If there's good news in that, it's that a few Republicans did break ranks with the troglodytes and voted for the bill.Cujo is right about that, but when you look at which Republicans voted for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, it is less encouraging. This is the results of the roll call vote. Scroll down and look at the "ayes" with an R after their name. They are: Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Kaye Hutchinson, Arlen Spector, and Lisa Murkowski.
Other than Arlen Spector, all of the men of the party of Hoover think it is a fine idea to make it virtually impossible for women to sue for unequal pay. The women of the GOP, who probably have some first-hand experience with this issue, did not think it unreasonable to allow women to sue for unequal pay for the same job.
The track record of the party of Hoover; favoring the powerful over the powerless, stepping on the workers every chance they get, remains unblemished.
Even with votes like this, we shouldn't be misled into thinking the Dems truly the Party of the People and champions of human rights everywhere. Consider the number of them who supported Shrub's "Harsh interrogation techniques." The willingness of the powerful to abrogate the natural rights of the weak is a constant. Equal is equal, and moral is moral. Circumstances do not change that.
ReplyDeleteMB
http://muledungandash.blogspot.com/
Great points EB. It's so fucked up that decades after woman were given the vote, we still have to fight for equality on this level.
ReplyDeleteYes, when Washington disarms us, at least we'll have a better chance to sue for unequal back pay--
ReplyDeleteI don't trust the Great Father in D.C., no matter what party is yankin' on the reins. The fact is, neither should be able to and the crying shame is, not only to we let them, we form up sides to cheer them on.
As for "equality," try to remember that individual is the smallest and least powerful minority -- and is run over roughshod by mass "equality."
Roberta, I am not sure what your point is, other than "government is evil." It is OK to pay women less than men for the same job?
ReplyDeleteI'm old enough to remember the days when the classifieds said: "Help Wanted-Male" and "Help Wanted- Female." I don't think you'd like the choices that were available then.
Ah -- basic philosophical divergence: I don't think it's okay for government to regulate pay, period. I figure setting pay is up to whoever owns the business, and if they want to pay the girls less, then likely they will not get the most skilled female workers.
ReplyDeleteWe're not gonna agree about this. It's a bedrock thing: if either of us changed so much we could agree, we wouldn't be who we are any more. It's right up there with my skepticism about Democrats vis-a-vis guns and your faith in them.
...Given the way U. S. politics have gone after women started being politically active -- WCTU would be the first big movement after sufferage itself got underway -- I'm not entirely sure we should be voting. Especially since we're still ineligible to be front-line troops and can't register for the draft. (Um, not to, like, make trouble, but when will you start agitatin' for all 18-year-olds to have to register?) (I've gotta go do some research).
But it's bedrock stuff; we're better off admitting to one another that some folks are not just like our own selves and letting it be.
Misfit--
ReplyDeleteYou want old enough? I'll see your "Help Wanted, Male" and raise you "Help Wanted, White"!
NO IRISH NEED APPLY, hey?
ReplyDelete--But I can beat that: some of my ancestors weren't even wanted as slave labor; instead, the Feds ran 'em off their own land, after they'd won a lawsuit to keep it in the Supreme Court. Gee thanks, President Jackson. (One of the founders of the modern Democrat Party and the origin of the "donkey" symbol, btw).
--I don't think grievance is unavoidably inheritable and you can't make it up to the dead; as it happened, my ancestors just wandered away and "passed" as plain ordinary citizens (rather than the red-skinned heathens of stereotype), which worked out fine.
Keeping my comments to the topic you've written about, I am not surprised that the male Republicans would vote against this act. There are so many components of this starting with the gender issue. I'm sure they also have objections to a person's right to sue and a belief that employers should be allowed free rein.
ReplyDeleteAll of that is true for the Republican men I know until, of course, they feel victimized in some way. Then they are on their phones immediately phoning their lawyers.....