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Ledbetter vs. Goodyear – Resources and Join the Campaign

Nick — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 09:32:35 +0000

I STILL don’t have time to write the long and thoughtful post I would like on this case, but I thought I could at least provide you with some excellent links on the Ledbetter vs. Goodyear case so that you can decide for yourself if you think Goodyear should be boycotted until they make good on what a jury originally awarded Ledbetter. Yesterday Jeffrey commented on my first post announcing the campaign suggesting that pay discrimination is a myth and that Ledbetter lost her case because she failed to prove discrimination. I’ve read the Supreme Court case, and it is not true that she failed to prove discrimination. If you read the case with an educated eye, as well as refer to the original case that she won, it is clear that she failed to prove discrimination within the bogus time constraint for discrimination cases.

If you visited yesterday, you will remember that I have started a campaign to boycott Goodyear Tire Co by getting 10,000 supporters to boycott starting on Mother’s Day. Of course 10,000 is just a start. After all, the more the merrier. If you haven’t signed up for the campaign, please do!

To understand the case better, I would recommend you start your reading here (Cornell Law School).

For further information:

Lilly Ledbetter: Peaceful Revolution: Equal Pay for Equal Work- Time for the Senate to Vote – Living on The Huffington Post

This piece was co-authored by Lily Ledbetter and Joan Blades. I can’t believe I need to write this blog. The 1964 Civil Rights Act made equal pay for equal work the law of the land. For almost 50 years Americans have had the justice system to turn to when they suffer pay discrimination. Last year the Supreme Court upended this law by making it essentially unenforceable.
The Stagnant Artist: Back to the Stone Ages

Another blogger who has picked up the campaign.

tags: Ledbetter
LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO.
David Drake: Lilly Ledbetter vs Goodyear:

The Lefty Blogosphere’s Most Overrated,

Biggest Non-Story Of The Year (so far!)

A dissenting view, but Velvet Verbosity thinks you need to hear both sides to accurately decide for yourself which side you fall on. “The ruling by the court is right-on. Look at it this way, she waited 19 years to file suit and then files suit within 180 days of her final paycheck? This woman is none too bright. She forges along in her daily work routine for 19 years, clueless that others may – may – be earning more than her, coupled with the fact of Goodyear saying her performance reviews were substandard. Like I wrote, this woman is none too bright. Some Liberal female bloggers have written that there should be absolutely no statute of time limitations on cases like this. Well, keep on living in your tiny, brainless bubble gals.”
On the Legal Front: Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire Co.: A Divided Supreme Court Causes Quite a Stir January 2008
Opinion L.A. : Los Angeles Times : Who’s afraid of Lilly Ledbetter?

Who’s afraid of Lilly Ledbetter? Not Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Both came out in favor of a congressional bill that would make it easier for victims of pay disparity to charge discrimination in court. That’s what Lilly Ledbetter tried to do, but the Supreme Court ruled against her, adhering closely to a law that says discrimination must be reported within 180 days of its occurrence. As the editorial board wrote earlier this week:
Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 550 U.S. ___ (2007), is an employment discrimination decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. Justice Alito held for the five-justice majority that employers are protected from lawsuits over race or gender pay discrimination if the claims are based on decisions made by the employer 180 days ago or more. This was a case of statutory rather than constitutional interpretation. The plaintiff in this case, Lilly Ledbetter, characterized her situation as one where “disparate pay is received during the statutory limitations period, but is the result of intentionally discriminatory pay decisions that occurred outside the limitations period.” In rejecting Ledbetter’s appeal, the Supreme Court said that “she could have, and should have, sued” when the pay decisions were made, instead of waiting beyond the 180-day statutory charging period.
Ledbetter, Lilly v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. – Medill – On the Docket
LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO.

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. Yet, under the Court’s decision, the discrimination Ledbetter proved is not redressable under Title VII. Each and every pay decision she did not immediately challenge wiped the slate clean. Consideration may not be given to the cumulative effect of a series of decisions that, together, set her pay well below that of every male area manager. Knowingly carrying past pay discrimination forward must be treated as lawful conduct. Ledbetter may not be compensated for the lower pay she was in fact receiving when she complained to the EEOC. Nor, were she still employed by Goodyear, could she gain, on the proof she presented at trial, injunctive relief requiring, prospectively, her receipt of the same compensation men receive for substantially similar work. The Court’s approbation of these consequences is totally at odds with the robust protection against workplace discrimination Congress intended Title VII to secure. See, e.g., Teamsters v. United States, 431 U. S., at 348 (“The primary purpose of Title VII was to assure equality of employment opportunities and to eliminate … discriminatory practices and devices … .” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U. S. 405, 418 (1975) (“It is … the purpose of Title VII to make persons whole for injuries suffered on account of unlawful employment discrimination.”).
The Overlooked Explosive News Story « Just Above Sunset
TESTIMONY OF LILLY LEDBETTER BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Good afternoon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Ranking Member for inviting me. My name is Lilly Ledbetter. It is an honor to be here today to talk about my experience trying to enforce my right to equal pay for equal work. I wish my story had a happy ending. But it doesn’t. I hope that this Committee can do whatever is necessary to make sure that in the future, what happened to me does not happen to other people who suffer discrimination like I did.

