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Saturday, April 7th, 2012

Gov. Scott Walker Repeals Wisconsin Equal Pay law

Author:     DAVID FERGUSON
Source:     The Raw Story
Publication Date:     Friday, April 6, 2012 14:28 EDT
 Link: Gov. Scott Walker Repeals Wisconsin Equal Pay law
Stephan:   Governor Walker is an apparatchik of the Theocratic Right; a creature of their aspirations. He is, in his state, where the transformed Republican Party wants to go at both state and federal levels. It is the boldest attempt since the Volstead Act in 1918 to impose a minority's social values on the country as a whole. And, like Prohibition, it is about taking something away. The bills Wisconsin and other states are imposing express intentioned purpose in the service of a very clear perspective on women. One that offends me as a man and, I hope, outrages women of any age. Yet, I know that there will be a cohort of women who will vote for their own subjugation. As a trend though what matters is that women can swing the election. By banding together women can completely Aikido this assault. In attempting to make you weaker, the Right, by drawing you together transforms what was formerly inchoate mass into a coherent political force, thereby ceding you the power to determine the Presidency, and many other elections. You save yourselves. That will change the entire tone in the country going forward

With little fanfare, union-busting Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) yesterday signed a repeal of Wisconsin’s equal pay act, which gave people who discover they’ve been discriminated against more time to file suit and the right to do so outside of federal courts.

The Equal Pay Enforcement Act was passed in 2009 and gave workers avenues to pursue complaints about pay discrimination in the workplace and press charges where necessary. The law conferred upon workers the ability to pursue their cases in circuit court rather than the federal court system, which is costlier and less accessible to average citizens. It also expanded the window in which complainants are allowed to file their complaints relative to the time when they worked under discriminatory conditions.

Much like the federal law, known as the Ledbetter Act (which President Obama signed as one of his first acts of office), the Wisconsin law was spurred by the case of Lilly Ledbetter, who suffered decades of pay discrimination without her knowledge. After she sued her employer, Goodyear, and won, the Supreme Court threw out the case because she didn’t file shortly after the discrimination began – when she didn’t know it was happening.

The Republican dominated state Senate passed SB […]

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