Obama Signs Equal Pay for Equal Work Bill

Jan. 28, 2009 — -- Calling pay equity not a women's issue but a family issue, President Obama today signed a new bill seeking to end decades-long pay disparities between men and women.

Joined in the East Room of the White House by Nancy Pelosi, the first female speaker of the House, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, first lady Michelle Obama and Lilly Ledbetter, the 70-year-old tire plant supervisor for whom the bill is named, Obama said it was "fitting that the very first bill I signed -- the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act -- is upholding one of this nation's founding principles: That we are all created equal and each deserve a chance to pursue our own version of happiness."

The equal-pay bill ends a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision saying that employees had only 180 days to file pay-discrimination lawsuits and is expected to make it easier for workers to sue for decades-long discrimination.

Ledbetter filed a 1998 suit against a Goodyear Tire Rubber Co. plant in Gadsen, Ala., after learning that men working in the same position were making more money. In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 vote that Ledbetter had waited too long to sue, since she brought the suit near the end of her 19-year career with the company.

"I was initially humiliated. I felt degraded," Ledbetter has said of her feelings about the pay disparity.

The new legislation allows lawsuits to be brought years later, as long as the alleged pay disparity is continuing.

The new legislation isn't limited to gender-based discrimination. It amends the 1964 Civil Rights Act and also applies to discrimination based on race, religion, national origin, disability or age.

"In signing this bill today, I intend to send a clear message that making our economy work means making sure it works for everyone," Obama told the approximately 150 people assembled, including members of Congress and women's and labor groups that have long been advocates of the bill.

The gaggle of senators and congressman, almost all Democrats, stood on the dais of the East Room: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.; and House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Sens. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Patty Murray, D-Wash., Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Pat Leahy, D-Vt. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and Reps. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Rob Andrews, D-N.J.

"This is what change looks like" quipped Mikulski, the chief Senate sponsor of the bill, to the crowd of advocates.

Two Republicans were in attendance at the event as well -- Maine's GOP Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.