Honor her by finally closing the wage gap
Julia
Conley for Common Dreams
"Lilly Ledbetter simply wanted to be paid the same as
her male Goodyear co-workers," said the
American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)
on social media. But to workers who have benefited from the Lilly Ledbetter
Fair Pay Act of 2009, added the union, "she was a true hero."
Ledbetter began working at Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company
in Gadsden, Alabama in 1979, and was initially paid equally to her male
counterparts.
But in 1998 she discovered that her compensation had dropped "way
out of line" with that of the men who worked alongside her, after someone
sent her an anonymous note.
"I felt humiliated. I felt degraded. I had to sort of
get my composure back to go ahead to perform my job and then, the first day
off, I went to Birmingham, Alabama and filed a charge with the [Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission]," Ledbetter told NPR in 2009.
In 1999, she filed a lawsuit against her employer, and four
years later a federal court in Alabama awarded her $3.8 million—a sum that was
reduced to a $300,000 cap and $60,000 in back pay.
The case was later appealed and proceeded to the U.S.
Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of Goodyear in 2007, with five of the nine
justices agreeing that Ledbetter had filed her lawsuit too late after
Goodyear's initial decision to pay her less than her male colleagues.
But in 2009, Ledbetter stood with then-President Barack
Obama as he signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which gives people more
time to file charges regarding unfair pay and affirms that each inequitable
paycheck is a violation of the law, an assertion the Supreme Court had
rejected.
U.S. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) called on Americans to "honor her legacy by never ceasing in our pursuit of equality and justice for all."
Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National
Women's Law Center, noted that after Ledbetter's legal case concluded,
"she never gave up the fight to push for equal pay and fairness for
everyone who came after her."
"It would have been easy for Lilly to quietly ease into
retirement in Alabama after the Supreme Court held that there was no remedy to
the decades of pay discrimination that she faced," said Goss Graves.
"But Lilly was not built for the easy road. She shared her story because
she knew that her experience of being undervalued and shortchanged on the job
was the same story that working women of all ages across America shared,
whether they had ever heard of the wage gap or not."
"Even into her 80s, Lilly never hesitated to hop on
planes to speak to women across the country about why they must actively fight
for wage equality," Goss Graves added.
Ledbetter also stood with Obama in the White House in 2014
when he signed two fair pay executive orders, one barring
federal contractors from retaliating against workers who discuss their salaries
and one instructing the Labor Department to collect data on pay for men and
women who work for federal contractors.
Noreen Farrell, executive director of Equal Rights Advocates
(ERA), said Ledbetter "leaves behind a legacy that fuels our ongoing fight
against pay discrimination, exploitation, and those who would delay progress
towards wage justice for all."
Farrell added that with women—particularly women of
color—still earning an average of 82 cents for every dollar men earn in the
U.S., "the fight for pay equity is far from over."
"We urge the passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act and
the implementation of comprehensive pay transparency measures at the federal
level," said Farrell.
The Paycheck Fairness Act would add protections to the Equal
Pay Act of 1963 and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to eliminate
gender-based wage disparities.
"Lilly Ledbetter's courageous fight for fair pay made
history and opened a new future for millions of women," said Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.). "Let's honor
her by continuing to challenge discrimination in all forms—and finally closing
the wage gap."
