Lilly Ledbetter, an activist for pay equality, has passed away.

Lilly Ledbetter dead at 86: Alabama worker’s legal fight led Obama to sign Fair Pay Act of 2009

Lilly Ledbetter [2013 file photo].

In 2013 in Warrensburg, Missouri:

[….]
Question: Do you think part of that is, you know, it’s not polite to talk about money, it’s not polite to ask people what they make, I mean? [Lilly Ledbetter: “Sure”] Do those conversations need to be more prevalent between coworkers or?

Lilly Ledbetter: Well, see Goodyear said if we discussed our pay, that’s the reason I didn’t know [voice: “Yeah.”], I honestly didn’t know. I mean, that’s one thing people do when your job is threatened, you will not do anything to get, to lose it. And, uh, I didn’t know. And, and guessing I knew, common sense told me, since they had had so few women and they still had so few women they would prefer not to have them. So I knew that I wasn’t getting exactly what the men were, but if I had been in reason. There were years that I made below the minimum. And the lady who testified on my behalf at trial and had left and so had twenty-two years seniority and service, she was making below the minimum as an area manager, the same job I had. Below the minimum. That’s not right.

Question: But, do you think that, you know, companies at that time encouraged sort of the idea that not talking about salaries, because this would basically cause people to say, “Wait a minute, I’m not,” you know?

Voice: Exactly.

Lilly Ledbetter: It is. They think it’s [crosstalk] internally.

Question: The culture, yeah, the, the culture is encouraged generally [crosstalk] and so it, it works in…
[….]

From the 2007 dissent by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the U.S. Supreme Court:

LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. (No. 05-1074)
421 F. 3d 1169, affirmed.

Ginsburg, J., dissenting

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
LILLY M. LEDBETTER, PETITIONER v. THE GOOD-
YEAR TIRE & RUBBER COMPANY, INC.

[….]
[May 29, 2007]

[….]
The problem of concealed pay discrimination is particularly acute where the disparity arises not because the female employee is flatly denied a raise but because male counterparts are given larger raises. Having received a pay increase, the female employee is unlikely to discern at once that she has experienced an adverse employment decision. She may have little reason even to suspect discrimination until a pattern develops incrementally and she ultimately becomes aware of the disparity. Even if an employee suspects that the reason for a comparatively low raise is not performance but sex (or another protected ground), the amount involved may seem too small, or the employer’s intent too ambiguous, to make the issue immediately actionable—or winnable.
[….]
To show how far the Court has strayed from interpretation of Title VII with fidelity to the Act’s core purpose, I return to the evidence Ledbetter presented at trial. Ledbetter proved to the jury the following: She was a member of a protected class; she performed work substantially equal to work of the dominant class (men); she was compensated less for that work; and the disparity was attributable to gender-based discrimination. See supra, at 1–2.

Specifically, Ledbetter’s evidence demonstrated that her current pay was discriminatorily low due to a long series of decisions reflecting Goodyear’s pervasive discrimination against women managers in general and Ledbetter in particular. Ledbetter’s former supervisor, for example, admitted to the jury that Ledbetter’s pay, during a particular one-year period, fell below Goodyear’s minimum threshold for her position. App. 93–97.Although Goodyear claimed the pay disparity was due to poor performance, the supervisor acknowledged that Ledbetter received a “Top Performance Award” in 1996. Id., at 90–93. The jury also heard testimony that another supervisor—who evaluated Ledbetter in 1997 and whose evaluation led to her most recent raise denial—was openly biased against women. Id., at 46, 77–82. And two women who had previously worked as managers at the plant told the jury they had been subject to pervasive discrimination and were paid less than their male counterparts. One was paid less than the men she supervised. Id., at 51–68. Ledbetter herself testified about the discriminatory animus conveyed to her by plant officials. Toward the end of her career, for instance, the plant manager told Ledbetter that the “plant did not need women, that [women] didn’t help it, [and] caused problems.” Id., at 36.10 After weighing all the evidence, the jury found for Ledbetter, concluding that the pay disparity was due to intentional discrimination.
[….]

Previously:

Lilly Ledbetter – Politics and Social Justice – April 3, 2013 (April 4, 2013)

Lilly Ledbetter: a short coda (April 7, 2013)