This Day in Labor History: January 29, 2009
By 
On January 29, 2009, President Barack Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Act. This narrow but important bill overturned Sam Alito’s “logic” in deciding that women couldn’t sue for pay discrimination unless they could prove decisions were made about six months before they filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint. This was a major victory in the history of women on the job in the United States. It also sadly seems to be the effective end of positive legislation regarding the workplace in this nation.
Ledbetter worked as a supervisor for Goodyear Tire at a Gadsden, Alabama plant. She had a long career there and had no real desire to rock the boat. But in 1998, an anonymous coworker wrote a note and put it on her desk. It told her that despite her nearly twenty years of experience, she was making vastly less money than men doing the same or even lower level work. She was furious. As she later remembered upon seeing the note, “When I saw that, it took my breath away. I felt humiliated. I felt degraded. 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.”
Ledbetter realized that this had cost her more than $200,000 in her career. Goodyear denied everything. So she sued for sex discrimination. She initially won her case, which was based on violations of the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
But see, then the long-time enemy of the American worker–the federal courts–got in the way. Her victory was overturned on appeal by the Eleventh Circuit. She appealed to the Supreme Court, but no one wins in front of those hacks unless they are corporate. The entire idea of discrimination only exists to these lapdogs of industry if a corporation is forced to do something. But a woman being discriminated against over pay? Pshaw. They will find a reason to deny her compensation, even if they have to make it. And make it up they did. In 2007’s Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire, the Court ruled 5-4 in favor of the companies. This had the predicted makeup. Alito wrote for the majority, Ginsburg for the minority. The justification from Alito was the biggest bullshit cop-out possible. They claimed that the discrimination must have taken place within 180 days of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filing. From her perspective, that is absolutely what was happening, but see, the way out for Alito and company was to say that it was when the decisions made against her interest at corporate happened, which was long before 180 days before that filing. Since her filing wasn’t specifically about what had happened in that previous 180 days, she had no standing.
What a crock. As Ginsburg pointed out in her dissent, this interpretation was ridiculous, because it was impossible for her to know and because the impact of pay discrimination is something that evolves over a long period of time, with decisions made years ago meaning that a decade later, you really are making a lot less money than men. But of course, dissents are worthless and Alito didn’t care.
However, this case really angered a lot of people in the Democratic coalition. Both the labor movement and the feminist movement were furious about it. Moreover, the fact that this was a professional woman meant that it tapped into the rich women who were involved through the Democratic Party who might be quite well off but had most certainly experienced various forms of discrimination in their life, including pay discrimination. Immediately, Democrats in Congress introduced the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. This became part of the national debate in 2008, which Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama announcing he favored it and the Republican candidate John McCain opposing it. It became a big enough deal for the Obama campaign that Ledbetter spoke at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
The specific change the Lilly Ledbetter Act made was to change the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to restart the 180 period to the last paycheck, direct going after Alito’s farcical interpretation. Senate Democrats introduced a bill in 2008 that Republicans shut down too quickly. See, having women get paid equally was going to get in the way of corporate control over the workplace and would lead to “frivolous lawsuits.” The Chamber of Commerce and other corporate organizations went ballistic over the horrors of this bill.
Nearly all but not quite all Republicans fell in line with their corporate masters in opposing the Lilly Ledbetter Act. It passed the House 250-177, with three Republicans voting for the bill and five Democrats opposing it, all leftover Dixiecrats type. Today, there is no way this bill would have been passed because Republicans would have filibustered it out of existence. But at that moment, with Democrats having a huge majority, it didn’t matter because it did gain the support of Republican women in the Senate. It passed the Senate 61-36, with every Democrat (except the ailing Ted Kennedy) voting for it, as well as Republicans Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Lisa Murkowski, and Arlen Specter.
The Lilly Ledbetter Act became the first bill Barack Obama signed into law, nine days after he entered the Oval Office. In the aftermath, Ledbetter remained a reasonably prominent Democrat, speaking at the 2012 DNC as well, reminding viewers (as if anyone watches these things who isn’t already a partisan) that Democrats support equal pay and Republicans don’t. There also was some kind of biopic with Patricia Clarkson in the Ledbetter role. Never even heard of this before so I doubt it is good. More importantly, women could now seek compensation for being cheated out of fair wages going back decades. And unlike the stated fears of the Chamber and Slammin Sammy Alito, the American business community didn’t screech to a halt based on superfluous lawsuits. Turns out, they are just liars. Who knew.
Alas, we are now beyond the era where government will make things better for people. Americans decided they had it too good and decided to make everything far, far worse.
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