 

Unions urge Supreme Court to defend defense workers

If they can be stripped of most labor rights, who is safe?

Information from PAI

AFGE Newsletter

Under President’ Bush’s “National Security Personnel System,” dreamed up with the help of disgraced former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield, 700,000 civilian defense workers would be stripped of virtually all their rights They’d have no right to organize or bargain, and no access to a fair grievance procedure, or enforceable standards for hiring, firing, salaries and promotions.

The Bush team claims that worker rights threaten security, but American Federation of Government Employees President John Gage thinks it would be another foot in the door to go after all workers, including private contractors.

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan had ruled that the Bush team couldn’t strip workers of their rights, but the Republican majority on the Washington D.C. federal appeals court overturned most of Sullivan’s ruling. On August 13, the AFGE announced that its 31-union coalition will ask the Supreme Court to hear their challenge to the scheme.

“DOD workers would be subjected to an arbitrary, dishonest and unfair working atmosphere,” said union president John Gage. “AFGE has dedicated itself to ensuring that doesn’t happen..”

 

Hard lesson learned

SEIU local union forced to temporarily stop card-check organizing

Taken from article by Don McIntosh, The Northwest Labor Press, & Press Associates

A fter a 6-month organizing drive, SEIU (Service Employees International Union) Local 49 organizers believed that a majority of the 33 workers who clean a silicon wafer plant in Portland, Oregon had signed cards saying they wanted to join the union. Their employer is Somers Building Maintenance (SBM), a largely unionized janitorial contractor.

The company had agreed to stay neutral during organizing drives at non-union locations, and to recognize the union wherever SEIU could show most workers had signed authorization cards – a so-called “card check.” Card-check allows workers to unionize once they sign cards that are independently checked, so they can avoid the long, drawn-out process of National Labor Relations Board elections, where professional union-busters often help companies flaunt the law.

But in this case, SBM managers claimed Local 49 was short of a majority. Then three SBM-Siltronic workers wrote Local 49 saying they'd changed their minds. Local 49 organizer Maggie Long thinks managers provoked the turnarounds during mandatory 1-on-1 meetings with workers. Meanwhile, SBM experienced employee turnover, so the slim pro-union majority that existed in June evaporated.

National "Right to Work" Foundation jumps in

Nonetheless, on Oct. 12, SBM agreed to let Local 49 represent the workers. But that apparently ran afoul of a law saying that the union has no right to bargain for all workers without “an objective demonstration” that a majority of workers signed cards. So the Virginia-based anti-worker foundation that calls itself “Right to Work” jumped in.

With the foundation’s backing, an SBM employee who wasn’t even part of the unionizing unit filed complaints with the NLRB against both SEIU and SBM. Attorney Giles Gibson, who defended Local 49, thinks the National Right to Work Foundation is running counter-organizing drives wherever it discovers a card check campaign is underway -- pressuring employees to repudiate cards and otherwise interfering, and looking for union mistakes. NLRB data reveal only 41 cases of union misconduct over four decades.

"It's not surprising that since card check has become more successful, they're looking for ways to shut them down," said Local 49 organizer Maggie Long.

Kaiser workers win union after RTWF forced an election

In an earlier dispute at Kaiser Permanente, the right-wing foundation had helped a worker at a Kaiser business office complain when Kaiser recognized SEIU in October 2005 through a card check. The next July, Kaiser and Local 49 agreed to rescind union recognition. Local 49 was vindicated this Spring when it won a series of elections at Portland-area Kaiser business offices.

Be prepared, know the law, says SEIU organizer

In the SBM-Siltronic case, Local 49 agreed on April 20 to settle the NLRB charge by pledging not to use card check for six months, and SBM agreed not to recognize Local 49 for a year unless the union goes through an election. The National Right to Work Foundation crowed in a press release that the case is a victory against a "rampant abuse of employees’ rights" and said SEIU was forced to "abandon the coercive 'card check' union organizing process."

The lesson for other unions, Long says, is to know the law, and be aware that anti-union groups are prepared to get involved at any stage of the union organizing campaign.

