Legal Commentary

McCain/Palin on Equal Pay

By TChris

A number of TalkLeft posts have focused on the need for legislation to reverse the Supreme Court's Ledbetter decision. That decision severely limits the ability of wage discrimination victims to sue their employers. Barack Obama co-sponsored legislation to correct the problem.

John McCain opposes the legislation. Today we learned that Sarah Palin joins him in that position.

The McCain campaign said Sunday that the presidential candidate and Palin support equal pay for women even though they do not think the 180-day limit for filing complaints should be changed.

In other words, they support equal pay as a theory, but they don't support an effective remedy for women who don't discover within 180 days that they are being paid less than male employees doing the same work. McCain and Palin want to continue to give discriminating employers an easy way to avoid the law: keep pay decisions secret for 180 days, and they get a pass for their illegal conduct. It's nice to know that some things never change, including Republican support for business interests over employees' rights.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on August 31, 2008 (boomark / email).