Lilly Ledbetter, a champion of girls getting paid the identical as males for doing the identical work, died Saturday night time, her household mentioned in an announcement. She was 86.
AL.com was first to report that she had died.
Based on that outlet, the assertion mentioned she died “peacefully” and “surrounded by her household and family members. Our mom lived a rare life. We really recognize your respect for our privateness throughout this time of grief. “
Ledbetter’s activism led to the first invoice Barack Obama signed into legislation after taking workplace in 2009.
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The legislation, known as the Lilly Ledbetter Honest Pay Restoration Act, made it simpler for employees to sue after discovering what they believed to be pay discrimination.
In signing the measure, Obama mentioned that it despatched the message “that there aren’t any second-class residents in our workplaces, and that it isn’t simply unfair and unlawful, it is dangerous for enterprise to pay somebody much less due to their gender or their age or their race or their ethnicity, faith or incapacity.”
Ledbetter labored at Goodyear Tire & Rubber in Gadsden, Alabama, for almost 20 years earlier than discovering she was being paid lower than males doing the identical job.
The laws successfully overturned a two-year-old, 5-4 Supreme Courtroom determination that discovered that Ledbetter did not have grounds to sue as a result of she did not uncover the alleged pay discrimination inside six months of it first happening.
The invoice signed by Mr. Obama modified the principles so Ledbetter and employees like her may sue inside six months of discovering the alleged pay discrimination, no matter when it started.
The previous president paid tribute to Ledbetter in a submit on X, saying she “by no means got down to be a trailblazer or a family title. She simply wished to be paid the identical as a person for her arduous work. However this grandmother from Alabama stored on combating” till he signed the invoice bearing her title.
“Lilly did what so many People earlier than her have finished: setting her sights excessive for herself and even increased for her youngsters and grandchildren,” Mr. Obama mentioned.
Ledbetter continued her advocacy properly after the legislation was signed.
She acquired the Future Is Feminine Lifetime Achievement Award from Promoting Week final week, AL.com famous.
And a film about her life, “Lilly,” starring Patricia Clarkson, simply premiered on the Hamptons Worldwide Movie Competition.
