Change is in the air.
On Tuesday January 6th, the 111th Congress was called into session. A few days later, the U.S. House passed fair pay legislation: two bills that will help ensure equal pay for equal work. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act are now headed to the Senate. Hopefully fair pay will be some of the first pieces of legislation that Obama signs into law.
Both of the fair pay bills
were passed in the House last Congress, but were blocked by Senate
Republicans. I blogged about that Senate vote this past April, here. The Ledbetter bill failed in the U.S. Senate by just 3 votes last time it came up.
I also blogged here about the original Supreme Court decision, Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber, that started the ball rolling on this much-needed legislation. The court ruled against Ledbetter
in a case she filed against Goodyear for paying her 40 percent less
than men in similar jobs. The decision rolled back years of precedent
and made it much harder for women to challenge pay discrimination in
court. Since then, notes the Wall Street Journal, courts around the country have gone far beyond the facts of that case
and cited it as a reason for rejecting lawsuits claiming discrimination
based on race, sex, age and disability.
Women still earn only 78 cents for every dollar earned by a man, and
this wage disparity costs women, and their families, anywhere from
$400,000 to $2 million in lost wages over a lifetime. In the words of
Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
"Despite much progress, the struggle for equality in the workplace is
far from over. More than 40 years after the passage of the Equal Pay
Act and Title VI, women continue to be paid less for doing the same job
as their male colleagues.
Speaker Pelosi
even wrote a blog on for MomsRising.org about why it was important to have
fair pay be among the first bills to pass through the new Congress.
As a senator, Obama was a co-sponsor of a bill to overturn the Ledbetter decision. In the final presidential debate, notes the New York Times,
he said he would appoint judges who understood the struggles of
“real-world folks” like Ms. Ledbetter. Obama describes the bill as
part of a broader effort
by his incoming administration to “update the social contract,”
reinvigorate civil rights and close the pay gap between men and women.
On that note, I can't believe that we're less than a week away from
Bush and the axis of evil team being shown the door. I've waited for
this day for 8 long years and will be toasting to the promise of Obama
and smart power next Tuesday.
We looked in Jabba the Hut's palace...
and we searched out by Point Bonita lighthouse, too...
we thought we heard Yoda once, nearby these wingspan tape markings
but
we never did come face to face with Yoda or Luke or Anakin or anyone
like that. The old military installations made for some fun and
interesting hiking though.
After our hike we had a nice little lunch in Sausalito. Fun day hike for kiddos and parents alike. And free!
