Breaking: Senate Republicans Block Debate, Kill Paycheck Fairness Act

Senate Republicans used the filibuster to kill the Paycheck Fairness Act that would have made sure that laws requiring equal pay for women are enforced and would have helped women in their claims for pay fairness.

GOPers unanimously refused to let the bill be debated and proceed to a “yes or no” vote on the Senate floor. That included Republican Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe (Maine) and Kay Bailey Hutchinson (Tex.), plus one Democrat, Ben Nelson (Neb.) (Alaska GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski did not vote.)

Today, 45 years after passage of the Equal Pay Act, women still earn, on average, 77 cents for every dollar earned by men, the National Women’s Law Center said. “In this difficult economy, in which nearly 40 percent of mothers are primary breadwinners, women cannot afford to have employers discounting their salaries,” the center said.

The Paycheck Fairness Act would have given women the right to know what their male colleagues earn so that they’ll also know whether they’re experiencing discrimination. Without the Paycheck Fairness Act, an employer still can retaliate against or even fire an employee who just wants to know what her co-workers are earning.

Shades of Lilly Ledbetter. Ledbetter for two decades earned far less than men at Goodyear doing the same job, but was blocked from getting back pay by a Supreme Court decision that said she had no right to sue 20 years later, even though the discrimination was ongoing. In other words, she should have sued immediately, even though she didn’t know she was being paid less than her male colleagues. The Lilly Ledbetter Act, which fixed this backward thinking, was the first legislation signed by President Obama.