Republican-sanctioned Discrimination

This post was published 7 months ago on Saturday, April 26th, 2008 at 3:34 pm and is filed under Disability, WTF?.
It's tagged with Democrat, Disability, discrimination, equal rights, Republican, SCOTUS, Supreme Court
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Lisa Takeuchi Cullen runs a blog on Time Magazine’s website, “Work In Progress“, which sometimes can be almost close to approaching nearing the level of cynicism I occasionally use here.

Recently, she ran a blog entry, “Equal pay isn’t a partisan issue. Is it?“, explaining that the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act had been filibustered in Congress by the Republicans.

The Act was intended to be

A bill to amend title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to clarify that a discriminatory compensation decision or other practice that is unlawful under such Acts occurs each time compensation is paid pursuant to the discriminatory compensation decision or other practice, and for other purposes.

In other words, to change those laws so that the Statute of limitations regarding lawsuits brought because of unequal pay start with the last time a paycheck was issued.

This Act was in response to a recent SCOTUS 5-4 ruling in an unequal pay lawsuit that decided the statute of limitations “clock” begins at the date of hiring, and runs for 180 days from that date.

Lisa Takeuchi Cullen asks at the end of her blog entry:

Senate Democrats blame Republicans for blocking the vote to protect employers from litigious workers. But what about protecting workers from employers who seek to pay them differently based on gender, race or religion? Can somebody clarify this for me?

The excuse the Republicans have offered for blocking the bill was “protecting employers”. It makes me wonder - just how much do Republicans think unequal pay is prevalent in the workplace?

The Supreme Court has effectively ruled that the laws for equal pay are totally unworkable, and has practically stripped employees of protections against such discrimination. It’s virtually impossible for employees to detect pay differences within 180 days of their hiring date, as the Supreme Court has ruled must occur for them to seek redress.

So all an employer has to do is keep unequal pay a secret for 180 days, and then they can go right ahead and totally screw employees at will, with the practical blessing of the Supreme Court - and the implied blessing of Senate Republicans.

Likewise, they could hire someone for 180 days, give that person’s peers a pay rise later, and the employee with the unequal pay has no recourse.

The justification Republicans claimed for the filibuster is an admission that unequal pay exists in the workplace - they blocked it because they expect this endemic state of affairs to result in large numbers of lawsuits if the bill passed.

They admit to this expectation, quite freely.

“We think that this bill is primarily designed to create a massive amount of new litigation in our country, and I think that is the reason for the resistance to its passage on our side,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is quoted in a Los Angeles Time report.¹

An expectation they could only arrive at with awareness of the scope of the issue.

It’s the only logical explanation behind their filibuster - If they’re expecting so many lawsuits should the Act become law, they must know that the situation is endemic.

In filibustering the Act, they send one clear message to already-struggling businesses and employees - They’re going to permit and perpetuate discrimination rather than allow it to be resolved the only way possible - through the courts.

The filibuster tells employers they can discriminate against employees, including members of so-called “protected classes”, for any reason when it comes to unequal pay, without any fear of being held accountable.

The Senate Republicans, through this filibuster, have effectively demolished another part of anti-discrimination legislation.

Now, employers can legally escape the consequences of paying people with disabilities far less than their able bodied peers.

So now not only can businesses continue their practices of hiring people with disabilities to fulfill phantasmal quotas to give the appearance of “equal opportunities”, they can do it on the cheap.

It’s only a few steps removed from slavery.

Does anyone really believe employers aren’t going to jump at the chance?

Lisa Takeuchi Cullen asks about protecting employees from unequal pay based on “gender, race, or religion”. Even as a Time reporter, however, she doesn’t seem to have thought that people with disabilities are also likely to suffer from unequal pay.

It’s understandable, I suppose, that people will think first about the effect on women’s rights, or religious rights, but the rights of people with disabilities are also affected.

Not to mention it’s possible she just forgot to include people with disabilities when she wrote her blog entry.

But we need to remind everyone that we, too, are a part of those affected, especially now - if the bill is resubmitted to the Senate in the future, it might get “amended” to make it more palateable.

If experience is anything to go by, people with disabilities are likely to be disadvantaged in the process.

The Senators who voted to filibuster the Act, are listed below (House Majority Leader Reid allegedly voted “No” in a procedural move to keep the bill alive for the future).

Call them.

Write to them.

Ask them just what unequal pay situations they’re aware of, that causes them to want to effectively block employees being able to sue to stop discriminating practices.

Ask them why they are supporting unequal pay and discrimination, and are willing to perpetuate discrimination in the workplace.

Alexander (R-TN)
Allard (R-CO)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Dole (R-NC)
Domenici (R-NM)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Lugar (R-IN)
Martinez (R-FL)
McConnell (R-KY)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Reid (D-NV)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Stevens (R-AK)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (R-VA)
Wicker (R-MS)

Then go read Lisa Takeuchi Cullen’s blog, it’s funny!

(With apologies to Lisa Takeuchi Cullen for calling her Lisa Takeuchi Cullen in this entry, since I don’t “know” her it’d be rude for me to just call her “Lisa”)