[Senate Hearing 110-802]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 110-802
BARRIERS TO JUSTICE: EXAMINING EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 23, 2008
__________
Serial No. J-110-120
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman
EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
HERB KOHL, Wisconsin CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California JON KYL, Arizona
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois JOHN CORNYN, Texas
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
Bruce A. Cohen, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Stephanie A. Middleton, Republican Staff Director
Nicholas A. Rossi, Republican Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Page
Durbin, Hon. Richard J., a U.S. Senator from the State of
Illinois....................................................... 5
Feingold, Hon. Russell D., a U.S. Senator from the State of
Wisconsin, prepared statement.................................. 56
Feinstein, Hon. Dianne, a U.S. Senator from the State of
California..................................................... 4
prepared statement........................................... 59
Leahy, Hon. Patrick J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont. 1
prepared statement........................................... 63
Specter, Hon. Arlen, a U.S. Senator from the State of
Pennsylvania................................................... 3
WITNESSES
Ledbetter, Lilly, retired Goodyear Tire Employee, Jacksonville,
Alabama........................................................ 6
Lorber, Lawrence Z., Partner, Proskauer Rose LLP, Washington,
D.C............................................................ 8
Mehri, Cyrus, Partner, Mehri & Skalet, PLLC, Washington D.C...... 10
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Responses of Lilly Ledbetter to questions submitted by Senators
Leahy and Specter.............................................. 20
Responses of Lawrence Z. Lorber to questions submitted by Senator
Specter........................................................ 24
Responses of Cyrus Mehri to questions submitted by Senators
Specter and Leahy.............................................. 33
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
American Civil Liberties Union, Caroline Fredrickson, Director,
Washington, DC, statement...................................... 50
Clinton, Hon. Hillary Rodham, a U.S. Senator from the State of
New York, statement............................................ 54
Hulteen, Noreen, former Assistant Manager of Pacific Telephone
and Telegraph, statement....................................... 61
Ledbetter, Lilly, retired Goodyear Tire Employee, Jacksonville,
Alabama, statement............................................. 65
Lorber, Lawrence Z., Partner, Proskauer Rose LLP, Washington,
D.C., statement................................................ 68
Mehri, Cyrus, Partner, Mehri & Skalet, PLLC, Washington D.C.,
statement (Exhibit 2, 3, and 4, is being retained in the
Committee files.).............................................. 87
BARRIERS TO JUSTICE: EXAMINING EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK
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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2008
U.S. Senate,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m., in
room SH-216, Hart Senate Office Building, Hon. Patrick J.
Leahy, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Leahy, Feinstein, Durbin, Cardin, and
Specter.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PATRICK J. LEAHY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
THE STATE OF VERMONT
Chairman Leahy. Good morning. I want to thank everybody for
being here, and, Ms. Ledbetter, Mr. Lorber, and Mr. Mehri,
thank you all for being here this morning.
Seeing Senator Specter here and Senator Durbin, the
Assistant Majority Leader, and Senator Feinstein, who is coming
in slowly after a broken ankle, we had offered this hearing
room to Senator Dodd, the Chairman of the Banking Committee
because they also have a matter of some significance on today.
But I think they have taken the large Dirksen room. I am told
that this place actually was not large enough for the overflow
there.
I have tried as Chairman to have a series of hearings
showing how court decisions which we just read about in the
papers, but how they affect Americans' everyday lives. Today,
in addition to the Supreme Court, we are going to examine the
importance of the Federal courts of appeal, since the Supreme
Court only hears about 75 cases a year, and the courts of
appeal, of course, hear thousands of them.
You would think especially now that equal pay for equal
work would be a given in this country. Whatever work you do, no
matter who is doing it, man or woman, they should be paid the
same for the same kind of work. But the reality is still far
from the basic principle. My friend Jill Biden reminded us all
recently that American women still earn only 77 cents for every
dollar earned by a male counterpart, and that decreases to 62
cents on the dollar for African American women and down to 53
cents on the dollar for Hispanic American women. Mrs. Biden is
right to say that equal pay is not just a women's issue; it is
a family issue.
So I am pleased to welcome to today's hearing a brave woman
who is a champion for equal pay. I had a chance to have a long
chat with Lilly Ledbetter earlier this morning. She embodies
the classic American story. Let me just tell you about that.
She was a working mother in a Goodyear tire plant. After
decades of flawless service, she learned through an anonymous
note that her employer had been discriminating against her for
years. She was repeatedly deprived of equal pay for equal work.
That affected her family, and, of course, the discrimination
for all those years on her pay affects today her retirement
pay.
A jury of her peers found that Lilly Ledbetter had been
deprived of over $200,000 in pay. They ordered the corporation
to pay her additional damages for their blatant misconduct.
Incredibly, the United States Supreme Court overturned stepped
in--remember, they only take 75 cases a year, but, boy, they
wanted to step in on this one, and they overturned that jury
verdict. They created a bizarre interpretation of our civil
rights laws, and they ignored the realities of the American
workplace.
Her employer, Goodyear Tire, will never be held accountable
for its illegal activities. The Court's ruling sends a signal
to other corporations that they can discriminate with impunity,
so long as they keep their illegal activities hidden long
enough. That is not the way it should be in America.
The current Supreme Court seems increasingly willing to
overturn juries who heard the factual evidence and decided the
case. In employment discrimination cases, statistics show that
the Federal courts of appeal are 5 times more likely to
overturn an employee's favorable trial verdict against her
employer than they are to overturn a verdict in favor of the
corporation. That is a startling disparity for those of us who
expect the employees and the employers to be treated fairly by
the judges sitting on our appellate courts.
Set to be argued before the Supreme Court this fall are
several more cases affecting women whose very livelihoods hang
in the balance. In addition to cases involving domestic
violence protections and Title IX, they will consider cases
that involve: whether retired employees should be penalized for
leave they took related to their pregnancies; whether a
children's musician, who plays the guitar, who had her arm
amputated has any right to recover against the drug company
that negligently caused her injury that caused her to lose an
arm; and whether an employee asked to participate in an
internal sexual harassment investigation could be fired simply
because she reported sexual harassment in her workplace.
