WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Barack Obama signed a new pay-equity measure into law Thursday, effectively overturning a 2007 Supreme Court decision that made it harder to sue for pay discrimination.
The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act — named for a former Goodyear Tire employee who sued the company for gender discrimination in 1998 — is the first bill signed by Obama.
“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 said at a ceremony in the East Room of the White House.
The new law removes a provision requiring employees seeking equal pay to file a complaint within 180 days of receiving their first unfair paycheck. Under the measure, employees instead have the right to file within 180 days of their most recent paycheck.
Alright, now let me play devil's advocate!Without doing extensive research on this new law, there appears to be a couple of negatives that stand out from a plain reading of what the law is looking to accomplish. From a corporate perspective, managers and HR will need to constantly revisit and review their pay structure, more frequently than they are probably used to. For most companies, this is usually done on an annual basis and is based on trends from the previous year, market statistics, and other measured figures. This new law states that employees have the right to file complaints of unequal pay within 180 days of their most recent paycheck, which initially indicates that corporations will need to revisit pay structures at least on a monthly basis depending on the pay cycle of the organization. Additionally, depending on the employee's motivation to work, they may look for potential inequalities in pay and discrimination in order to defend their paychecks. This law empowers employees against their employers to a certain extent. This could be dangerous for a company if they do not have the appropriate measures in place to review, analyze and adjust their pay structure for various positions. It would only take one rogue employee in such an environment to cash in using this new law. Thoughts?
