By MARY GILBERT
President Obama this morning signed the first legislation he received from Congress, a bill against wage discrimination whose namesake took the stage with him in a White House ceremony.
The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act makes it easier for workers to sue their employers for unequal pay under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, affirming that they can bring charges within 180 days of any affected paycheck. Vice President Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and members of Congress from both parties were on hand for the signing, and a noisy group of supporters broke into cheers when Ledbetter took her place next to the president. "It is fitting that with the very first bill I sign... we are upholding one of this nation's first principles: that we are all created equal and each deserve a chance to pursue our own version of happiness," Obama told the audience.
The president argued that equal pay "is by no means just a women's issue -- it's a family issue" that affects countless two-income American households. He noted that gender is not the only basis on which people are discriminated against and said he intended to send the message "that there are no second-class citizens in our workplaces, and that it's not just unfair and illegal but bad for business to pay someone less because of their gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion or disability."
The president framed pay discrimination as a moral, rather than simply an economic matter. "It's a question of who we are -- and whether we're truly living up to our fundamental ideals," he said. Obama also referenced the women in his life -- his grandmother, who became one of the first female vice presidents of the Bank of Hawaii, and his daughters, whom he hopes will "grow up in a nation that values their contributions, where there are no limits to their dreams and they have opportunities their mothers and grandmothers never could have imagined."
Obama said the Ledbetter bill is just the first in a series of steps that must be taken to eliminate the pay gap between men and women "and ensure that our daughters have the same rights, the same chances, and the same freedom to pursue their dreams as our sons."
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Responded on January 29, 2009 2:44 PM
Stephanie
This is long overdue, but I'm not sure it's going to make much of a difference. As a society we need to start raising our daughters to ASK for what they want rather than politely waiting for someone to notice them: