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Washington, D.C.—The head of the nation’s largest independent union of federal employees today applauded congressional approval of a measure that promises to go a long way toward addressing inequality in the pay of men and women performing equivalent work.

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) said she is pleased with the prompt attention paid to this vital matter by Congress and President Obama, who has promised to sign H.R. 11, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

“NTEU is a strong supporter of this legislation,” she said, noting the union’s support for it in the last Congress, when it was approved by the House, but blocked by a Senate filibuster and the threat of a presidential veto.

“Last year’s veto threat is now replaced with President Obama’s commitment to sign this bill,” she said.

H.R. 11 addresses a 5-4 Supreme Court decision which turned back the claim of an Alabama woman working for the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company who had been paid 40 percent less than her male colleagues doing the same or similar work over a number of years.

The court majority said she had failed to file her complaint within 180 days after her first short-changed paycheck; prior to that decision, courts had held that workers had 180 days to file a complaint after each instance of receiving a paycheck short-changed by illegal discrimination.

Critics of that decision, including NTEU, said that would place a virtually impossible burden on victims to discover such pay discrimination when they had no realistic access to the information they needed to make that determination.

“This legislation rights a clear wrong,” the NTEU leader said, “and will benefit a considerable number of working people.”

As the largest independent federal union, NTEU represents 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments.