Lilly Ledbetter is an American woman who could be your mother, your daughter, your sister, your aunt, your niece, your granddaughter, your friend, or if you are a woman working in America, she could be you.
Lilly told her story in her own words, when she addressed the Democratic National Convention:
(Complete text of Lilly Ledbetter's speech delivered at the Democratic National Convention at the end of this diary.)
On Wednesday, Lilly Ledbetter appeared with Michelle Obama and Jill Biden in Virginia:
The crowd here comes primed for some flying sideways karate kicks. Kristin Solomon, 29, a Charlottesville architect, is here because "I'm just tired of being angry all the time. I'm tired of all the focus being on a woman I don't admire. I needed to be surrounded by a community of smart, intelligent women I can look up to." For her, there's Lilly Ledbetter, the Clarence Earl Gideon of equal pay.
Ledbetter tells slowly, and in a heavy Alabama accent, her story about what happens "when the American commitment to equality is betrayed." She tells about decades of work at a Goodyear Tire plant in Alabama and how she discovered, by way of an anonymous note, that she was being paid far less than her male colleagues for the same work. She sued, and a federal jury in Alabama agreed she'd been wronged. (At this point the crowd roars. The woman behind me sighs, "They don't know how this is going to end, do they?") Ledbetter describes how the Supreme Court reversed her jury award, punishing her for the fact that her company discriminated in secret.
Then she explains that when Congress tried to pass legislation reflecting the ways discrimination happens in the real world, "Senator Obama was one of the strongest supporters of that bill." Sen. McCain, on the other hand, "didn't even show up to vote on it, but he said he would have voted against it."
Barack's Angels
Lilly Ledbetter, Jill Biden, and Michelle Obama on the trail in Virginia.
For a personal account of the event by a DailyKos community member, check out this diary by nviedprincess telling the story about attending the event in Virginia:
She then introduced Lilly Ledbetter, who told us her story. I mean I got the jist of the story from other diaries and news outlets, but to hear her tell it.... she had everyone in the audience PISSED. My redneck dude from earlier was ready to go register everyone he could get his hands on. She broke it down that she will never see a dime of the hundreds of thousands of dollars she was due, so she wasn't doing this for her, but she was doing this for her grandaughters, her nieces and nephews, your nieces and nephews, every female that you know.
I touched Michelle Obama today...
Yesterday, I wrote a diary about the Obama-Biden Campaign's Women's Week of Action and included the transcript of the last question of the Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton Conversation, where they discussed the issue of Equal Pay for Equal Work. During the conversation Clinton discussed Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.:
Clinton: Senator McCain and Senator Obama have a huge difference on this issue. Senator McCain thinks the Supreme Court got it right when Lilly Ledbetter was denied justice. He opposed legislation that I cosponsored to reverse that decision. He suggested that the reason women don't get equal pay isn't discrimination on the job, it's because they need more education and training.
And Joe Biden added another piece of information:
Biden: Let me add one thing to what you said. John is so out of touch he doesn't realize that there are more women in college today than men. Literally. More people graduating at the top of the class, Phi Beta Kappa. More women like you who graduated ahead of the men in their classes. And this is not a zero sum game. I don't know how many times, Hillary, out on the road I hear the following: "You know if my wife loses her job, we lose our house. If my wife loses her job, da da ..." I mean, the idea that they've been able to convince, and I believe the subliminal message the right is sending is, somehow if you pay a woman equal to a man, it's going to cost the man. This does not cost. Men should be out there going, "Pray God, pay my wife what she deserves."
In April, John McCain's skipped the vote on the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, as he has skipped a staggering amount of other votes during the campaign because he was too busy asking America to elect him President, to show up to do the current job he has. (DETAILED SUMMARY OF THE LILLY LEDBETTER FAIR PAY ACT - H.R. 2831 -- h/t Actuary4Change).
In New Orleans today [April 23, 2008], McCain explained his opposition to the bill by claiming it "opens us up to lawsuits for all kinds of problems." Later in Kentucky, he added that instead of legislation allowing women to fight for equal pay, they simply need "education and training":
"They need the education and training, particularly since more and more women are heads of their households, as much or more than anybody else," McCain said. "And it’s hard for them to leave their families when they don’t have somebody to take care of them.
"It’s a vicious cycle that’s affecting women, particularly in a part of the country like this, where mining is the mainstay; traditionally, women have not gone into that line of work, to say the least," he said.
McCain dismisses equal pay legislation, says women need more ‘training and education
The final vote on the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was 56-42, failing to reach the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster and compel a floor vote on. For procedural reasons, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid switched his vote and plans to bring the legislation to the floor again in the future. Interviewed after the vote, Lilly Ledbetter said,
What advice would you give working women when it comes to getting the wages they deserve?
It's a very difficult thing to do anything about. For one thing, if you're one of very few women working in a job, if you rock the boat or ask a question, they say you're a troublemaker. I'd been in meetings where higher people in my plant would say, "We don't need women in this factory," but they knew the law required them to have some. I sat through those meetings, and I was discriminated against because I did my job and I liked my job, and I was good at it.
Women need to observe, pay attention, be alert. And if possible, have a mentor to help them along the way. If they get any written proof of discrimination, they need to hold onto it. But it's difficult if a corporation goes into it knowing they're going to discriminate.
Is that what was happing at Goodyear?
I don't know. When I first learned, I thought it was just a Southern "good old boy" policy. But I've since learned this is national. It's a civil-rights issue.
TAP Talks with Lilly Ledbetter.
Are we living in the 1950s? John McCain must think so, if he thinks the reason women are paid less than men is a lack of education, training, and childcare assistance. And yet, having failed to show up for the vote on the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, McCain claimed in July that he is for equal pay for equal work. Does he think that women are just plain stupid? Does he think we didn't see his actions before we listened to his words?
We haven’t done enough. We have not done enough. And I’m committed to making sure that there’s equal pay for equal work. That there is equal opportunity in every aspect of our society. And that is my record and you can count on it.
After Voting Against Equal Pay Legislation, McCain Claims He’s ‘Committed To Equal Pay For Equal Work’
Currently, John McCain leads all the Senators in the 110th Congress in missed votes. With a record 64%, John McCain is the only Senator who has missed more than 50% of the votes. Talk about being out of touch with the issue of Equal Pay for Equal Work. Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe have showed up for 100% of the votes. And yet, they all earn the same $169,300 Annual Salary. Do you think if John McCain were working for a major corporation, that he would still be working at his job, much less drawing the same salary as those that actually showed up for work and did their job? Yes, Senators Obama, Biden, and Clinton, have missed a large number of votes while campaigning this election season. At least they've managed to show for more than 50% of the time, while McCain has only been at work 36% of the time.
On Monday as part of Women's Week of Action, the Obama-Biden campaign released a new ad, called Burden, that highlights John McCain’s failure to stand up for equal pay for women at a time when more and more families depend on the income earned by working women.
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FULL TEXT OF LILY LEDBETTER'S SPEECH AT THE 2008 DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION
Tuesday, August 26, 2008 at 07:20 PM
Good evening. Many of you are probably asking: Who is that grandmother from Alabama at the podium? I can assure you, nobody is more surprised, or humbled, than I am. I’m here to talk about America’s commitment to fairness and equality, and how people like me—and like you—suffer when that commitment is betrayed.
How fitting that I speak to you on Women’s Equality Day, when we celebrate ratification of the amendment that gave women the right to vote. Even as we celebrate, let’s also remind ourselves: the fight for equality is not over. I know that from personal experience. I was a trailblazer when I went to work as a female supervisor at a Goodyear tire plant in Gadsden, Alabama.
My job demanded a lot, and I gave it 100 percent. I kept up with every one of my male co-workers. But toward the end of my 19 years at Goodyear, I began to suspect that I wasn’t getting paid as much as men doing the same job. An anonymous note in my mailbox confirmed that I was right. Despite praising me for my work, Goodyear gave me smaller raises than my male co-managers, over and over.
Those differences affected my family’s quality of life then, and they affect my retirement now. When I discovered the injustice, I thought about moving on. But in the end, I couldn’t ignore the discrimination. So I went to court. A jury agreed with me. They found that my employer had violated the law and awarded me what I was owed.
I hoped the verdict would make my company feel the sting, learn a lesson and never again treat women unfairly. But they appealed, all the way to the Supreme Court, and in a 5-to-4 decision our highest court sided with big business. They said I should have filed my complaint within six months of Goodyear’s first decision to pay me less, even though I didn’t know that’s what they were doing.
In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that the ruling made no sense in the real world. She was right. The House of Representatives passed a bill that would make sure what was done to me couldn’t happen again. But when it got to the Senate, enough Republicans opposed it to prevent a vote.
We can’t afford more of the same votes that deny women their equal rights. Barack Obama is on our side. He is fighting to fix this terrible ruling, and as president, he has promised to appoint justices who will enforce laws that protect everyday people like me. But this isn’t a Democratic or a Republican issue. It’s a fairness issue. And fortunately, there are some Republicans—and a lot of Democrats—who are on our side.
My case is over. I will never receive the pay I deserve. But there will be a far richer reward if we secure fair pay. For our children and grandchildren, so that no one will ever again experience the discrimination that I did. Equal pay for equal work is a fundamental American principle. We need leaders in this country who will fight for it. With all of us working together, we can have the change we need and the opportunity we all deserve.
Thank you.
Lilly Ledbetter