Now, when corporations discriminate against women paycheck
after paycheck, it should not be tolerated. The civil rights
protections enacted by Congress must be made real by
enforcement. And one of the basic civil rights should be equal
pay for equal work.
Our courts are an essential mechanism to enforce the civil
rights laws that Congress has passed--laws that protect women,
the elderly, minorities, and the disabled. The rulings are
reduced to hollow words on a page if judges issue rulings like
the one rendered by the Supreme Court in Lilly Ledbetter's
case.
A few months ago when the Senate tried to correct the
Supreme Court's unjust decision in the Ledbetter case, we fell
just a few votes short of breaking through the Republican
filibuster of that legislation. And a senior Republican Senator
who was not present for the vote, and who thus effectively
supported the filibuster, claimed that the real problem is not
discrimination, but just all those women need more training. I
mean, this is outrageous in this day and age. You should hear
what my wife and my daughter say about something like this.
And for those of us who know that women are more educated
and better trained than ever before, it is a surprising
perspective. Despite their training women still receive only 77
cents for every dollar that men make for the exact same work.
So I hope that today's hearing will be a chance to recognize
the realities of the American workplace, the importance of
fairness, and the indispensable role that our Federal courts
play in making sure that all Americans receive equal pay for
equal work.
As the economy continues to worsen, many Americans are
struggling to put food on the table, gas in their cars, and
money in their retirement funds. And it is sad that recent
decisions handed down by the Supreme Court and Federal
appellate courts have contributed to the financial struggles of
so many women and their families. I remind these judges they
all get paid the same, and they get lifetime pay. They ought to
look at the realities of the people in the workplace.
[The prepared statement of Senator Leahy, appears as a
submission for the record.]
Senator Specter.
STATEMENT OF HON. ARLEN SPECTER, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE
OF PENNSYLVANIA
Senator Specter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I join you in welcoming our witnesses here today. I believe
that the legislation which would have given Ms. Lilly Ledbetter
a cause of action without being precluded by the statute of
limitations, that legislation is sound and ought to be enacted.
And I say that because every time Ms. Ledbetter received a
check which was of a lesser amount than people in similar
situations, she was discriminated against. And it seems to me
that the logic of the situation favored the four dissenters in
her case. Each time she was paid, she was paid less than a man
in a comparable situation.
I think that a construction ought to be employed which
gives the maximum realistic protection to women in the
workplace. We all know the problems that women have and the
glass ceiling and the difficulties which are involved so that
where there is discrimination, there ought not to be a
technicality on statute of limitations, especially such a short
statute of limitations as 6 months to preclude a recovery.
The issue is a hard one, obviously, but my view is that
that would be the appropriate way to administer this important
area of law.
I regret that I am not going to be able to stay to hear the
witnesses. This is supposedly the last week in our session, and
it is a very tumultuous week with very, very heavy engagements
on the economic crisis, which I am working on this morning. And
we are trying to wrap up a lot of business in the Judiciary
Committee, and it is one of the burdens of chairmanship that
the Chairman has to stay. I would welcome that burden, but it
is not mine, at least for the moment. But staff will be here,
and we will be reviewing the testimony and following this
important issue very closely.
[The prepared statement of Senator Specter appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Leahy. When Senator Specter says that it is a
somewhat tumultuous week, I chuckled because that is sort of a
New England understatement. It is a wild week, and I appreciate
him taking the time to come.
If Senator Durbin has no objection, Senator Feinstein is
the only woman on the Judiciary Committee panel, and she serves
with distinction here and also is one of our crossover members
on the Intelligence Committee.
Senator Feinstein, did you have anything you would like to
add?
STATEMENT OF HON. DIANNE FEINSTEIN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Senator Feinstein. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
would.
I would like to say thank you, Ms. Ledbetter, thank you for
doing what you are doing. Those of us who have looked at the
history of our Nation know that women have had to fight for
virtually everything they have received. In the early days of
our Nation, women could not inherit property, women could not
get a higher education; and, of course, until 1920, women could
not vote in this country. The discrimination in the workplace
still exists.
I was of the generation that went out into the workforce in
the mid-1950s and found that women need not apply, that it
really did not matter how much graduate work you had for a
given job. The belief was that a woman really could not do the
job and do the job well. And there still is a legacy, I think,
in our country of that problem.
Lower paychecks are not the only problem. In a recession,
it has been shown that women actually suffer disproportionately
under almost any economic measure. As a matter of fact, as of
April of this year, women were losing jobs faster than men;
women's wages were falling more rapidly than men's; women were
disproportionately at risk for foreclosure and 32 percent more
likely to receive subprime mortgages than men; women had fewer
savings than men; and non-married women had a net worth 48
percent lower than non-married men.
Once retired, women actually find themselves in greater
jeopardy. On average, we live 7 years longer than men, but we
receive significantly fewer retirement benefits.
Among women above retirement age, some do not receive any
benefits at all because they have spent their working years
inside the home caring for their children. Women who did work
outside the home were often paid significantly less than their
male counterparts. Their pension checks, of course, reflect
that fact, and they are lower than those of their male
colleagues.
The problem is compounded even further, I believe, by bad
company practices that leave women with no benefits at all for
some periods during their careers. Before Congress passed the
Pregnancy Discrimination Act, many employers refused to
recognize women's health issues as health issues. These
companies denied women benefits for the weeks or even months
that they were forced home due to pregnancy-related medical
issues.
So these problems really deserve our attention. Ms.
Ledbetter, it is so important that you have done what you have
done, because you cannot possibly know your check is lower
until you know it. And if there is a statute of limitations
that ends your rights before you have an opportunity to know
that you were not paid equally or fairly or rightly, then you
are sunk, so to speak.
I think you have raised a critical issue in our country. We
now have a two-person family workplace. Generally, to earn
enough money, both people in a household have to work in this
economy. So it is critically important that we change the rules
of the workplace to be able to reflect that, and I think you
have struck a blow.
As you know, Senator Kennedy has a bill to reverse the
Supreme Court's decision in your case. Many of us are
cosponsors of that bill, and it might not pass this session,
but I believe it will in the next session.
