Law of Unintended Consequences: Fair Pay Acts

I just read an interesting analysis of--and commentary on--the two fair pay laws now sailing through Congress: The Paycheck Fairness Act and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

Maggie Thurber on her ThurbersThoughts blog, after discussing and analyzing the two measures, concludes that they may well put women at a competitive disadvantage because employers might conclude that it's legally safer just to hire men.

Someone then posted a comment that, if employers just want to hire women to pay them less than men, then why hire men in the first place? Just hire women. S/he's got a point--there's no law enabling men to sue if women are being paid more for the same work.

Anyway, Ms. Thurber is a radio talk show host, I believe, as well as being a attorney by education. I thought she did an excellent job in deconstructing the consequences, intended and unintended, of these two laws, which in my opinion will end up gumming up working conditions and landing employers in court much too frequently in battles Congress has set them up to lose.