 

Why do we have so few women business leaders?

New study shows how stereotypes hurt the advancement of women

Catalyst President Irene H. Lang

Organizations routinely underestimate the leadership skills of women because they have preconceived notions that men are natural leaders, says a study released July 17 by Catalyst, a nonprofit group supporting the advancement of women in business.

While women make up over half of management, professional, and related occupations, only 15.6% of Fortune 500 corporate officers and 14.6% of Fortune 500 board directors are women.

Because gender stereotypes lead organizations to underestimate and underused women’s leadership talent, women trying to advance themselves face a double bind -- "Damned if You Do, Doomed if You Don’t," says the study. Men are still viewed as “default leaders” and women as “atypical leaders” who violate accepted norms of leadership. That defies findings that men and women actually have similar leadership styles.

The study pinpoints three specific "double-bind dilemmas" that cripple the advancement of women:

• Women leaders are perceived as “never just right.” If women business leaders act consistent with gender stereotypes, they are considered too soft. If they go against gender stereotypes, they're considered too tough.
• Women leaders face higher standards than men leaders, yet are rewarded less. Often they must work doubly hard to achieve the same level of recognition as men for the same level of work, to “prove” they can lead.
• When women exhibit traditionally valued leadership behaviors such as assertiveness, they tend to be seen as competent but not personable or well-liked. Yet those who do adopt a more stereotypically feminine style are liked, but not seen as having valued leadership skills.

What can be done

Catalyst President Ilene H. Lang points to the loss of talent companies suffer by overlooking the potential of women, and the study suggests several ways they can and should correct the effects of gender stereotyping. Simply learning about how stereotypes operate and holding individuals accountable can help.

Catalyst lays out some actions that companies can take to help root out the problem and reduce the effects of stereotyping in the workplace, such as:

• Assess the work environment to identify in what ways women are at risk of stereotypic bias.
• Follow innovative work practices that target stereotypic bias.
• Conduct managerial training and diversity education that show the origin and consequences of bias, and inconsistencies between values and actual behavior.
• Use objective and unambiguous evaluation criteria for performance and evaluation management.

Although researchers concentrated on business leadership, the attitudes the study uncovers hurt women at all levels of an organization.

The Double-Bind Dilemma for Women in Leadership: Damned if You Do, Doomed if You Don’t is sponsored by IBM, and is the third in a series of Catalyst studies examining gender bias in the workplace.

 

Majority fails to stop Senate filibuster vs. Employee Free Choice Act

Unions: We won't give up

Taken from PAI information

On June 26, 51 Senators -- including all Democrats (except one who was recovering from surgery), two independents and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), voted to stop a Senate talkathon so they could vote on the Employee Free Choice Act, and support workers’ rights to organize. That was a majority, but since every other Republican Senator voted against them, and it takes 60 votes to shut off debate in the Senate, they failed to bring the EFCA to a vote.

The House had already approved the bill, which is labor's top priority, in March, by 241-185. Encouraged by growing support, Union leaders are now looking towards the 2008 election to strengthen Senate support and win for workers the organizing rights denied under current law.

Communications Workers President Larry Cohen also suggested that the EFCA should be inserted into other legislation that would be harder to filibuster. That's how the minimum wage was finally raised. He also urged continuing education of lawmakers and the country about how the bill would benefit everyone.

Vote proves most Senators want to fix labor law

The vote proves that "a majority of the Senate supports changing the law to restore working people's freedom," and is a "watershed achievement--one scarcely imagined just a couple of years ago,” said AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney. It "made clear exactly who is on the side of working families' dreams and economic opportunity--and who is siding with corporate America to block those opportunities,” he added.

“Now we know where everyone stands on a worker’s right to freely choose a union," agreed Change to Win Executive Director Greg Tarpinian. "In 2008, we need to elect a bigger majority and a new president who will champion the interests of working families... Every day, companies illegally block the will of the majority by intimidating, harassing or even firing workers who choose a union. And they do this without penalty.”

EFCA would curb employers' ability to harass, intimidate and fire workers, or to threaten to close and move plants. It would also allow workers to join unions whenever a majority sign authorization cards, whether or not employers approve.

More about EFCA.

 

 

More mothers prefer part-time work

Says new Pew study. Yet most can't work part-time,

Mothers usually don't work full-time by choice, reveals a new Pew Research Center study. Among working mothers with children under 18 years old, just one in five say full-time work is the ideal situation for them, down from 32% who said this back in 1997. Fully six out of ten of today's working mothers say part-time work would be their ideal (up from just half in 1997).

But only one in five would rather not work at all outside the home. Working moms believe more strongly that working outside the home is good for society than they did a decade ago. Among mothers with part-time jobs, eight out of ten agree this is the best option.

The drop in mothers who prefer full-time work is across the board, regardless of education level. In contrast, almost three out of four fathers (72%) say the ideal situation for them is a full-time job.

Why don't they take part-time jobs?

Judith Warner points out in a New York Times column that "the conversation we should be having these days really isn’t one about What Mothers Want" but "why they’re not getting it." Surveys have shown for decades that most mothers want to work part time, and the reason only one in four mothers actually do so "isn’t complicated," she says. "Most women can’t afford to. Part-time work doesn’t pay.

"Women on a reduced schedule earn almost 18 percent less than their full-time female peers with equivalent jobs and education levels... Part-time jobs rarely come with benefits. They tend to be clustered in low-paying fields... And in better-paid professions, a reduced work schedule very often can mean cutting down from 50-plus hours a week to 40-odd — hardly a 'privilege' worth paying for with a big pay cut.

"It doesn’t have to be this way," Warner continues. "In Europe, significant steps have been made to make part-time work a livable reality for those who seek it. Denying fair pay and benefits to part-time workers is now illegal" in Europe. She also points out that if we had universal health care, part-time work could be a more livable alternative . Read more. (You may have to log in for temporary access to see the article, but it's free.)

 

More women & minorities to join CWA Executive Board

CWA Secretary-Treasurer Barbara Easterling (left) introduced the diversity plan

Photo by Marianne Keffer Zwieg of Page One Photography via PAI Photo Service

At the July Communications Workers convention, CWA delegates agreed to expand the union's 19-member Executive Board with four at-large seats that will be filled by women and minorities, starting Sept. 1.

“Simple equity demands we shatter glass ceilings wherever they exist and go the extra mile to ensure our governing body reflects our membership,” explained Secretary-Treasurer Barbara Easterling, in bringing the proposal to delegates. The board now has one African-American and four women; the union's membership is more than 20 percent minority and 40 percent female.

 

Bush Admin. retreats from scheme to weaken family leave law

Pressure from families forces turnaround

An outpouring of 15,000 comments from the public forced the Bush Labor Department to leave intact rules allowing workers to take unpaid leave for family and medical needs, at least for now. Business had been lobbying to weaken the rules for enforcing the Family and Medical Leave Act. But on June 27 the administration announced that the Labor Department now "has no proposals for changing the rules." It left the door open for future weakening of the law, however, when it proposed “fuller discussion” of how the act has actually worked in workplaces nationwide.

The FMLA was signed into law by President Bill Clinton, after President Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, vetoed it twice. FMLA gives workers in any firm with at least 50 employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid family leave yearly, to care for themselves, sick children or aging parents, and guarantees their right to return to their jobs.

 

Plan to let airport screeners join union killed by veto threat

Faced with the threat of a veto from President Bush, Congressional leaders dropped a plan to let the nation’s airport screeners unionize. The plan had been part of the bill to put into force the security recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, in both houses of Congress. Pres. George Bush claims that unionization is a threat to national security. American Federation of Government Employees President John Gage vowed his union would continue the fight to organize airport screeners.

Past news on depriving screeners the right to unionize

 

House approves union rights for public safety workers

Bill goes to Senate

Russ Beland, PAI

By an overwhelming 314-97 vote, the House approved legislation ordering states and local governments to grant collective bargaining rights to public safety workers, including fire fighters, police and EMTs. The July 17 vote sent the bill to the Senate, where Republicans had filibustered to death a similar bill five years ago.