Let’s show the business world that with Social Media behind us, citizens do not need to wait in frustration for fair policies to be passed. We can send powerful messages quickly and efficiently by sharing and organizing on the internet, and then with solidarity choosing to not spend our money with companies that we feel are getting away with unfair practices. We can, as a combined force, effect change.

Join these other bloggers in sharing the Goodyear Boycott Campaign.

Two Women Blogging
Telecommuting Journal
The Stagnant Artist
LouCeel
The Junkys Wife
Green Girl Today
You should be here! C’mon bloggers, let’s show corporate America where it’s at! (If I’ve missed you, please email or comment and I’ll add you.)

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The post Ledbetter vs. Goodyear – Resources and Join the Campaign first appeared on velvetverbosity.com.

Campaigning for Fair Pay Practices: Lilly Ledbetter

Nick — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:32:29 +0000

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,

you can read about the campaign here.
you can join the campaign here
you can digg the campaign here

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.

The post Campaigning for Fair Pay Practices: Lilly Ledbetter first appeared on velvetverbosity.com.

Doris Lessing and the Feminists

Nick — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 09:23:29 +0000

Doris Lessing never liked being aligned with feminist writings and had this to say about it:

What the feminists want of me is something they haven’t examined because it comes from religion. They want me to bear witness. What they would really like me to say is, ‘Ha, sisters, I stand with you side by side in your struggle toward the golden dawn where all those beastly men are no more.’ Do they really want people to make oversimplified statements about men and women? In fact, they do. I’ve come with great regret to this conclusion.

– Doris Lessing, The New York Times, 25 July 1982

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So Tell Me Again That Pornography and a Pornified Media are Not Harmful?

Nick — Mon, 25 Feb 2002 09:30:25 +0000

Girls Accepting Sexual Assault At School As Fact Of Life: Reports

The article doesn’t actually make any correlations between over 20% of girls being sexually assaulted in Toronto schools and expecting it and the pornification of our culture. The only conclusions the experts can draw is to say that the problem is that “most kids don’t actually know what sexual assault is”. Really? Now why wouldn’t they know what sexual assault entails when this is the generation of kids that grew up with “innappropriate touching” education? And why, like the title suggests, are girls accepting this as part of school life?

Someone please give me an intelligent answer to this, because I’d really like to hear it. Be forewarned, don’t use the party line that this has been going on all along, because I’m not buying it. I went to school. Boys cat-called, and on dates they sometimes tried to get more than they were going to get, but I don’t remember one single incident of a girl telling me that a guy followed her into the bathroom and stuck his hands down her shirt, and she thought this was to be expected! There have been times in history and places on the map where women have been subjected to this type of treatment, and that’s because they lived in a time or culture of oppression. How do we explain that in a time and place where women are supposed to more or less have equal rights, that this is happening? How do we explain the conflict between being told we are in a “sex-positive” and “sexually liberated” culture that brings us such gems as Girls Gone Wild and the fact that young girls don’t feel safe getting their EDUCATION? Is it at all possible that the sex industry that has leaked into every facet of our daily life and portrays women liking being objectified, used, and abused and as nothing more than a commodity to be obtained for male pleasure is having any influence at all on young minds?

All I ask is that you open your eyes and take a look around. Listen to the music. It’s not just about sex, it’s about sexually degrading women. Pay attention to the television, the movies, the ads, the stuff that is all around us everyday and how it is not just about sex, but about women being objects. Do this for a few days. Do it honestly. Then come back and give me your answer.

While you’re thinking about it, you can start with this thoughtful video: Hip Hop – Beyond Beats and Rhymes. Pay particular attention to what the people on the street are saying starting at about three minutes in. Watch the full length video here.

***On a lighter note, “note to self”. When putting on a turtleneck sweater, if the neck is so tight you feel like you’re being birthed all over again, it’s time to stop putting said turtleneck sweater in the dryer. Capiche?

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The post So Tell Me Again That Pornography and a Pornified Media are Not Harmful? first appeared on velvetverbosity.com.