From the Washington Post:

The bill, dubbed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, was introduced after a Supreme Court ruling in 2007 rejected a $360,000 award in back pay to Lilly Ledbetter, an Alabama woman who worked for Goodyear Tire and Rubber. Ledbetter had discovered a large gap between her salary and that of her male colleagues, stretching back years.

The discrepancy cost her lost wages and also lowered her retirement earnings because her Social Security and 401(k) contributions were based on her salary. But the court ruled that Ledbetter's case was not allowed under the 1964 Civil Rights Act because the statute of limitations on claims was 180 days after the alleged discrimination took place.

Now for the "Frivolous" piece to this legislation, from the opposition (also in the Post piece), you know those 36 votes against fair and equal pay:

The bill would greatly ease the statute-of-limitations requirements -- too much so, said Republican opponents, who warned that civil courts would be clogged with frivolous lawsuits.

The funny thing about their opposition is that I don't think they realize that they have just told all women who have suffered with lower pay that suing over the issue is frivolous.

FRIVOLOUS?!

I don't think I need Republicans or any men telling me what is or isn't FRIVOLOUS. I'm not a child. I'm not a little girl who can't tell the difference between wanting and needing and what is fair or what is just.

So, to the opposition party, Please, Take YOUR FRIVOLOUS Attitude and Shove it up...wait, no, wait, I'm not one of those people who swear and curse and slam their idiotic opponents up against walls for their stupidity, instead, let me just say, WHATEVER, let's celebrate what has just happened. Let's get back to the positive.

From a statement form Debra Ness and the National Partnership for Women and Families:

The Senate took an enormous step forward to restore fair pay protections by passing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act this evening.

...

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is a modest and targeted response to a harmful and unjust U.S. Supreme Court ruling that made it just about impossible for victims of pay discrimination to seek justice in the courts, no matter how severe the discrimination they face. Today, the Senate stood with the American people and committed to ending workplace discrimination.

Well said. It could have gone further, but this is a good first step to turning back 8 years of hell and degradation. It's measured and opens just enough of the statute to ensure that women who find out that they have been wronged get justice. Something that is anything but frivolous.

Way to go Senate. Can't wait to see the picture of Lilly and President Obama together as he signs that act into LAW!

Read More...

Damn Straight:

To recap: We're in the midst of a global financial crisis. The housing bubble has burst and prices have collapsed. The economy has been in recession for a year. Unemployment has risen to 6.7 percent, and if "marginally attached" workers are included -- those who have given up even looking for jobs -- along with those who want to work full time but are forced to accept fewer hours, the rate is 12.5 percent.


Even if the Big Three deserve to die, they shouldn't die now. Economic theory notwithstanding, it would be insanity to throw hundreds of thousands of auto company employees, and maybe a few million others in the supply and sales chains, out of work -- leaving them and their families at the mercy of an economy that has no replacement jobs for them. Public funds would end up supporting these people anyway, except that we would have lost our domestic auto industry -- which, despite its many failings, is the only domestic auto industry we've got.

What the auto companies need is something on the order of $14 billion to survive until the Obama administration takes office and is able to address the crisis in a more systematic way. That sounds like a lot of money, but it's a rounding error in the context of the ongoing financial meltdown. We've already agreed to spend up to $700 billion to bail out Wall Street.

And dude, I've been saying this for the last several weeks...where was the Senate Outrage on the Republican side of Wall Street Salaries, CEO salaries or Dealership sweetheart deals? There was none. Corker even took off the table one of the biggest pieces of the pie, dealerships. Not that I'd want to see service department staff and mechanics to go unemployed, but if the line worker's on the table for a compromis, so the fuck is the dealership, CEO pay and all those salaries on Wall Street and in the Banking industry, and more from Eugene Robinson's piece in the post:

Funny, I don't recall a cry from Senate Republicans for salary caps on the stockbrokers whose jobs were saved in the Wall Street bailout. Nor, to my knowledge, have they demanded that white-collar workers in the auto companies take pay cuts. I do recall lectures from some Republicans in the Senate about how inadvisable it is for government to meddle in the workings of the free market. In my book, renegotiating labor contracts qualifies as meddling.

Yeah, what he said.

Read More...

An American Axle family memebr sent me an e-mail this morning about the bridge loan that Seante Republicans decided not to allow to come to the floor for a vote. It reminded me of Katrina and how Bush and McCain celebrated McCain's birthday while New Orleans flooded. By deciding NOT to debate the bill, a bill with a Majority of Senators in favor of (more than even a simple majority) and only 35 voting against, it's a just a wonder how significant cuts in wages without ANY cuts in dealerships is an acceptable path to anything, anything except Bankruptcy. Oh, wait, that's what they want, for GM and Chrysler to go bankrupt, that way, the judge can lift the wait of the union's negotiated contracts. Oh, the bitter chains of worker rights.

So, anyway, after venting a little about the Shelby staffers not knowing a damn thing about the 11 week American Axle strike (88 days), or how it shut down more than 30 GM plants in the US, Canada and Mexico AND how GM had to step in and work out a deal with Dick E-boy Dauch, well, I'd had it. Had it up to HERE. That's when I got another e-mail about the White House trying to pull the same shit Corker and Shelby and McConnell just pulled in the Senate. Workers make concessions, but for some reason, GM and Chrysler are still going to be under the oppressive Dealership agreements they suffer with and that were taken off the table by Corker.

You see, they want to see the UAW agree to these concessions because they believe that doing so means that the Employee Free Choice Act will fail, from the Detroit Free News (which I can't believe I'm even linking to?!)

"We can see ample political logic (from the point of view of the Republican minority) for imposing strings along the lines of the Corker proposals. By including strings around union concessions, the Bush administration would be setting up a political challenge for the incoming Obama administration," he said. "If the new administration leaves the strings in place, they would risk union ire, upsetting a large constituency that was helpful in winning the White House and a larger Senate majority. On the other hand, if the new administration were to introduce new legislation to override the strings, it could create a political stage for Republicans to argue that a 'union giveaway' was in progress. Moreover, this would focus public attention on union demands, perhaps making it harder to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow union organization by way of signature cards as opposed to secret ballots."

Okay, so it's not like I didn't know this already, in fact, I said as much last night at the DCLabor council delegate's meeting. Drowning GM is the only way to exact the kind of political relevance they think they can get. Kind of like drowning New Orleans. Remember the pictures of "looters" and the talk about how "those" folks didn't get out of town before the storm? As if every one had the ability to leave or resources to stay elsewhere.

I suppose this is what Grover Norquist meant by saying:

"to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

Is this really what they want?

Do you want to watch us drown? Is that it? Do want to see the last gurgle of economic air spit from our lips? If so, senators, know this: You’ll go down with us. America isn’t America without an auto industry. You can argue whether $14 billion would have saved it, but you surely tried to kill it.

Well, what happens if they actually get thier wish? What happens if in their pettiness, anger and ridiculous behavior they actually get their wish? Instead of just GM or Chrysler drowning, we all drown?

In the end, their actions taken were based on a political expedience, one that they hope will cause the Employee Free Choice Act to die before it's even brought to the floor. And this is what they really care about...ensuring that there is a permanant underclass, to hell with the middle class represented by workers in the auto industry.

Don't worry Shelby. McConnell and Corker, in a few more weeks, you'll head right back into utter obscurity, a place you belong.

Read More...