Wisconsin State Journal editorial | Posted: Thursday, April 26, 2012 5:00 am
The grand total of women (and men) in Wisconsin who have used a 2009 state law to file employment discrimination lawsuits is — zero.
So don't believe the hype about state leaders supposedly stopping women from getting paid the same as men by repealing the law this month. Any worker in Wisconsin who is discriminated against based on gender, age, race or other factors can still seek justice from state and federal agencies as well as the federal courts.
The repeal of the 2009 state law that nobody used doesn't change that.
Democratic candidate for governor Kathleen Falk recently claimed that women who suffer pay discrimination "can't do something about it" because of a Republican-backed bill Gov. Scott Walker just signed into law.
But PolitiFact Wisconsin just rated Falk's claim as false: "Of the four legal options available under the current law, only one would be eliminated by the bill," according to the fact-checking website that Milwaukee Journal Sentinel journalists operate.
Moreover, it's the only one of those four option that hasn't been used.
"Nobody has obtained a finding of liability from a law judge and then gone into state court and asked for damages," Scott Beightol, a Wisconsin lawyer who represents employers on discrimination issues, told the State Journal on Wednesday.
He added: "How this became a gender pay issue is beyond me," given that the 2009 law, approved when Democrats controlled the state Legislature, wasn't specific to women.
Falk isn't the only one exaggerating the issue. Sen. Glenn Grothman, R-West Bend, suggested repealing the 2009 law would be the most pro-business piece of legislation taken up by the Republican-controlled Legislature this session, according to the Journal Sentinel. That doesn't say much for the GOP's efforts to boost economic activity in Wisconsin.
Let's root out sexism in the workplace with less show and more substance.
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