House votes to reverse court on pay discrimination suits
July 31, 2007
BY JESSE J. HOLLAND
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — The House voted today to reverse the Supreme Court’s decision limiting the time that workers have to sue their employers for pay discrimination.
The Bush administration has threatened to veto the legislation, pushed almost entirely by Democrats.
The House voted 225-199 to effectively remove the statute of limitations for pay discrimination lawsuits for longtime company employees, repudiating a decision by the high court’s five most conservative justices.
“Discrimination has no place in our law, no place in our hearts and no place because of technicalities,” said Rep. Robert Andrews, D-N.J.
The Supreme Court voted 5-4 on May 29 to throw out a Goodyear employee’s complaint that she earned thousands of dollars less than her male counterparts because of discrimination.
Lilly Ledbetter, a supervisor at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.’s plant in Gadsden, Ala., sued right before she retired. She ended a 19-year career making $6,500 less than the lowest-paid male supervisor, and said earlier decisions by her supervisors kept her from making more.
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