President Bush and the two parties in Congress are fighting it out over whether and when employees can sue for pay discrimination. And the stakes involved are high for employers.

It all started with a Supreme Court case – Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber – in which a 20-year female employee sued her company after learning that men who held a job similar to hers were being paid more. Using the term of her employment as a basis, she demanded that the company fork over the pay differential that piled up over years, plus damages.

The company cited the statute-of-limitations language in the Equal Pay Act to defend itself: Employees have 180 days to file suit after being shortchanged in pay, so the time limit clearly had been broken.

The employee’s argument: I didn’t know there was a violation of the act until years later, so I couldn’t file before the 180 days expired.

The High Court found in favor of Goodyear, the employer.

Congress enters

Enter the U.S. Congress and a proposed bill — the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act – to change the language in the statute of limitations and allow cases like the one against Goodyear to proceed in the courts. President Bush vowed to veto the bill if it passed in the U.S. Senate.

The latest news: Congressional Republicans managed to pull together 42 votes opposing the legislation, meaning the bill supported by Democrats wont have the required 60 votes needed to override a presidential veto. Now, Democrats have vowed to make the bill an election issue in an attempt to win more seats in Congress, as well as the presidency.

We’ll keep you posted on the outcome of the battle and how it affects the bill.

Click here to see the full text of the Act.

Tags: congress, fair pay act, goodyear, ledbetter, president bush, Supreme Court