Personal Injury Law

Nondiscriminatory Pay ? After Ledbetter, the Next Steps to Stopping Sex-Based Pay Discrimination

Today marks a critical point in the year, a date that should make us as a Tennesseans and as U.S. citizens not simply ashamed but motivated to action. April 28 (known as Equal Pay Day) marks the point into the year a woman would have to work to in order to catch up with her male counterpart's pay in 2008.

Large steps in closing the pay disparity between man and women have been made since the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which made it illegal for employers to pay women less than men for equal work. And Tennessee lawmakers took a strong step forward in 2004 with The Equal Pay Remedies and Enforcement Act that put teeth in Tennessee discrimination law. Then, in January this year, even further progress was made with the The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. This law, designed to reduce employers' ability to continue unfair, sex-based discriminatory pay practices, expanded the statute of limitations and closed the legal loophole that allowed employers to continue discriminatory pay practices if previously they haven?t been caught.

Full post as published by Tennessee Law Blog on April 28, 2009 (boomark / email).