By Chuck Rice and Kathryn Fleming

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review a Ninth Circuit decision holding that AT&T Corp. is liable under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act for calculating retirement service credits based in part on pre-Pregnancy Discrimination Act leave policies. AT&T Corp. v. Hulteen, 76 U.S.L.W. 3226 (U.S. Jun. 23, 2008) (No. 07-543).

Prior to the 1978 passage of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA), which amended Title VII to include pregnancy-based discrimination within the scope of sex discrimination, AT&T’s predecessor, PT&T, denied female employees full retirement service credit for pregnancy leave, but granted it for other types of temporary disability leave. Following the enactment of the PDA, PT&T revised its policy to provide service credit for pregnancy leave on the same terms as other temporary disability leave. PT&T did not, however, adjust the service credits of female employees who had taken pregnancy leave before this change, and this calculation was carried over when PT&T became AT&T. Several female employees and their union brought suit against AT&T in 2001, alleging that AT&T violated Title VII by failing to credit them for time spent on pre-PDA pregnancy leave when calculating employee pension and retirement benefits.

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Congressional Republican leaders today unveiled a new website and report entitled: “Death by a Thousand Cuts: Democrats’ War on American Jobs,” which it describes as “a new report cataloging a Democratic agenda that threatens millions of U.S. jobs and family budgets at a time when many Americans are grappling with the rising cost of living and record tax burdens.”

The 58-page report covers a host of issues, such as tax increases and spending measures, that the authors contend will cripple an already “vulnerable economy.” It also makes clear the positions of the Republican leadership on a number of bills on the WorkplaceHorizons.com Watch List.

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The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced yesterday that it had entered into a consent decree with B & H Foto and Electronics Corp. in a case alleging that Hispanic workers were discriminated against in wages, promotions, and health benefit coverage.  According to the EEOC press release, the consent decree requires B & H to:

equalize the wages of Hispanic employees to their non-Hispanic coworkers; and to work with the EEOC in a claims process to distribute $4.3 million in monetary relief to individuals who were paid less, not promoted, or denied benefits because they are Hispanic.

• WATCH LISTS:  Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act - Fair Pay Act of 2007 (Norton) - Paycheck Fairness Act

The AFL-CIO’s Department for Professional Employees has published a “Fact Sheet” entitled: “Professional Women: Vital Statistics.” Among the findings:

The wage gap between sexes still plagues the American workforce. In 2004, median annual earnings for full-time year-round workers (which includes self-employed workers and other sources of pay differences such as annual bonuses) demonstrate that women earned just 76.5% as much as men. Out of 19 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, the United States has the largest gender earnings gap, save for Austria and Switzerland.

In 2006, median weekly earnings for women were 80.8% those of men. For most women of color, the earnings gap was even larger:

• African American women earned just 70 cents for every dollar earned by men in 2006.
• Hispanic and Latina women earned just 59 cents for every dollar men earned.
• Only Asian American women’s earnings were closer to parity with men’s: in 2006, they earned 94% that of all men. However, they earned 79% as much as Asian American men.

The wage gap is also more pronounced for older women: in 2006, women over 25 earned 79% that of men in the same age group while women aged 16 - 24 earned 95% as much as their male peers.

 

• WATCH LISTS:  Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act - Fair Pay Act of 2007 (Norton) - Paycheck Fairness Act

By Alston Correll

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., pundits, academics and advocates have reacted swiftly and loudly -- calling for an overhaul of current pay related statutes. Professors Joanna Grossman and Deborah Brake, for example, have called not only for changes in Title VII relating to the statute of limitations on pay discrimination claims, but also for extending the statute of limitations for any Title VII claim to two years and eliminating the caps on damages that can be awarded in Title VII actions.

Congress has responded with a spate of proposed legislation aimed at overhauling significant portions of the FLSA, Title VII and other civil rights statutes. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Fair Pay Act of 2007 (Norton Act) are all specifically aimed at curing the perceived deficiencies of existing pay related legislation. In addition, Senator Kennedy has proposed the Equal Remedies Act, which seeks to eliminate all of the damage caps contained in Section 1981a. In short, passage of all or some of this legislation represents a significant change in the nature and litigation of pay discrimination claims.

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While the 100^th Congress considers various pay discrimination legislation, such as the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act , the Paycheck Fairness Act , and the Norton Fair Pay Act of 2007 , workplace trendwatcher Compensation Force, the blog of compensation consultants at Altura Consulting Group, LLC., recently pointed to new research indicating that " women of all educational levels from the ages of 21 to 30, living in Yew York City and working full-time, earned 117% of men's wages. (This compares to national data showing women earning 89% of men on average.)"

This video, edited by Democratic staffers of the U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor, encapsulates Ms. Ledbetter's testimony before the Committee.