So I just want to say thank you very much for what you have
done. Be courageous and stand tall and hang tough.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Senator Feinstein appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Leahy. Thank you. And, Senator Durbin, thank you
for your courtesy in letting Senator Feinstein go first. I will
yield to you.
STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD J. DURBIN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF ILLINOIS
Senator Durbin. Thank you to all the panel for being here.
This Committee approves judges and even Supreme Court
Justices, and people come before us and say, You know, I am
just going to call the balls and the strikes, just call them as
I see them. You know, we just take the law and apply it. You
know, it is really pretty simple.
And look what happened to you. One of the Supreme Court
Justices--in fact, the Chief Justice, who said he was just
going to call the balls and strikes, obviously decided who was
going to win the ball game before the first pitch. And in this
case, it was your employer, because the standard that they held
you to was inconsistent with the law as it has been written and
interpreted, and it is inconsistent with common sense. And you
are going to tell us about that, as you have so many times, and
I am glad you are doing it. You put a face on an issue, and you
have also dramatized why elections are important. Presidents
pick judges. Judges interpret laws. If a President picks a
judge who comes to it with a certain prejudice, people like you
lose. And that is what happened. That is a simple fact. And all
these folks who talk about strict construction and, man, we are
going to stick by the law and just trust me, you know, we are
going to call the balls and the strikes--well, unfortunately,
you are out and they are still in. But we have got a chance to
change it.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Senator Durbin appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Leahy. Thank you very much.
Our first witness, as we have already said, is going to be
Lilly Ledbetter, who worked at a Goodyear tire plant in Alabama
for more than 20 years. She became the first woman to be
promoted to supervisor. Now, that was a plus for them. What she
was not told, of course, was that she was being paid less than
her male counterparts. And she turned to the courts for
justice. The Supreme Court denied her claim. Today she is a
tireless advocate for fair pay.
Ms. Ledbetter, please go ahead, and hit that talk button
and it is all yours.
STATEMENT OF LILLY LEDBETTER, RETIRED GOODYEAR TIRE EMPLOYEE,
JACKSONVILLE, ALABAMA
Ms. Ledbetter. Thank you. My name is Lilly Ledbetter, and I
appreciate this opportunity to testify. I am sorry to say that
I am a living example of the fact that pay discrimination
continues to be a pervasive problem in the workplace. In
addition, my case illustrates the barriers that courts put in
the way when workers try to vindicate their civil rights.
I began working as a supervisor in the Goodyear tire plant
in Gadsden, Alabama, in 1979. I worked for Goodyear for almost
20 years. I worked hard and was good at my job, but it was not
easy. I was only one of a handful of women supervisors, and I
faced obstacles and harassment that my male peers did not have
to endure. Although I only found out about it later, I also was
subjected to pay discrimination for virtually the entire time I
worked at Goodyear.
When I first started, the managers got the same pay, so I
knew I was getting paid as much as the men. But then Goodyear
switched to a pay system that was supposed to be based on
performance where people doing the same jobs got paid
differently. Like most employers, Goodyear knew all the facts.
It knew who was making what. It made the decisions about how
much to pay each manager, and it knew whether its pay system
was based on performance or something else. But the workers
didn't know. In fact, Goodyear prohibited us from discussing
our salaries.
I only started to get some hard evidence when someone left
an anonymous note in my mailbox showing that three other male
managers were getting paid between 15 percent and 40 percent
more than I was.
I thought about just moving on, but I just could not let
Goodyear get away with their discrimination. So I filed a
complaint with the EEOC and afterward went to court.
It wasn't until I filed my case that I finally was able to
learn what Goodyear had known for years: that it was paying me
a lot less than all of the men doing the same work. Goodyear
claimed that it was because I was a poor performer. That wasn't
true, and the jury didn't believe it. They found that Goodyear
had violated Title VII and awarded me the money I was owed.
But Goodyear appealed the verdict, and the Eleventh Circuit
Court of Appeals and then five Justices of the Supreme Court
ruled that although I continued to be paid less than the men
right up to the date I filed my charge, I had complained too
late. According to these judges, any pay discrimination
complaint must be filed within about 6 months of the first time
a worker gets a discriminatory paycheck--no matter how long the
discrimination continues, no matter how much damage it causes
the worker, and no matter how much the employer knows that it
is getting away with, and profiting from, its unlawful conduct.
This ruling just does not make sense in the real world. At
a lot of places, you could get fired for asking your coworkers
how much money they were making, and it is the employers, not
the employees, who know how much they are paying each worker
and who have the chance to correct any disparities.
The end result of the Court's ruling is that employers can
pay workers less than they are entitled to for their entire
careers and then pocket the difference. Equally disturbing, the
higher courts rejected what had been the law in every part of
the country. I am not a lawyer, but my counsel told me it was
settled law that an employee could challenge each
discriminatory paycheck she received. In fact, the law was so
clear that the EEOC intervened on my side before the Eleventh
Circuit.
But the Supreme Court took a law that had been applied to
protect people like me and created a loophole big enough for
employers to drive a truck through. And my case is only the tip
of the iceberg. Companies have gotten the Supreme Court's
message loud and clear. They will not be punished for pay
discrimination if they do it long enough and cover it up well
enough. Women from all over the country have told me how they
are paid less for doing the same job as their male colleagues.
And now there is nothing they can do. And courts have applied
the Supreme Court's ruling in my case to all different kinds of
cases, not just pay discrimination cases.
The Senate can restore the promise that the Supreme Court
broke in my case by enacting the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act,
a bill that simply restores the law to what it was before the
Court's decision. The Senate can also restore the promise of
the laws more broadly by insisting that judges understand the
real world and are committed to upholding longstanding legal
protections.
My case is over. I will never receive the pay I deserve
from Goodyear. But Congress has the power to ensure that what
happened to me never happens to anyone else. I am honored to be
here today, and thank you for the opportunity to testify before
this Committee. I am very grateful from the bottom of my heart
for this opportunity.
Thank you, each one of you, for being here.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Ledbetter appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Leahy. Thank you very much, Ms. Ledbetter, and I
appreciated very much the opportunity to talk with you about
this before the hearing.
