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Tougher battles ahead for labor after early win

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Photo by AP Photo/Ron Edmonds

President Barack Obama applauds Lilly Ledbetter, left, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009, in the East Room at the White House after signing Lilly Ledbetter Bill for equal pay for equal work.

WASHINGTON — Lilly Ledbetter, a 70-year-old Alabaman with a quick smile and a slow Southern drawl, campaigned for Barack Obama, joined him on the inaugural train trip to Washington and danced with him at an inaugural ball.

She was also at the White House when Obama signed the first bill of his presidency, legislation named after Ledbetter that makes it easier for women and others to seek redress when they are victims of wage discrimination.

"This is only the beginning," Obama said at Thursday's signing ceremony, pledging to fight on for equality in the workplace.

But labor rights advocates, while savoring their quick win after years of battling an antagonistic Bush administration, may not have another Lilly Ledbetter to lead their cause when Congress turns to other, more fiercely contested, efforts to improve the status of workers or the unions trying to organize them.

When asked what's next on the labor agenda, Democratic leaders in Congress instead turn the conversation to bigger bills well beyond the scope of worker rights, such as the $819 billion economic stimulus plan the House passed or health care changes they hope to put together in coming months.

The stimulus plan contains provisions on job creation, job training, health care and extending unemployment benefits. "We think that that is a workplace fairness piece of legislation," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

On specific labor legislation, Democrats have already indicated they will move with caution.

On Jan. 9, the House passed the Ledbetter bill together with a second bill aimed at helping women fight workplace discrimination. Senate Democrats concerned that Republican opposition to the second bill could doom the package, put it aside, taking up only the Ledbetter bill.

Ledbetter, who worked at a Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. plant in Alabama for nearly two decades, discovered near the end of her career that she was getting paid less than men doing the same job. She filed a discrimination claim, but in 2007 the Supreme Court, on a 5-4 vote, threw out her complaint. The court said the statute of limitations for filing expired 180 days after the initial decision by the company to pay her less, even though she did not find out about the discrepancy until years later.

The bill Obama signed Thursday responds to that ruling by clarifying that the 180-day statute of limitations is extended every time an employer issues a discriminatory paycheck.

The second bill, called the Paycheck Fairness Act, puts gender-based discrimination on an equal footing with other forms of discrimination in seeking compensatory and punitive damages. It also puts the burden on employers to prove that any disparities in wages are job-related and not based on gender.

The top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon of California, voiced the concerns of many GOP opponents. "This trial lawyer boondoggle (will) invite more lawyers to bring more lawsuits because it offers them the promise of a bigger payday," he said.

But the sparks generated by that bill are nothing compared to what could be the most spectacular, and most costly, fight of the year, over a bill making it easier for unions to organize workers.

The card check bill — hailed by supporters as the "Employee Free Choice Act" — would take away a company's right to demand a secret ballot election on whether workers want collective bargaining representative by a union. Instead, a union would be certified when the National Labor Relations Board finds that a majority of workers have signed cards designating the union as their bargaining representative.

Organized labor sees the bill as crucial to its recruitment drives. Unions represent about one in eight workers today, down from about one in five 25 years ago, although membership did increase slightly in 2008.

The legislation, said AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, "will give workers the freedom to bargain with their employers for better benefits, wages and job security, and it will allow them, not their company, to decide how to form their union."

Business groups have vowed to do whatever it takes to defeat the bill.

Rhonda Bentz of the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, consisting of more than 500 groups opposing the bill, said they bought several million dollars in ads during the last session of Congress, and plan to spend a similar amount this year.

Keith Smith, director of labor policy for the National Association of Manufacturers, said some Democrats are realizing that "this is a live-fire exercise" where they don't have the cover of the veto threat issued by former President George W. Bush.