Posted on May 13th, 2009 by Tim Eavenson | 1 Comment »
Filed under: ., Discrimination, HR Issues | 
In the early days, Current Employment focused much of its attention on a stream of bizarre employment lawsuits and news stories that we’d constantly stumble across. (See, e.g., here, here and here.)
In fact, one of the chief inspirations for this blog was Gary Skoning‘s annual “Wacky Employment Cases” reports published in the National Law Journal.
For months, though, we’ve been busy with important legislation and constant economic changes that required seriousness and professionalism. That, and we had a complete lack of content. I can’t remember the last time a wacky story crossed my desk, and I was honestly starting to worry.
Then the ABA Journal drops a bomb like this:
The federal agency in charge of enforcing anti-discrimination laws has taken up the cause of a Texas strip club waitress allegedly illegally fired due to her age.
Some stories just write themselves.
According to the Houston Chronicle story cited by the Journal, 56-year-old Mary Brassi had worked for AHD Houston, which owned 5 area strip clubs (an impressive amount for any city), since 1993. She was earning near six figures waiting tables at a club called Cover Girls. She was popular with the customers. She sold a lot of drinks. But for all her success, according to the EEOC, she got called “old” by her bosses, and teased about menopause and Alzheimer’s. Then the club started bringing in “younger women” and giving them the prime shifts.
And then in 2006, they let her go. Just like that. Imagine – a 15-year veteran of the Houston live adult entertainment community, tossed out into the blaring sun and uncomfortable gravel parking lot like a best man who got too “handsy”. Wondering if she’d get to serve $13 bottles of beer to distracted drunk guys with expense accounts ever again.
Refusing to go down quietly, Brassi brought her case to the EEOC and the agency investigated. Last week, they filed suit on her behalf. And this, of course, is the moral of the story: it doesn’t matter who you are, or what your job is; you can always go to the EEOC for help. And it doesn’t matter what sort of business you’re in; if you employ people, the EEOC can always come knocking. That’s their job, after all.
Although, if recent events are any indication, the EEOC may be superseded by karma this time around. According to the Chronicle, Brassi (now 59) is waiting tables for a competitor.
As for Cover Girls? Burned to the ground. In 2007.
Posted on January 29th, 2009 by Tim Eavenson | 1 Comment »
Filed under: ., Discrimination, HR Issues, Politics |
This morning, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law. It was the first bill Obama has signed since taking office.
Joining him at the signing ceremony were, among others, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, First Lady Michelle Obama, and Lilly Ledbetter herself, who is seen on the video receiving the signatory pen.
The law is intended to reverse the Supreme Court decision, also bearing Ledbetter’s name, that plaintiffs in discrimination cases must bring their claims within 180 days from the initial discriminatory act. Under the newly-signed revision, claimants have 180 days since the most recent discriminatory act. This difference means that employees like Ledbetter, who worked for years without knowing she was being paid unequally, have 180 days from their last paycheck to file suit.
A couple of important notes about the Ledbetter Act:
- It is not limited to gender discrimination. The law changes the filing limitations in all major antidiscrimination statutes, including the Americans with Disabilities and Age Discrimination in Employment Acts.
- It doesn’t change the amount a plaintiff can recover. That is still limited under most statutes to damages dating 2-years back from the date the claimant files a charge.
- The law is designed to be retroactive, applying to cases initiated anytime on or after May 28, 2007 (the day before the Supreme Court’s decision). What this means for the cases that have been dismissed in the interim, or for Ledbetter herself, in unclear. (Some have suggested that she wins nunc pro tunc. I’m not so sure.) Expect this point to be litigated agressively and soon.
Posted on January 28th, 2009 by Tim Eavenson | No Comments »
Filed under: ., Discrimination, HR Issues, Politics |
[More coverage: President Obama Signs Ledbetter Fair Pay Act]
Yesterday, the House voted 250-177 to send the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to the President’s desk. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, President Obama has indicated he will sign the bill tomorrow, making it the first major legislation approved under his tenure.
Named for the Plaintiff in a Supreme Court case the law effectively overturns, The Ledbetter Act alters the major discrimination laws – Title VII, the ADA, ADEA and the Rehabilitation Act – to make clear that each unequal paycheck an employee receives is a new discriminatory act, effectively continuing the statute of limitations for as long as the person is employed or receiving benefits from the company.
The Court had interpreted the original Act’s language, that the statute of limitations started at the time of “the alleged unlawful employment practice,” to mean that an employee had to bring a claim within 180 days of the initial decision to provide them unequal pay. Which meant Ledbetter, who was tipped off to her unequal pay at 70, months before retirement, was years too late to bring a valid claim.
Congress’s vote fell mainly along party lines; this was a statute that President Bush had vowed to veto had he seen it last year.
Republicans are concerned that the change will lead to stale lawsuits that are hard, if not impossible, to defend. Management-side attorneys are warning their clients that employee records that used to be cleared for shredding will now have to be stored indefinitely.
Proponents of the bill, including most Democrats, women’s-rights groups and organized labor, say the Ledbetter Act will finally provide the right statutory protection to level the playing field with regard to pay. The view was succinctly summed up by Senator Barabara McKulski of Maryland (the bill’s chief sponsor in the Senate) in the N.Y. Times:
“If you don’t want to be sued, don’t discriminate.”
This early passage of such a controversial bill is heralding a wave of legislation that’s likely to come throughout the year. Democrats have been holding onto similar bills until a more favorable climate arose for their passage, and have clearly found it in the new President and their increased power in both Houses of Congress.
The bulk effect of these changes may be a shift of power under U.S. labor and employment law away from business and into the hands of employees and their labor representatives.
