Equal Pay for Women Gains Traction in Senate

STRAIGHT TO THE POINTS
– President-elect has reportedly expressed support for the pending legislation.
– Women’s advocate group stresses that equal pay legislation is long overdue.
– Bill designed to overturn Supreme Court decision blocking worker’s right to sue.

Equal pay for women in the workplace took another step closer to reality on Thursday after the Senate voted to consider bills that would make it easier to challenge workplace pay discrimination.

One of those bills, dubbed the Lilly Ledbetter bill, would overturn a U.S. Supreme Court decision that blocked a worker’s right to sue for pay discrimination.

Some Senate Republicans are unhappy with the bill claiming that it would result in a proliferation of lawsuits and would mainly benefit trial lawyers. Anne Ladky, Executive Director of an advocate group called "Women Employed" calls that sentiment "nonsense," according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Ladky stresses that equal pay for women is long overdue,

The bill is "simply a restoration of fundamental rights that had been in place for decades," said Ladky. “There is really nothing radical about this bill."

In May 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a $360,000 award to Lilly Ledbetter, an Alabama Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. worker, saying she'd sued too late. Justices voted 5-4 along ideological lines.

President-elect Barack Obama has reportedly already expressed his support for the pending legislation.