Here's the Coles Notes version: The U.S. Supreme Court overturned a jury decision that called for Goodyear to pay a former employee, Lilly Ledbetter, $3.5 million. Ledbetter had brought suit against the company after discovering, following her retirement, that she had been paid far less than men in similar positions for the duration of her 19-year career. I'll leave you to parse out the legal jargon on your own (it's all there in the above link and the subsequent links), but essentially the Supreme Court based its decision on Ledbetter waiting too long to file suit.
This ruling is inflammatory and profoundly disappointing, not just because it is unjust, but also because so many elements of the rationale reek of condescension - not to mention favouring the rights of corporations over the individual.
For a blistering critique of the verdict, check out this article from (where else?) Slate.
And for a little evidence of why this kind of backward motion on gender equality is so dangerous, hold your nose and read this post from a particularly noxious conservative blogger, who chides Ledbetter for being slow to figure out the pay discrepancy but conveniently fails to mention that Goodyear forbids employees from sharing salary information.
Brutal.
3 comments:
It's hard to know if this decision illuminates problems with the US justice system, or if it is a direct consequence of 8 years of the Bush Administration and his conservative Supreme Court appointments.
The "floodgates" argument is alive and well in the US. The idea being that if this woman gets paid, then all the women will expect to get paid. Someone remind me why that would be such a bad thing?
This logic is truly ass-backward. Essentially, because so many female executives are paid less than their male counterparts, it would be way too expensive to rectify this injustice so it's better just to ignore it.
Sure, there might be a number of frivolous lawsuits brought forward but truly, is that what people are really worried about? The US system tolerates frivolous lawsuits out the wazoo, with no cost consequences for losing, where is the deterrent?
What the Supreme Court missed is that the slippery slope here isn't the risk of women coming forward to claim their rightful pay; rather, it was the incorrect assumption that it was okay to pay women less than their male counterparts in the first place.
But if women start getting paid as much as men, who's gonna stay at home and make babies?
Joking.
Some fine points, Sheri. But I'm gonna play the cynic and say if we're looking to the US to lead the way progressively/socially/morally...we got about 20 years before the rocket's red glare and bombs start bursting in air.
I believe this would have been decided differently in Canada - in fact, it likely would have settled earlier on because of our system's encouragement of ADR (mediation, arbitration etc), and because most businesses appreciate the value of having the complainant sign a confidentiality agreement.
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