Blake Moore: “My amendment would exempt pay equity lawsuits arising from title VII of the Civil Rights Act or the Equal Pay Act.…”

“My amendment would exempt pay equity lawsuits arising from title VII of the Civil Rights Act or the Equal Pay Act. Today, the wage gap for women is a very real experience, not only for those women, but for families in the United States workforce. According to the National Women's Law Center, the gender wage gap amounts to over $10,000 a year in median income. But this bill, H.R. 1927, takes away one of the only effective tools that women in the workplace have to narrow the wage gap. That is through class action suits filed under title VII of the Civil Rights Act or the Equal Pay Act. This bill would, to borrow Judge Posner's term, really drive a stake through the heart of the Equal Pay Act or the Civil Rights Act. This bill will make it harder to certify members of a class in pay equity cases because each detail relating to the type and scope of the damage is often unique to the woman who was injured. For example, a woman involved in a class could have a different type of job, different number of years working for a company, different wages, different benefits, and if the company is discriminating against all women, across all the job categories, they would not be certified as a class unless they made exactly the same pay, worked there exactly the same number of years, which, Mr. Chairman, is ludicrous.…”