Lilly Ledbetter, an equal pay advocate whose lawsuit against her employer inspired the Fair Pay Act of 2009, died on Saturday in Alabama at age 86.
Ledbetter died of respiratory failure, according to a statement from her family provided to the Alabama news organization Al.com.
“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,” wrote Barack Obama, who in 2009 signed into law the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
Ledbetter worked at a Goodyear Tire & Rubber plant in Alabama and learned that she earned less than her male colleagues who did the same job.
Ledbetter filed a lawsuit against the manufacturer in 1998 after discovering that her annual salary was $6,500 less than the lowest-paid male supervisor. The case reached the US supreme court, which ruled in 2007 that she filed her lawsuit too late. That meant she never received the $3.8m in backpay and damages slated for her as part of a lower-court ruling.
The lawsuit attracted national attention. Obama co-sponsored legislation that allowed workers greater latitude to sue their employers for unequal pay and gave women six months after receiving any discriminatory pay cheque to seek redress.
Republicans, including then president George W Bush, opposed the bill, but once Obama took office, Congress approved the legislation, and Obama signed it into law. It was his first approval of legislation.
Ledbetter joined Obama, his wife Michelle, and labor activists at the White House for the ceremony.
“This one’s for Lilly,” Obama said at the time, handing Ledbetter a pen. “Making our economy work means making sure it works for everyone. That there are no second-class citizens in our workplaces, and that it’s not just unfair and illegal – but bad for business – to pay someone less because of their gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion or disability.”
Ledbetter continued to advocate for workers’ rights. She spoke at the Democratic national convention in 2012.
“I was shortchanged, but this fight became bigger than Lilly Ledbetter. Today it’s about my daughter. It’s about my granddaughter. It’s about women and men. It’s about families. It’s about equality and justice.”
In 2014, she again appeared at the White House as Obama approved executive actions which barred federal contractors from retaliating against employees who discuss their salaries and instructed the labor department to collect statistics from such contractors on pay for men and women, the New York Times reported.
Ledbetter also wrote an opinion piece in the Times in 2018, during the height of the #MeToo movement, in which she detailed the sexual harassment she faced at Goodyear.
“Sexual harassment isn’t about sex, just like pay discrimination isn’t just about pay. Both are about power. They are clear evidence that too many workplaces value women less,” Ledbetter wrote.
Just last week, a movie about Ledbetter, Lilly, starring Patricia Clarkson, premiered at the Hamptons International Film Festival.
“This was the privilege of my life to play this great woman,” Clark said on Today. “This woman who had so much grace and grit and glory. She was remarkable.”
Despite Ledbetter’s efforts, a gender pay gap in the USs persists. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in March that women earned 83% of what men made last year.
