Equal Pay Pioneer Lilly Ledbetter passes away at the age of 86. However, her legacy will live on through the impact she has had on gender equality in the workplace and the Equal Pay Act that bears her name.
Lilly Ledbetter was a driving force in the fight for equal pay in the workplace. What started as a desire to get paid the same salary as her male counterparts at the Goodyear Tire factory turned into a national movement.
After working at Goodyear for nearly 20 years, Ledbetter noticed a folded piece of paper in her mailbox at work. What she found written on it was appalling. Ledbetter stared at a note listing her name as well as her male coworkers. Next to each was their salaries. Ledbetter’s salary was significantly less for the same job, despite her decades at the company and dedication to her work. Upon this discovery, she filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The complaint, which turned into a 10-year legal battle, took Ledbetter through years of heartbreak and hardship but ultimately led to a groundbreaking step forward for equal pay in the workplace.
In 1999, after her retirement and one year after her initial complaint, Ledbetter filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against Goodyear and, in 2003, was awarded $3 million. However, the amount was soon decreased to $300,000 due to a damages cap. Goodyear appealed this decision to the Supreme Court with an argument that Ledbetter could only receive back pay for 180 days before she filed her claim due to a law that requires claims to be made within 180 days of the first discriminatory paycheck.
In a 5-6 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Goodyear, agreeing that the claim was filed too late. In Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent, she highlighted the issue this case makes glaringly obvious about pay inequity in the workplace:
“Pay disparities often occur, as they did in Ledbetter’s case, in small increments; cause to suspect that discrimination is at work develops only over time. Comparative pay information, moreover, is often hidden from the employee’s view. Employers may keep under wraps the pay differentials maintained among supervisors, no less the reasons for those differentials. Small initial discrepancies may not be seen as meet for a federal case, particularly when the employee, trying to succeed in a nontraditional environment, is averse to making waves.”
Due to the result of her case, Ledbetter became an advocate for pay equity in the workplace. She worked to make others aware of the pay disparities between men and women at work. Her advocacy work led to new legislation on a national level. In 2009, President Obama signed into law the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The law amended the Fair Labor Standards Act so workers could file pay discrimination claims 180 days after receiving a discriminatory paycheck instead of 180 from the first discriminatory act.
Ledbetter’s work inspired an entire generation to advocate for fair wages. At the beginning of this fight, Ledbetter was retiring. As someone who was no longer in the workforce, she could have sat back and let someone else fight to make a change. But she didn’t. She persevered and made a huge step in the fight for gender equality in the workplace.
Despite Ledbetter’s triumphs, we have a long way to go. Still, women in the U.S. earn just 82 cents for every dollar a man earns. When we look at women of color, that number is even lower.
Ledbetter was an important catalyst in this fight and will remain a figurehead as we continue to strive to make gender equality a reality in all workplaces.
We recently featured Lilly Ledbetter’s story in an interview with Kate Kelley, who is a producer of the upcoming movie “Lilly” chronicling Ledbetter’s life. Her full interview is available to watch on watch.iwoman.tv. To learn more about the film, visit lillymovie.com
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