President Obama signs equal pay law
 

President Obama on Thursday signed into law a measure allowing for broader legal claims against unfair pay, saying it would "help others get the justice" that Lilly Ledbetter was denied.

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act is a response to a May 2007 Supreme Court ruling that made it tougher for employees to file pay discrimination claims.

It is the first bill Mr. Obama has signed into law, and effectively overturns the court's ruling.


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WooHoo!

Does the law officaly outlaw unfair pay....If so how does someone find this out legally? I heard once that if you ask, talk to, or find out another employee's pay that it is illegal and you can be fired...

The one thing I don't understand is that if companies are paying women 78 cents on the dollar, from an economic interest standpoint the company would hire nothing but women or at least as many women as they could get, that's not the case. Why?

Maybe because it costs so much to train and replace us because once we marry and get knocked up we leave because that's all we really want in life :rolleyes:

Think about this question...if it's cheaper to hire her and not hire any men....guess what problem you run into?

A company is going to pay somebody the lowest amount that they can. If women accept less money than men for the same job then so be it.

It may be against a corporate policy, but it is NOT illegal. Government paid positions have to be publicly available. There is a state of Michigan web site where you can look up any employee's salary by their name. This includes universities, university hospitals, etc. Personally, I think when corporations take great measures and use threats to keep people from sharing salary information, they are usually trying to hide these kinds of unfair practices.

If women are always offered less money everywhere, then they don't really have this option, do they? Obviously places that offer women a lower starting salary are discriminatory and would rather hire the man for the higher salary if they are going to have to pay that much. Additionally, it doesn't always happen at the time of the offer. It can happen with lower annual raises. Two people could start out the same but over time, if the woman only gets a 2% raise and the man gets 5%, things get out of whack very quickly. Then corporations institute policies like Thetagirl outlined, where they threaten to fire people who share salary info and the woman doesn't really know that she's being paid much less.

Minimum wage has been used as a tool for prejudice for years. Perhaps the government should stay away from what is out of it's sphere of theoretical influence.

It's of my own personal belief that in a company with different management/performance tiers, it's really no ones business what other people are making.

So the gov't has to mandate how much one's raise will be each year?

If a woman only asks or accepts a 2% raise and a man asks for and won't accept anything less than 5%...how is that discrimination?

Also, how does this equal pay law take into account when a woman takes a leave of absence for a pregnancy? She just took of 6mo or a year from work, from gaining experience, from actually making her company money. It is only right that when she comes back she is not making as much as a man of equal talent that did not take that time off.

Hell, the list can go on and on why this is not so much an equal wage law, but an unequal wage law in favor of women.

You are making far too many assumptions. Nobody said the govt would mandate how much raises should be, only that they should be equal pay for equal work.

How does a man not accept less than a 5% raise? Quit??? And feed your family how???

Who in the world takes a 6 month or a year maternity leave???? No woman I know. We take 6 weeks, 12 at most, as allowed by FMLA. If I took more than 12 weeks, I would lose my job. Does the research show that only mother's have this significant pay difference? Matter of fact, it does NOT.

Assuming that the difference in pay is due to maternity leaves and an inability to be assertive is as chauvinistic as the men who think they can get away with paying women less money only because they are women.

It's really nice that all the men in here think it's a okay to discriminate against women...especially since they don't have to worry about making $0.78 for every dollar a man makes! I doubt very seriously that men go into a job interview demanding to see the salaries of every employee in their desired position to make sure they are being paid fairly! Men just get to assume that they will. Yes the government should legislate this matter since the bigots in power won't do it themselves!

You obviously don't realize that most pregnant women have to use vacation time for their maternity leave! Just because men can procreate like rabbits without effecting their careers doesn't mean that they should discriminate against their wives who are effected!

Haha, typical. Bring up examples of why there is a difference and you get angry responses.

Where exactly does this .78 cents figure come from? How do we even know that is a valid figure. I can think of about a dozen ways that such a study could find any figure it wanted by using biased variables.

You use something called the internet. It has all sorts of cool little tools and searches that allow you to figure out exactly how much money you should expect in your particular area.

Basically you are saying you go in to a job interview totally unprepared, do no homework on the company or how much they pay, and then say that you should get the same raise as someone else even if you don't ask for it. Oh and the gov't should mandate how much everyone is paid and how much their annual raises are.

Well maybe BO will come through for you...