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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 27, 2009
4:29 PM

CONTACT: ACLU

Linda Paris, (202) 675-2312; media@dcaclu.org 

ACLU Hails Swift Progress of Pay Disparities Bill

Ledbetter Fair Pay Act Restores Right to Bring Pay Discrimination Claims

WASHINGTON - January 27 - Today the U.S. House of Representatives passed, by a vote of 250-177, S. 181, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, a bill that restores an employee's ability to bring a claim of wage discrimination as long as her employer continues unlawfully to pay her less than her co-workers. This legislation re-establishes rights virtually stripped away by the Supreme Court case Ledbetter v. Goodyear, which denied most workers their day in court to battle pay discrimination.

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The ACLU conserves America's original civic values working in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in the United States by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

ACLU Links:
Posted in inequality, labor

The Union Way Up

Why is this recession so deep, and what can be done to reverse it?

Hint: Go back about 50 years, when America's middle class was expanding and the economy was soaring. Paychecks were big enough to allow us to buy all the goods and services we produced. It was a virtuous circle. Good pay meant more purchases, and more purchases meant more jobs.

Posted in employee free choice, labor, unions

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 23, 2009
12:08 PM

CONTACT: Public Citizen
Phone: 202-588-1000

Much-Needed Fair Pay Act Won’t Fully Help Some Employees

Many Companies Force Workers to Forfeit Their Right to File Claims in Court

WASHINGTON - January 23 - Victims of gender discrimination in the workplace won a major victory in the U.S. Senate late Thursday with the passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, but some women may not be fully protected under the measure, according to Public Citizen.

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Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization founded in 1971 to represent consumer interests in Congress, the executive branch and the courts.
Public Citizen Links:
Posted in Equality/Justice, inequality, labor

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 21, 2009
4:03 PM

CONTACT: ACLU
Mandy Simon or Linda Paris (202) 675-2312; media@dcaclu.org

ACLU Urges Senators to Oppose All Amendments Watering Down Pay Discrimination Bill

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act Lifts Virtual Immunization for Employers in Wage Discrimination Cases

WASHINGTON - January 21 - Tonight, as the Senate resumes consideration of a bill that clarifies the legal time limits for employees to fight pay discrimination, the America Civil Liberties Union calls on senators to vote for a clean bill without any amendments watering down worker protections.

S. 181, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, would restore rights taken away by a 2007 Supreme Court case, Ledbetter v. Goodyear, which in most circumstances denies workers remedies for ongoing wage discrimination. Unfortunately, several weakening amendments have been offered tonight by opponents of the legislation.

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The ACLU conserves America's original civic values working in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in the United States by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

ACLU Links:
Posted in inequality, labor

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 14, 2009
4:17 PM

CONTACT: ACLU
Linda Paris, (202) 675-2312; media@dcaclu.org

ACLU Pushes for Passage of Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

Letter Urges Senators to Support a Clean Anti-Discrimination Bill Without Weakening Amendments

WASHINGTON - January 14 - Today, in advance of a Senate vote taking place as soon as tomorrow, the American Civil Liberties Union sent senators a letter urging passage of a bill that clarifies the legal time limits for employees to fight pay discrimination.

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The ACLU conserves America's original civic values working in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in the United States by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

ACLU Links:
Posted in civil liberties, labor

Hope and Change for Low-Wage Workers

On March 18, 1968, two weeks before his murder, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. told striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tenn., "It is criminal to have people working on a full-time basis getting part-time income." He said, "A living wage should be the right of all working Americans."

What would Dr. King have thought of a $6.55 federal minimum wage in 2009, when the 1968 minimum wage is worth about $10 in today's dollars?

Posted in labor, minimum wage

Can Labor Revive the American Dream?

The financial markets are in tatters, consumer spending is anemic and the recession continues to deepen, but corporate America is keeping its eyes on the prize: crushing organized labor. The Center for Union Facts, a business front group, has taken out full-page ads in newspapers linking SEIU president Andy Stern to the Rod Blagojevich scandal.

Posted in employee free choice, labor

Bill Easing Unionizing Is Under Heavy Attack

Workers at the Smithfield plant in Tar Heel, N.C., in 2006. They voted to unionize last month. (Raul Rubiera/Fayetteville Observer, via Associated Press)

WASHINGTON - Intent on blocking organized labor's top legislative goal, corporations are quietly contributing to lobbying groups with appealing names like the Workforce Fairness Institute and the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace.

These groups are planning a multimillion-dollar campaign in the hope of killing legislation that would give unions the right to win recognition at a workplace once a majority of employees sign cards saying they want a union. Business groups fear the bill will enable unions to quickly add millions of workers and drive up labor costs.

Posted in labor

Union in Republic Windows Protest Files Labor Charges Against Company

United Electrical Union Workers Local President Armando Robles, left, and U.E. Western Regional President Carl Rosen address the media about negotiations with Bank of America and Republic Windows and Doors on the fourth day of a sit-in at the companies factory Monday, Dec. 8, 2008 in Chicago. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

The union representing laid-off Republic Windows filed charges today against their former employer, alleging that the company violated labor law by failing to negotiate with workers in good faith.

The workers are seeking to have Republic machinery moved to a factory in Iowa returned to the Chicago plant.

"We want to try to get the plant reopened," says Ron Bender, who worked at Republic for 14 years. "If a new owner wants to come in, he needs that equipment to open up the plant."

Posted in Activism, labor

Lessons taught by GM, United Auto Workers

The rhetoric surrounding the auto industry this holiday season is deja vu all over again. I grew up in a suburb of Detroit. My parents loathed Walter Reuther, legendary head of the United Auto Workers. My father, a general surgeon, remarked on several occasions that Reuther, once wounded in an attempted assassination, was fortunate not to have landed on his operating table. He viewed Reuther as a communist whose government health care proposals would disrupt the voluntary doctor-patient relationship.
Posted in auto bailout, labor
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