Lawrence Lorber is a partner in the Washington, D.C.,
office of Proskauer Rose LLP. He is an employment law
practitioner. He counsels and represents employers in
connection with all aspects of labor and employment law. He was
formerly Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor and Director of
the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs during
President Ford's administration.
Good to have you here, sir. Please go ahead.
STATEMENT OF LAWRENCE Z. LORBER, PARTNER, PROSKAUER ROSE LLP,
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. Lorber. Good morning, Chairman Leahy, members of the
Committee. I am pleased to be here. As the Chairman said, my
name is Lawrence Lorber, and I am a partner in the law firm of
Proskauer Rose here in Washington.
The laudable goal of equal pay for equal work that we are
discussing today is one that I am personally familiar with.
Prior to entering private law practice, I served as the
Director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs
and a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Department of Labor.
The OFCCP enforces an Executive order which prohibits
discrimination and requires affirmative action by Federal
contractors, in addition to requiring affirmative action and
prohibiting discrimination on the basis of disabled and veteran
status.
During my tenure at the OFCCP, policies asserting that
agency's authority to retrieve back pay for employees were
formulated and successfully litigated. In 1990 and 1991, I was
counsel to the Business Roundtable for the discussions which
led to the 1991 Civil Rights Act, which reversed, I believe, 11
Supreme Court decisions and resulted in a marked change in
employment discrimination law. And most recently, I have served
as the Chair of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's EEO Committee
and, as such, have been involved--it has been my privilege to
be involved with the recently enacted Americans with
Disabilities Amendments Act.
I wish to discuss very briefly three points.
First is the impact of H.R. 1338, the Paycheck Fairness
Act, simply as an example of a purported response to a problem,
which I believe neither responds to the problem nor creates an
appropriate legal framework to address equal pay concerns.
Second, I would like to briefly mention a series of Supreme
Court decisions all of which have served to vastly expand the
rights of employees, in particular expand and redefine the
concept of retaliation under various employment laws which
could deal with many problems, including perhaps some addressed
by Ms. Ledbetter.
And, third, I wish to briefly discuss the issue of class
actions and what they do in reality to employment
discrimination.
The Paycheck Fairness Act. We have heard a lot about it. We
are told that this will restore the law to the way it was
before the Ledbetter decision. With all due respect, I do not
believe that is the case. The Paycheck Fairness Act really
changes the notion and the whole thrust of the Equal Pay Act,
which is an Act which prohibits denial of equal pay for equal
work without any necessity to prove intent by employers. That
is a critical element and something that should not be
cavalierly cast away. The Equal Pay Act finds its genesis not
in 1963, but really back to the War Labor Board in the 1940s,
when the issue was when women were entering the workplace and
performing tasks not heretofore then performed by women they
were required to receive equal pay. The War Labor Board
established principles then which carry forward to 1963 and
carry forward today that equal pay for equal work is the law
and intent has nothing to do with that concept. So that we have
a structure to deal with this issue, I think we may look to
some legal issues involving litigation as to how you deal with
it. But, nevertheless, that has been the law since 1963,
predating Title VII, and it is the law today.
In terms of the Paycheck Fairness Act, I just want to
briefly talk about three elements of that.
First, it would eliminate caps on punitive and compensatory
damages. The Congress addressed that issue in 1991 when it
passed the Civil Rights Act, established appropriate caps to
respond to the individual harms that individuals who were found
to have their rights violated and they could be recompensed
for. Unlimited caps, unlimited damages does nothing to preserve
that; rather, it does simply provide and create a legal lottery
so the very few who get their case in court may get a windfall;
the very many who have to wait in a long line do not receive
anything.
Second, the Paycheck Fairness Act would eliminate employer
responses, defenses, to pay disparities--disparities which
might be occasioned by geographic differences, job differences,
or any of the other types of issues that we address. And it
does bring back before us the concept of comparable work where
we have Government agencies setting compensation and salaries,
not based on the market, not based on the realities of the
workplace, but based on statistical models which may have no
meaning in the real world.
Let me very briefly talk about judicial decisions. Senator
Durbin spoke about it. Mr. Chairman, you spoke about it.
The Supreme Court had a series of decisions in the last 2
years. Most critically, it rewrote the law of retaliation,
established broad coverage for employees who assert their
rights to have a cause of action, even if the underlying cases
that they bring are found without merit. The White case and
other cases that I briefly discuss in my testimony point out
the fact that the Court understands the importance of our
employment laws and understands the importance of retaliation
to prevent violations and to enhance the enforcement of those
laws. We do know that the Supreme Court in the Meacham case
vastly expanded the reach of the Age Discrimination in
Employment Act. So we do not have a Court that is unwilling to
face the law as it finds it, but we do have a Court that tells
the Congress, ``Rewrite the law if you want it, but we cannot
make the law.'' And that to me is the teaching of this Court
because this has been a Court which has countless times
enhanced the rights, at least as it interpreted the laws that
were written, enhanced the rights of employees. But it does not
make the law. And we go back to cases such as Ricks v.
Delaware, go back a long time ago where the Supreme Court said
you have to bring the case when the case arises.
Let me just briefly sum up by saying that employment law,
perhaps unlike other law, tends to be individualized. We look
to the actions of managers--
Chairman Leahy. And we will go into that on our questions.
I must say I somewhat disagree on whether they interpret the
law instead of making the law. We can cite a whole lot of cases
where I feel this Court has made the law in areas that had been
considered for years to be settled law.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lorber appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Leahy. Our next witness is Cyrus Mehri, a founding
partner in the law firm Mehri & Skalet. Mr. Mehri served as
class counsel in the two largest race discrimination class
actions in history: Roberts v. Texaco, Inc. and Ingram v. The
Coca-Cola Company. He is a frequent guest on radio and
television, a guest columnist for Diversity, Inc.
Mr. Mehri, please go ahead.
STATEMENT OF CYRUS MEHRI, PARTNER, MEHRI & SKALET, PLLC,
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. Mehri. Chairman Leahy, thank you for the opportunity to
be here today alongside a genuine American heroine, Lilly
Ledbetter. Her case illustrates a profound problem in the
Federal courts and one that has been documented by a seminal
new Cornell Law study, as well as some case studies I put in my
testimony.
