Campaigning for Fair Pay Practices: Lilly Ledbetter
I have NO time to write as I have a busy work day and a busy play night ahead, but I want to alert you all to a campaign I’ve started on www.thepoint.com. There is a lot to this story, but let me get to the pith. Goodyear screwed over a woman, Lilly Ledbetter, then got out of it on a legal loophole (she’s not the only one, but she has become the poster child). I’m looking for 10,000 + supporters to boycott Goodyear by Mother’s Day until Goodyear makes good on the disparity.
I’ll post a full story with links tomorrow morning. For now,
And of course, you can really really help by passionately spreading the word via any and all social tools you use. Telephone, word of mouth, social bookmarking, Facebook, Myspace, and your blogs!! Of course, your blogs! Please help me out in making a difference, in letting corporations know they can buy out policy makers, they can hide behind lawyers and legal loopholes, but they can never hide from consumers.
If you know nothing else about this, know that Ledbetter asked only for $60,000 in the beginning. She was trying to be fair. More than Goodyear did.
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I’m in. And thinking pure thoughts - at the moment.
Awesome awesome! Thanks, and please spread the word like something important depended on it.
Wait, something important DOES depend on it.
I applaud your passion, but must disagree with the cause. There is a lot more to the Ledbetter story than what is being report or explained. Both the appeals court and the Supreme Court mention the filing period, but it was not the sole reason why Ledbetter lost. Text from the Supreme Court decision clearly states that Ledbetter herself did not feel that the discrimination she was alleging was intentional, which is key:
“Ledbetter, as noted, makes no claim that intentionally discriminatory conduct occurred during the charging period or that discriminatory deci-sions that occurred prior to that period were not communi-cated to her.”
Ledbetter lawyers also failed to include another element of their case because it would have revealed that Ledbetter was scheduled for layoff three times (but received reprieves) and that she was evaluated at the bottom or near the bottom of her peer group.
Equal pay is a myth, not only amongst men and women, but also in general. There will always be someone making more money than someone else, but the overwhelming reason for that pay difference will have nothing at all to do with a person’s sex.
Hi Jeffrey,
I appreciate your comment, and I too believe that most of the time people are paid fairly, but there are a lot of things that don’t add up here, and as you state, there is more to the story.
For example, though Goodyear claims that Ledbetter was evaluated at the bottom or “near” bottom of her peer group, she received an employee excellence award in 1996. Also, the layoffs that she “almost” received were part of overall layoffs, and as you note, she was never actually laid off.
Also, it is hard to swallow that for 20 years Ledbetter was always the lowest on the totem pole. Why would she have been allowed to stay in management for that long? Why didn’t they lay her off? And why was someone else in the company compelled to send her an anonymous letter outlining that she was underpaid?
Finally, when the case was presented as a discriminatory case before a jury, that jury found in Ledbetter’s favor after considering evidence from both sides (including testimony from another woman who was promoted from a secretary to a manager and was promised a raise in pay that she never received).
I believe that people should be compensated fairly according to their performance and contribution to a company, but Ledbetter was consistently paid lower than any other male in her same position, even during the year she received an employee excellence award. Am I to believe that they hand out awards for sub-par performance but don’t back it up with fair pay?
In 1996, Ledbetter was not eligible for a raise because of the timing of her previous raise, but she was ranked fifteenth out of the 16 Area Managers in the performance rankings on which the 1996 raises were based (which means she would not have received a raise). In 1995, she ranked was 23 our of 24 salaried employees. Neither the individual ranked 22 or 24 received a raise either (and they were men).
At the end of 1996, Ledbetter’s supervisor (Mr. Tucker) did not prepare an evaluation for Ledbetter because, based on her low ranking from the previous year, she was going to be included in the plant’s scheduled layoffs.
Rather than laying her off, however, Goodyear retained Ledbetter at her existing salary to serve as a substitute for Area Managers on extended leave (not an equal position as she has alleged). She then later transferred to a non-supervisors position to avoid the layoff, and after being counseled for her poor work performance. To which she did not file a complaint.
As far as the Top Performance Award, all is not as it appears. The court records indicate that Ledbetter’s previous supervisor (Tucker, who died shortly after Ledbetter retired, but before the she filed the suit) recommended such a large increase for Ledbetter, not because she was truly a “top performer,” but simply because he wanted to raise her salary and thought he could only do so significantly by giving her a “top performance award,” which allowed him to exceed a 4% cap on “individual performance” awards. Does that sound like a supervisor trying to discriminate?
As to the anonymous letter, who knows what motives this person had, or if the alleged letter was even real. The two strongest witnesses that would have helped this case were an anonymous letter writer who could not be cross-examined, and Ledbetter’s immediate supervisor, who was dead.
This is a poor case to be used for such sweeping legislation.
Can you give me your sources? I would like to look into this for myself. Though I am still unconvinced. Partly because other women came forward at her trial with similar complaints.
Also, just a check in, I’m not looking to change legislation. I’m looking to educate folks and boycott. Very different things indeed.