The Fire Fighters had lobbied heavily for the bill after 343 of their union members were killed in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. While New York Fire Fighters have collective bargaining rights, fire fighters, police and EMTs are denied full rights in 18 other states and have none at all in Virginia and North Carolina.

"Public safety officers, who risk their lives to protect us, deserve a say in decisions that affect their lives and livelihood,” said the lead sponsor, Rep. Dale Kildee (D-Mich.). The bill does not okay strikes or lockouts, but it does set minimum standards.

Singing at Evergreen State College Labor Center summer school

  Berger-Marks awards $78,814
to women organizers & groups

Two organizers and seven groups – a union, three university programs, a research institute and two community groups -- were awarded Berger-Marks grants totaling $78,814 at the Foundation’s Board meeting in early April, 2007.

This marked the first time applicants submitted grant proposals online, and the process proved successful in streamlining decision-making and record-keeping at Berger-Marks. More information about Berger-Marks grants.

More

 

Supreme Court okays lifetime pay discrimination against women

If you don’t sue within first 180 days, Civil Rights Act can’t be enforced

By the time she retired, Lilly Ledbetter, the only female area manager at a Goodyear Tire & Rubber plant, earned 15% – 40% less than the 15 male area managers. She sued, and a jury agreed that she was discriminated against because she was a woman, and awarded her $228,438 for lost pay, plus $3.2 million in punitive damages (which the trial judge reduced to a total of $360,000).

Nineteen years of unequal pay

The discrimination began when Ledbetter was assigned to a lower pay track, and it continued from 1979 to1998. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act guarantees that workers' paychecks can't be reduced on grounds of race, gender, religion, age, or ethnicity. But Goodyear, joined by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, appealed all the way to the Supreme Court.

On May 29, in a narrow 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court threw out the award. It ruled that a woman who suffered gradual pay discrimination over her working career lost her rights if she didn't sue within 180 days of when the discrimination started.

The only woman on the court reads strong dissent

Ginsburg, top left

The only woman on the Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, was so outraged that she read aloud her strong dissent with a ruling that, she said, made the original injustice "a fait accompli beyond the province of Title VII ever to repair."

“The court (majority) does not comprehend, or is indifferent to, the insidious way in which women can be victims of pay discrimination,” Ginsburg charged. She called on Congress to fix the mess.

Unlike her male colleagues, Ginsburg had personally experienced sexist discrimination. When she was in law school she transferred from Harvard to Columbia after being told that she and her eight female classmates (out of a class of 500) were taking the places of qualified males. Although she then graduated at the top of her class, Ginsburg at first got no job offers, and wasn’t even able to get an interview to clerk with a Supreme Court justice.

New Bush-appointed justices help rip up '91 law

President George Bush’s recent appointments to the court — Samuel Alito and John Roberts -- voted to permit the discrimination, along with Justices Kennedy, Scalia and Thomas. They effectively ripped up the Civil Rights Act of 1991, designed to overturn a 1989 Rehnquist Court decision that had gutted precisely the same rights at issue in the Ledbetter case. In the majority opinion Alito, who has a long history of ruling for employers in discrimination cases, referred repeatedly to the 1989 decision, which had been considered a dead letter and hadn’t been cited since Congress acted 16 years ago.

In the real world many workers, Ledbetter included, don’t even know what their colleagues earn until they find out by chance. Moreover, as Justice Ginsburg pointed out, an act of pay discrimination might be impossible to prove in court until years of unequal paychecks reveal its long-term effects. A congressional report clarified in 1991 that after “an employer adopts a rule or decision with an unlawful discriminatory motive, each application of that rule or decision is a new violation of the law" -- including the most recent paycheck.

Dems in Congress vow to right this wrong

Democrats in Congress, including Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, vow to pass a law to undo the damage of the Ledbetter decision. With women still making only 77 cents for every dollar a man earns, the need for action is clear, says Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). He called the ruling “astounding.”