First, the Cornell study, which is in a Harvard law
journal. There are two key takeaways I would like the Committee
to walk away with:
First, the U.S. appellate courts are hostile to American
workers. They treat employee cases very differently than other
cases. When employers win at trial, they show deference to the
fact finder and they reverse them 8 percent of the time. But
when employees win at trial, they reverse them a stunning 41
percent of the time, and these are employees like Ms. Ledbetter
who had their cases vetted by counsel, who overcame motion
practice before going to trial, and convinced the fact finder
that they were discriminated against, and yet the appellate
courts reached down and reversed those trial victories.
This has a chilling effect, a debilitating impact on civil
rights litigants, and the data in this study shows a 37-percent
drop in Federal employment discrimination cases in our court
system.
But Ms. Ledbetter is not alone. There are many other
devastating stories of American workers. One, I would like to
tell you the story of Mr. Anthony Ash and Mr. John Hithon,
African American workers at a Tyson's plant in Alabama. The
citizens who served on that jury heard evidence that these two
employees had greater experience, had longer tenure, and were
loyal employees of the company, and yet they were passed over
for promotions. They also heard evidence of racial animus where
the decisionmaker, their supervisor, would repeatedly call them
``Boy'' in the workplace, to the point that Mr. Ash's spouse
came in and said, ``My husband is a man, not a boy.'' They
heard that evidence. They found discrimination. And yet the
appellate court, the Eleventh Circuit, found that as a matter
of law--a matter of law--that the use of ``Boy'' in the
workplace is not evidence of discrimination. They created a
whole new legal standard that for promotion cases the evidence
has to jump off the page and slap you in the face, a standard
that no law school in America teaches.
Now let me tell you the story of Susan Septimus who worked
in the general counsel's office of the University of Houston.
The Texas citizens serving on that jury heard evidence of a
hostile work environment. They heard that she was forced to
file a grievance with the university, but as soon as she did
that, her supervisor retaliated against her by giving her a low
performance rating, and then even wrote a memo to the file
outlining the plan of retaliation.
The university hired an independent counsel who found
evidence of retaliation and hostile work environment, and the
jury, hearing all that evidence, found that they had retaliated
against Susan Septimus. But, once again, the employer has an
easy recourse. They can go to the court of appeals, and there
the court of appeals reversed this trial outcome. They created
a whole new legal standard that makes it impossible,
essentially, for an employee to show evidence of retaliation.
So Ms. Ledbetter is not alone. There are literally hundreds
of stories like this around the country that are imperiling our
Federal judiciary from being a level playing field for American
workers. Fortunately, I believe there is a path to turn this
around, and that is to cast a completely new prism--create a
new prism in the judicial nomination process, to cast a much
wider net of who the potential nominees are than we currently
do.
Right now we are only drawing from a very narrow pool of
potential nominees. When you do that, you are going to have
skewed outcomes like we have here, a 5:1 disparity against
American workers. And that is not going to change until we
start bringing in nominees who, as part of their life
experience, like Justice Ginsburg, part of their work
experiences have fought to open doors, have fought for American
workers, have fought for the middle-class and have fought for
small businesses. We do not have that in the judiciary right
now. We have a judiciary that is predominantly-the attendance
is predominantly lawyers who have worked for the most powerful.
We have precious few who have worked for people like Ms.
Ledbetter who just want a fair shake in the American judiciary.
Thank you, Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Mehri appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Leahy. Thank you very much.
Ms. Ledbetter, you can tell from my opening statement I am
concerned that the courts reward employers who conceal their
discriminatory conduct from their employees. You had mentioned
to me earlier Justice Ginsburg's dissent, and it is a powerful
dissent. Justice Ginsburg emphasized that pay discrimination is
more pernicious than other forms of job discrimination because
it is hidden from sight. It is not here in the Congress. Pay is
transparent. People can just look up and find out what anybody
is paid. Most private employers conceal pay data.
Now, you said in your testimony that you first heard about
this when somebody left an anonymous note in your mailbox. Is
that correct?
Ms. Ledbetter. That is correct. And the four of us, the
names on that paper, we were doing the exact same job, because
there were four crews, A, B, C, D. And I was one of those
people making 15 to 40 percent less than the other guys.
Chairman Leahy. How did this discriminatory pay affect you,
your family, your retirement?
Ms. Ledbetter. It affected me a great deal while I was
earning a living because I had two children that I needed to
send to college. They needed college educations. They needed
clothes. They needed all of the normal expenses that a family
has during that time. And, also, first-line managers were paid
overtime, being time and a half, double time, triple time. That
cost me a great deal, because when I was working those
extensive hours, I was not getting the money that I was
entitled to. And during that period of time I was working, my
retirement was based on what I earned. My contributory
retirement was based on what I earned. My 401(k) investment was
based on what I earned. And then I learned when I retired that
Social Security was also based on what I earned. And so it
makes me be treated, in my opinion, like a second-class citizen
for all of my life because it never can be changed.
Another thing I learned early on in the process is that
once a person has to file a charge, there is no compensation
that can ever adjust for your retirement losses. They do not
ever consider that in any lawsuit. So that is gone. And I would
have never waited any period of time. I would have gone to
court immediately because I needed the money that I was
entitled to at the time I was working.
Chairman Leahy. Let me ask you a little bit about this. Mr.
Lorber has suggested that the courts are telling the Congress,
well, we are just enforcing the law, you can write the law
differently. But a few months ago, the Senate tried to bring up
legislation to overturn the Supreme Court's decision, and the
Republicans filibustered even proceeding to it. I mentioned in
my opening statement that there is a senior member of the
Senate, a Republican, who did not even bother to show up for
the vote. He claimed the real problem is ``women just need more
job training.''
Now, you worked for this company for 20 years. You were
deprived of over $200,000 in pay. Were you lacking the training
that your male colleagues had to perform that job?
Ms. Ledbetter. No, sir. In fact, I had more training than
most because I saw the discrimination early on, me being the
lone female, so I was a member of a management association that
is national. In fact, I was the first female president that was
ever elected to head up that organization that was 95 percent
men at the time. And we offered a lot of management courses
that were very expensive, and I paid for those. I had over 100
professional courses that I was taking from Auburn University,
University of Alabama, University of Georgia, anyone else that
offered them. I had more training than most people at the
plant.
Chairman Leahy. Would it be safe to say you do not want to
be dismissed by somebody who said, ``I will pay you less just
because you need more training'' ?
Ms. Ledbetter. No, sir. I am very offended by that
statement.
Chairman Leahy. I can imagine.
Ms. Ledbetter. Very offended.
Chairman Leahy. So am I. So am I.
Ms. Ledbetter. And the medical doctor that I participated
in a meeting last weekend in New York, she would agree as well.
She is a physician. She did not need any more education either.
Chairman Leahy. Thank you. My time is up.
Senator Feinstein.
Senator Feinstein. And I am going to try to keep to the
strict time limit here. Thank you very much.
I was interested, Ms. Ledbetter, in what you said to
Senator Leahy, that the way you found out was you received a
note from someone. Is that right?
Ms. Ledbetter. That is correct.
Senator Feinstein. And that note said that you and three
other people were being discriminated against with respect to
your pay?
Ms. Ledbetter. It was just--mine was the only one that had
on it extremely low pay. In fact, at that particular time I
worked, I was a supervisor in the tire room, the only female.
Senator Feinstein. And what percent was your pay below the
men?
Ms. Ledbetter. Between 15 and 40 percent. Some of them were
being paid 40 percent more than mine at that time.
Senator Feinstein. I see. Then what did you do about it?
Who did you talk to at Goodrich about it?
Ms. Ledbetter. I went straight to EEOC.
Senator Feinstein. And what did they say?
Ms. Ledbetter. They did some investigation, and they called
in a few days and said that I had one of the best cases that
they had ever seen, but they were so backlogged that I might
want to consider getting an attorney and going forward.
Senator Feinstein. Did you ever talk to any of the
leadership at the company?
Ms. Ledbetter. They hired an arbitrator from Texas that
called me and made me an offer of $10,000, which that was such
an insult to me, knowing, looking back and calculating how much
money that I had lost, there was no way. I just could not
accept it, and seeing and knowing the injustice, what had been
done to me and other people at that factory. And there were two
other women who testified at my trial. One of them had been a
supervisor during the time that I had been. She had previously
been a union worker and was promoted. She finally had taken all
the harassment that she could stand, and she sold her service.
And at the time she testified for me, she was a supervisor for
Honda in Alabama. But they asked her why she never complained,
and she said, ``Well, if I had complained, I was a divorced
mother with a handicapped son, we live paycheck to paycheck. I
could not afford to miss my check.''
Senator Feinstein. Of course, I am not recommending this,
but the thought does occur that if every working woman were to
take Goodrich tires off of their car, that might sensitize
Goodrich. It is an interesting thing to me that increasingly as
a society becomes more sophisticated, the leadership
substitutes arbitrators--
Chairman Leahy. It was Goodyear. It was Goodyear, not--
Senator Feinstein. Well, all right.
Chairman Leahy. It was Goodyear, not Goodrich. Entirely
different companies.
Senator Feinstein. Yes, right.
Ms. Ledbetter. It was Goodyear.
Chairman Leahy. I do not want to see people pulling the
wrong tires off.
Ms. Ledbetter. Neither do I. Neither do I. But you can pull
the Goodyears off.
[Laughter.]
Senator Feinstein. I am going to check mine. I am going to
go check my tires.
Ms. Ledbetter. You do that.
Chairman Leahy. I can see my wife checking the tires right
now on my car.
Senator Feinstein. But something has to sensitize them, I
think, to this concern. There is no greater issue among working
women, poll after poll after poll has shown, than wage
disparity. And it has got to be changed in our society. And it
is not going to be changed, I believe, by arbitrators and
conciliators and the middlemen.
Ms. Ledbetter. No.
Senator Feinstein. It is going to be changed by the CEO of
the chairman that says this will not go on within our company.
And so I think--aside from the legislation, which I
support--some of us who are in the working women world ought to
put our heads together and see what we might be able to do to
sensitize the top leadership of the company.
Now, having said that, this is a very difficult time
because of what is happening in the investment and Wall Street
community. But notwithstanding that, I think CEOs have to
understand that this is a new day and that women have
tremendous obligations of home support, family support,
tuition, insurance, all kinds of things they have to pay and be
responsible for. So no longer can this be tolerated in the
workforce.
You are leading the way, and, again, I just want to say
thank you very much.
Ms. Ledbetter. Thank you for that. I do appreciate it,
because this will never gain Lilly Ledbetter a dime, what I am
doing today. But I have heard from so many people across this
country, not just in the South. I originally thought it was a
Southern problem. It is not. This is all across the United
States. And we minorities are entitled to be treated fairly and
paid fairly, and it is no longer just the females' problem or
the minorities. It belongs to--it is a family issue because it
affects all aspects of a family. You are exactly right in your
statement. It does affect the whole bit.
Senator Feinstein. Could I ask you one last question?
Ms. Ledbetter. Yes.
Senator Feinstein. What do you figure in terms of back
wages you are entitled to?
Ms. Ledbetter. That I am entitled to?
Senator Feinstein. Yes.
Ms. Ledbetter. It would be very difficult, I would have to
go back and look at all the overtime, because it was not
uncommon for me to work 12-hour shifts. We were on a continuous
operation, and when my peer on the other shift was out, I was
required to work his shift as well as mine. And there was one
3-month period that I worked 3 months, 12 hours at night, and I
was required to be there an hour early and stay over an hour
after the shift. And it was a 35-minute drive to where I lived.
So, needless to say, I did not sleep much or eat much, either.
I was primarily working. So it would be quite a bit.
And then my retirement, my contributory retirement was a
percentage of what I was earning, and Goodyear matched it. And
then the 401(k), I put in 10 percent, which was the max
allowable. And they matched with 6 percent stock. And at that
time in those days, the stock was running around $77 per share.
So I missed a lot of money just on that.
It is a tremendous amount of money.
Chairman Leahy. The jury found $200,000, didn't they?
Ms. Ledbetter. That is correct. And, also, the back pay,
that is another problem that some in the Supreme Court said,
why, people, if this was changed, people would be coming out of
the woodwork filing lawsuits. That is not true because there is
no incentive. I can only go back 2 years. That is the law.
Nothing is changed about that, and I knew that when I filed my
charge on going back for equal pay. You are only entitled to 2
years. And they took, the courts took the lowest-paid person in
the department and calculated my back pay, which would have
been, without overtime, just $60,000. I lost that. The Supreme
Court took that away. They said that we should have had that
all in one--in two different cases. Well, my attorney in
Birmingham, Alabama, started out in two different cases. But
the judge there said put them all together because they would
all come under Title VII, Equal Pay.
And this gentleman is exactly right. Equal Pay passed in
1963. And why in 2008 are so many, so many women not being paid
fairly?
And the other gentleman is exactly right. They are first to
be laid off, they are the first to be cut, their wages and
their work shifts.
Senator Feinstein. Thank you.
Chairman Leahy. Thank you.
Senator Cardin of Maryland is here. Please go ahead.
Senator Cardin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to really thank Senator Feinstein and thank our
Chairman, Senator Leahy, for what they have done throughout
their entire career to speak out and to do everything they can
so that we address the inequities of pay in this country. They
have been true champions, including my senior Senator, Senator
Mikulski, who has been in the forefront on this fight. And I
thank all three of our witnesses for your fighting for this,
and for your continuous support for the right causes.
And I must tell you, Ms. Ledbetter, I think you will have
done more for equal pay than just about any other person. And I
know that you will not benefit directly. But you have done a
lot for our country.
You are right, we have been struggling for this for many
years. I was in the State legislature when we passed an equal
pay statute, and still we have the inequities in our own State.
And the Supreme Court decision in your case is just so
outrageous, it defies logic. How are you expected to be able to
file a claim if you did not know about it, that you were being
discriminated against? That defies just common sense.
And I think Americans understand that what this Nation
stands for, our basic protections of treating people fairly, is
a protected right. And yet the Supreme Court by its 5-4
decision effectively said there is no way to enforce the right
of equal pay for equal work.
And your courage and what you continue to do by being here
as a witness--and I was with you in Denver, and I appreciate
the fact that we got information out, had that opportunity. I
think you have really put the conscience of America behind this
issue, and I really just wanted to thank you for that. You are
right, it is a critical issue for the individual. It is
economic security. If you are not paid fairly, you are being
robbed of the proper compensation for the work that you are
doing. But it affects more than just your paycheck. It affects
your retirement, and we are struggling with economic security
for retirees. And women are at a terrible disadvantage today
because of the compensation issue as one of the major factors
of why women are not as well prepared for retirement security
as their male counterparts.
So it is beyond just the paycheck that you receive. It
affects your entire security. It affects your family's
security. I believe it affects the economic security of
America. I think we are being robbed of the right system, and
it is affecting all of us, and it certainly affects the moral
fiber of our Nation, what we stand for. The principles of
America are very much challenged by these efforts.
So I just really wanted to take the time to be here to
thank all three of you, all three of our witnesses, and to let
you know that we will continue to make sure that this is
corrected. It is important not just for the individuals who are
being discriminated against. This is critically important for
our country. It is what we stand for. It is our highest
priority, protecting the rights of our citizens. And I think
your presence here today gives us additional energy to continue
this battle until we have won.
Thank you.
Ms. Ledbetter. Thank you, sir.
Senator Feinstein. Thank you, Senator Cardin. I think your
words are well stated, and I think we all agree with them.
Senator Leahy just absented himself for a few moments, but
I think unless there are additional things that any member of
the panel has to say--oh, he is back. I was just going to
adjourn the hearing.
Chairman Leahy. Thank you. As we have said, we are all
trying to cover about three different things because of the
financial matters going on. I apologize. I had to return a
phone call on that.
Mr. Mehri, I have read a number of these reports you have
talked about, but I have also looked at this Harvard Law and
Policy Review, ``Employment Discrimination Plaintiffs in
Federal Court: From Bad to Worse? '' You have practiced in this
area for years. Under the Cornell study, Federal courts of
appeals are five times more likely to overturn a trial verdict
in favor of an employee than they are to overturn a verdict in
favor of an employer.
You refer to it basically as an anti-employee bias in our
Federal courts. Is that something that surprises you? You have
practiced there for years.
Mr. Mehri. Chairman Leahy, I knew we had an uphill battle.
But when I found out that there was a 5:1 disparity against
employees from our U.S. appellate courts, I was shocked. And it
pains me because I know the struggles that workers have like
Ms. Ledbetter, hundreds or thousands of employees around the
country who are just trying to get their fair shake in our
Federal courts. And when they overcome all these obstacles to
get to the point where they have a fact finder, they have a
case of substantial merit if the jury or the judge ruled in
their favor, to have these appellate courts this hostile to
employees, finding every way possible to rule against the
employee, rewriting the law, ignoring the deference that one
should have to the fact finder who is there hearing the
witnesses, that shocks me. And it puts our civil justice system
on a very weak foundation and imperils our civil justice
system.
There is a connection between your hearing today, Chairman,
and the other hearings today about the economic crisis, because
what has happened is that ideology has been the No. 1 criteria
for these nominees, now let's have a broader perspective. In
both examples, the workers are the ones who are suffering.
Chairman Leahy. Well, some of us have been troubled by not
just the courts' policy, but in this case, the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission, the EEOC, which, as all three of you
know, is charged with enforcing Title VII, they filed a brief
in support of Ms. Ledbetter before the Eleventh Circuit. But
when it came up to the Supreme Court, the Solicitor General of
the United States, who normally would be expected to support
EEOC's interpretation, he filed a brief against Ms. Ledbetter.
Mr. Mehri. That troubles me, Chairman, because the experts
are the EEOC, and as Justice Ginsburg pointed out in her
dissent, they actually have a common-sense paycheck accrual
rule in part of the EEOC manual. They are the experts. They are
on the front lines. And when the Solicitor General overruled
them between the U.S. Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme
Court, I think that has had a chilling effect on the EEOC on
subsequent cases that are going to go before the Supreme Court.
