“One of the next steps in reaching pay equity is the Paycheck Fairness Act,” Ledbetter wrote in Ms. this year.
Lilly Ledbetter, an equal pay activist whose legal fight against her employer led to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, died this weekend. She was 86.
When Ledbetter, a longtime area manager at Goodyear, discovered that her salary over her then-18-year career was significantly lower than that of her male colleagues, she took the company to court with the help of her attorney, Jon Goldfarb. Her suit charged Goodyear with gender-based pay discrimination, violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“Me and those three men that was listed on that note—we four had the exact same job, and I was making about 35 to 40 percent, at that time, less than they were,” Ledbetter told NPR in January. “I just could not believe it. I was devastated, humiliated all at once, and it just floored me.”
The result was a 10-year legal battle, taking her all the way to the Supreme Court in the landmark case Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. Much to the dismay of champions for gender equality and pay equity, Ledbetter’s case was overturned by a 5-4 vote, and she was denied compensation based on a technicality in Title VII that restricted claims of discrimination to a 180-day period.
However, as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asserted in her famous dissenting opinion, holding Ledbetter’s case to the time limit was disingenuous—pay discrimination often happens incrementally over time and a company’s policy to hide salaries from its employees makes comparisons difficult. At the end of her dissent, Ginsburg implored Congress to act: “The discrimination of which Ledbetter complained is not long past. … The ball is in Congress’ court … to correct this Court’s parsimonious reading of Title VII.”
For her part, Ledbetter took to lobbying in the halls of Congress—her hard work finally paying off when President Barack Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 into law as his first official act.
As Noelle Williams wrote in the Spring 2009 issue of Ms. magazine:
In his first bill signing as president, Barack Obama put his imprimatur on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which amends Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Workers who discover wage disparities are now better able to seek compensation, as the legislation restores a longer statute of limitations for lawsuits. This was also the first time many prominent women lawmakers and advocates had been invited to the White House in eight years.
Those present to celebrate included the bill’s chief sponsor, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the bill’s namesake herself, Lilly Ledbetter.
Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority and publisher of Ms., called the atmosphere “electric.”
Ledbetter realized near the end of her 19-year career as a supervisor at Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in Alabama that she had not been paid the same as her male peers. She sued and won at district court, then lost in the court of appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. Despite the new law, she will never receive fair compensation, but she calls her namesake act “an even richer reward.”
The battle was fierce and hard won. Yet 15 years later, equal pay advocates maintain there is more to be done to ensure equal pay for women—as Ledbetter wrote an op-ed for Ms. in January, co-written with Deborah J. Vagins, director of Equal Pay Today, marking the anniversary of the law:
Fifteen years ago, we stood at the White House while then President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. This law restored the rights of employees to have their day in court for ongoing wage discrimination taken away by the Supreme Court in the Ledbetter v. Goodyear case. …
There were many hurdles, including early Senate filibusters and veto threats by then-President Bush. When we worked on this bill, people thought equal pay was an issue that had been resolved in the 1960s. Pay equity is an integral part of the national conversation today, but that was not the case in 2007. …
This bill was such an important victory for workers and gave employees who were experiencing ongoing pay discrimination their day in court. However, the law did not give women new tools to combat the wage gap itself.
With all working women earning on average 77 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts—and the pay gaps even wider for women of color—it reminds us our work is still far from finished.
We continue to call on Congress and the Biden-Harris administration for smart policy solutions that would help working families. In Congress, one of the next steps in reaching pay equity is the Paycheck Fairness Act—a bill that would amend the Equal Pay Act of 1963 to give workers stronger enforcement tools and remedies to help close the pay gap between men and women once and for all. But things have been frustratingly stagnant in Congress.
Until then, the Biden-Harris administration can act to help ensure pay equity. We made this same argument for executive branch change when the Paycheck Fairness Act did not move forward in Congress during the Obama administration. In 2014, President Obama heeded the call and issued an executive order banning retaliation against the employees of federal contractors for disclosing or inquiring about their wages, as well as ordering the collection of pay data from certain employers.
Our work then was an outgrowth of Lilly’s experience and the solutions needed to stop pay discrimination. Goodyear was a government contractor—taxpayer dollars subsidized their policies—and employees were not allowed to discuss their salaries. That is one of the reasons it took so long to discover the discrimination that was happening.
In the last decade, a lot has happened in the fight for pay equity. Troublingly, politics has become more polarized. We remember a time when Republican and Democratic members of Congress were united in their vote for the Ledbetter bill. Since then, sadly, the movement has lost ground in bipartisan support on commonsense pay equity protections in Congress in the last 15 years. We hope that changes again. Civil rights issues are not partisan.
Encouragingly, the workforce has different expectations and demands about pay transparency. Fifteen years ago, pay secrecy was the norm for employers nationwide, including at Goodyear. People could be fired for just asking about wages. It was major progress when President Obama banned retaliation for wage disclosure for the federal contracting workforce.
Today, employees want even more, and rightfully so. While we still need a federal law to make this apply in all workplaces, states are passing pay transparency laws, including bans on the use of salary history to set wages, requirements to post pay ranges in job announcements and mandatory pay data collections. Moreover, some high-road employers are doing it voluntarily. …
While the Paycheck Fairness Act has been introduced multiple times over the past two decades, it has yet to become law. The most recent version of the Paycheck Fairness Act was introduced in both chambers of Congress in March 2023:
- H.R. 17 was introduced in the House by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) on March 10, 2023.
- S. 728 was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) on March 9, 2023.
Its passage remains a goal for many lawmakers seeking to address gender-based pay discrimination.
“A giant has passed. Our friend and inspiration, Lilly 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,” said Noreen Farrell, executive director of Equal Rights Advocates. “While the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was a crucial step forward, the fight for pay equity is far from over. With women still earning significantly less than their male counterparts, especially women of color, we urge the passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act and the implementation of comprehensive pay transparency measures at the federal level.”
A feature film about Ledbetter, called Lilly, premiered last week at the Hamptons Film Festival, directed by Rachel Feldman and starring Patricia Clarkson as Ledbetter.
As Ledbetter and Vagins pledged, “We will not rest until we can enact more policies that give workers stronger tools to challenge pay disparities and other forms of employment discrimination.”
Rest in power, Lilly Ledbetter.
The first half of this article was adapted from a 2021 piece from contributing editor Aviva Dove-Viebahn, “Fighting for Pay Equity: A Q&A with Lilly Ledbetter and the Filmmaker Telling Her Story.“
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