Lilly Ledbetter, the activist who impressed truthful pay act, dies at 86 : NPR

Lilly Ledbetter, a ladies’s equality activist whose struggle for pay fairness led to passage of the monumental Lilly Ledbetter Honest Pay Act of 2009, died Saturday. She was 86.

Ledbetter’s loss of life was confirmed on Monday by Jodi Solomon, her talking supervisor.

“She was fierce, she was a crusader and just a really good friend. She will be missed a lot,” Solomon instructed NPR.

Born in Jacksonville, Ala., Ledbetter was employed as a supervisor at a Goodyear tire plant in Gadsden, Ala., in 1979. Years later, she found via an nameless word left in her mailbox that she was receiving much less pay than her male co-workers who labored the identical place.

“When I saw that, it took my breath away. I felt humiliated. I felt degraded,” Ledbetter recalled in an interview with NPR in 2009. “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, Ala., and filed a charge with the EEOC.”

That motion in 1998 was the start of a 10-year authorized struggle for Ledbetter towards fairness.

She retired from Goodyear 11 months after she discovered in regards to the pay disparity and filed a gender discrimination lawsuit towards the corporate in 1999. She received the swimsuit in 2003 and was awarded greater than $3 million, however the quantity was diminished to $300,000 due to a statutory cap and $60,000 in again pay. Goodyear appealed the choice to the Supreme Court docket, arguing that Ledbetter may solely win damages or again pay for the 180 days previous to the submitting of her declare. In 2007, the excessive courtroom agreed in a 5-4 ruling.

In her dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg mentioned Ledbetter’s case is “not time barred” and wrote the difficulty “is in Congress’ court.”

Lower than two years later, Congress handed the Lilly Ledbetter Honest Pay Act of 2009, which amended the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and permits employees to “obtain relief, including recovery of back pay, for up to two years preceding the filing of the charge.” Then-President Barack Obama signed the measure into regulation on Jan. 29, 2009, the primary invoice he signed as president.

Obama paid a tribute to Ledbetter in a press release on Sunday.

“Lilly Ledbetter never set out to be a trailblazer or a household name. She just wanted to be paid the same as a man for her hard work,” he wrote. “Lilly did what so many Americans before her have done: setting her sights high for herself and even higher for her children and grandchildren. Michelle and I are grateful for her advocacy and her friendship, and we send our love and prayers to her family and everyone who is continuing the fight that she began.”

Ledbetter has been acknowledged for her advocacy on pay fairness and her story continues to resonate.

Final week, Ledbetter was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from Promoting Week for her activism on Equal Pay. Lilly, a film based mostly on Ledbetter’s life, is being proven at screenings throughout the nation.

NPR’s Nina Totenberg contributed to this report.