NEW YORK (AP) — Lilly Ledbetter, a former Alabama factory manager whose lawsuit against her employer made her an icon and led to the equal pay movement landmark pay discrimination lawsdied on the age of 86.
Ledbetter's discovery that she was being paid lower than her male colleagues for a similar work at a Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. plant in Alabama led to her lawsuit, which ultimately failed when the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that her appeal was too late had submitted. The court ruled that staff must file a lawsuit inside six months of receiving a discriminatory paycheck – in Ledbetter's case, years before she learned of the inequality through an anonymous letter.
Two years later, former President Barack Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which gave staff the fitting to sue inside 180 days of receiving any discriminatory paycheck, not only the primary.
Ledbetter died Saturday evening surrounded by her family members after a transient illness, based on a transient statement from her family and an obituary sent by the team behind a movie about her life. She leaves behind two children, 4 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Ledbetter continued to advocate for equal pay policies for the remainder of her life. Last week she was honored with Advertising Week's Future Is Female Lifetime Achievement Award, and a Film about her life starring Patricia Clarkson Premieres on the Hamptons International Film Festival.
“She lost her case and never saw a dime, but she was a tireless advocate for all of us,” said Deborah Vagins, director of Equal Pay Today and national campaign director of Equal Rights Advocates.
“Every now and then, once in a generation, you meet these people who will sacrifice everything for something, even if it never benefits them,” added Vagins, who met Ledbetter and introduced her to then-Senator Obama shortly after the Supreme Court's ruling The Court had caused an uproar within the movement for what would develop into the Ledbetter Act.
“It sparked a movement and changed the face of pay equity forever,” she said.
In January, President Joe Biden marked the fifteenth anniversary of the law named after Ledbetter with recent measures designed to assist close the gender pay gap, including a brand new rule that prohibits the federal government from taking an individual's current or previous salary under consideration when determining their salary.
But Ledbetter and other advocates have long pushed for the broader Paycheck Fairness Act, which might strengthen the Equal Pay Act of 1963, including by protecting staff from retaliation once they discuss their pay.
In a press release Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris vowed to “continue fighting for the Paycheck Fairness Act – honoring Lilly's legacy and continuing to build a fairer and more equitable future for women and all Americans.” Republicans Lawmakers largely reject the law as unnecessary and conducive to frivolous lawsuits.
Obama also praised Ledbetter's legacy, saying in a press release: “This Alabama grandmother kept fighting until I signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law – my first as president.” Biden said in a press release that “it was an honor “Standing with Lilly when the bill that bears her name was signed into law” when he was vice president.
Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, was among those who paid tribute to Ledbetter said on the social media platform X that she “modified my understanding endlessly with the straightforward but powerful phrase 'Equal pay for equal work'.”
The team behind the film “LILLY” has released a message of condolence on social media. In her own statement, Clarkson said, “Portraying Lilly Ledbetter has been the privilege of a lifetime.”
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The sense of urgency amongst advocates intensified after one Annual report A Census Bureau study found last month that the gender pay gap between men and girls widened for the primary time in 20 years. In 2023, full-time working women earned 83 cents on the dollar in comparison with men, up from 84 cents in 2022.
Even before, advocates had been frustrated that improvements within the pay gap had stalled for much of the last 20 years, at the same time as women made progress in leadership positions and earned college degrees at a faster rate than men. Experts say the explanations for the persistent gap are varied, including the overrepresentation of girls in low-paying industries and the weak child care system that pushes many ladies to present up their careers of their peak earning years.
In 2018, at the peak of the #MeToo movement, Ledbetter led wrote an opinion piece within the New York Times She described intimately the harassment she faced as a manager on the Goodyear factory and made a connection between sexual harassment within the workplace and pay discrimination.
Ledbetter had worked on the Gadsden, Alabama, plant for 19 years when she received an anonymous message saying she was being paid significantly lower than three male colleagues.
Two years before she retired, she filed a lawsuit in 1999 and initially received $3.8 million in back pay and damages from a federal court. She never received the cash after she ultimately lost her case within the Supreme Court. But a dissenting opinion from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who declared that “the ball is in Congress’s court,” inspired Ledbetter to proceed the fight for higher laws.
At the Forbes Women's Summit in 2021Ledbetter said certainly one of the accomplishments she is most happy with is that the Ledbetter Act passed with bipartisan support.
The law set a vital precedent “to ensure that not only do we have the promise of equal pay on the books, but we also have a way to enforce the law,” said Emily Martin, chief program officer on the National Women's Law Center, who worked closely with Ledbetter.
“She is truly an inspiration by showing us that losing doesn't mean you can't win,” Martin said. “We know her name because she lost, and lost badly, and she always came back from it and continued to work until her death to turn that loss into real gains for women across the country.”
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