I caution the Committee to take a look at that because when you
politicize something like this, the losers of it in this
circumstance is America's commitment to civil rights.
Chairman Leahy. Mr. Lorber, I gather you would not agree.
Is that--or do you agree?
Mr. Lorber. No, I do not agree, Mr. Chairman. With all due
respect, you are looking at cases such as Ms. Ledbetter's case
which are cases of procedure, which are cases as to when one
knows the wrong has occurred, when one should bring the case.
Now, the statutes are clear as to when you have to bring
your cases. In employment, evidence gets stale very quickly.
The decisions, with all due respect, are not made by the CEOs.
They are often made by managers in plants throughout the
country. And the notion that you could wait and bring a case 2,
3, 5, 7, 10 years after an act occurred when the actor may no
longer be available to explain why he or she made that act
simply makes no sense.
Chairman Leahy. But doesn't that kind of beg the question?
Ms. Ledbetter did not know about the discrimination. But
Goodyear did know about the discrimination. They knew they were
discriminating. They kept it hidden. She had no way of knowing
it. Workers do not have any incentive to sleep on their rights.
But if the discrimination went on all that time, why shouldn't
they be able to challenge it? Remember, there are four members
of the Supreme Court who obviously disagreed with your
position. Justice Ginsburg wrote a very compelling dissent in
that.
Just as a matter of fairness, I find it difficult that if a
company discriminates against an employee, they keep that
discrimination hidden and do it in such a way that the employee
does not realize they are being discriminated against, and then
when they find out subsequently, the employer can then step
forward and say, ``You should have discovered it before now. We
hid it. We had all the ability to hide it. You had no way of
knowing it. But, gosh, we got away with it.'' Is that fair?
Mr. Lorber. The way you articulate it, I have questions
about it, but I would simply say that there are alternatives.
What is being asked for now is an unlimited time to bring cases
when the evidence simply is stale. You have made it clear
throughout your career, which is distinguished beyond anything
anybody else could aspire to, that you began as a prosecutor.
You know about stale evidence. You know when the evidence has
to be brought.
There are other proposals, I understand, before the Senate,
Senator Hutchison and others talking about discovery rules,
rules which would enable the matter to be brought when and if
the matter is discerned and understood. But what has happened
here, what employers are being asked to deal with are cases
that might be 20 years old. We know, fortunately or not, that
the places of business where the acts occurred may no longer
exist. And to ask that there be liability, this unlimited
liability, liability which simply turns the Equal Pay Act on
its head in a manner that does not reflect what the intent of
these laws were does not seem to make sense.
If, in fact, there are these types of problems, the
Congress dealt with it in--
Chairman Leahy. But there are things--I mean, you talk
about the criminal law and the statute of limitation.
Obviously, there are some cases where the statute of limitation
never runs. Some cases are considered serious enough even if
the case is brought 45 years later, it can still be brought.
And, of course, I agree with you about the difficulty in
finding evidence on that. But there are other cases that are
very specific. The analogy I would use, if somebody flees a
jurisdiction to avoid prosecution, the statute does not start
running in most jurisdictions. I would argue that if you hide
what you are doing, the statute should not run either.
Obviously, we disagree on this point, and obviously, I find the
dissent more compelling than the majority. But I also wanted,
because I knew you disagreed with what Mr. Mehri said, I wanted
you to have a chance to state it.
You talked about the Hutchison bill. Are you familiar with
that bill, Ms. Ledbetter?
Ms. Ledbetter. Yes, sir.
Chairman Leahy. Would that have helped? If that had been
law at the time of your case, would that have helped you?
Ms. Ledbetter. No, sir. No, sir. The only thing that would
have helped me is the law as it was prior to the Supreme Court
ruling the day of the--May 29th, I believe, of 2007. If the law
had stayed like it was and the Supreme Court had interpreted
the law like it had been, I would have been fine. The system
worked for me, and I would like to point out, too, that there
is never an incentive for anybody to sit and wait to file a
charge, because one--I would like to tell the Committee, too,
that I filed an EEO charge in 1998, early, and this is 2008,
and I am still talking. And the ruling did not come down until
May of 2007. A person has to give up a lot of their life to go
through something like this, and it is very difficult. It is
not easy. And there is no incentive because I was working for
my family and I needed every dime that I possibly could have
earned. That is why I worked every hour of overtime I could,
and I would have gone immediately--which I did when I knew. I
never knew any earlier.
The Hutchison bill, the way I understand it, is not right
on the point of when you know. It is when--something like you
might have known or should have known or--and I am not a
lawyer, I am not an expert, but it would not have helped me.
The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay bill, as it is written, is the
only correct way to put the law back, and it is very simple.
Very simple. It should be a law that Democrats and Republicans
could agree on because it is a human rights, civil rights
solution to the problem.
Chairman Leahy. Well, Ms. Ledbetter, I can assure you I am
one of the ones who knows it is going to be here next year
because of the 6-year term. This bill will come back up.
Ms. Ledbetter. Good.
Chairman Leahy. I would urge Senators not to avoid voting
on it. I would hope that they would allow us to vote on it.
And, frankly, I will not take as an excuse in a vote against
it--I will not agree with somebody who says, ``Well, women just
need more training.''
Ms. Ledbetter. No. No, we don't. No more education either.
Chairman Leahy. When my wife went back to nursing after
raising kids, I know the kind of training she had just to get
recertified and to get her RN license. She and male nurses were
getting exactly the same training.
I will keep the record open, Mr. Lorber, if you want to
add, of course, to anything that was said there. In fairness to
you, we will. Mr. Mehri, the same; Ms. Ledbetter, the same.
I apologize for the lack of people here, but this really
is, in my 34 years here, one of the most extraordinary times in
the Senate, and Senators are all over the place.
So thank you very, very much, all three of you.
[Whereupon, at 11:10 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
[Additional material is being retained in the Committee
files, see Contents.]
[Questions and answers and submissions for the record
follows.]
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