(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Top Comments: Lilly Ledbetter [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-10-16 Lilly Ledbetter, trailblazing fighter for equal pay, died this week at age 86. We all owe her a debt of gratitude for the law named after her. But first, a word from our sponsor! Here at Top Comments we welcome longtime as well as brand new Daily Kos readers to join us at 10pm Eastern. We strive to nourish community by rounding up some of the site's best, funniest, most mojo'd & most informative commentary, and we depend on your help!! If you see a comment by another Kossack that deserves wider recognition, please send it either to topcomments at gmail or to the Top Comments group mailboxby 9:30pm Eastern. Please please please include a few words about why you sent it in as well as your user name (even if you think we know it already :-)), so we can credit you with the find! Lilly Ledbetter worked for Goodyear from 1979 until her retirement in 1998. Shortly before her retirement, she was given anonymous information revealing that she was being paid less than her male colleagues, costing her approximately $200,000 over the course of her career. She sued for sex discrimination, and initially won her case. However, the verdict was reversed on appeal, based on a novel reading of the law. The law required that any suit be filed within 6 months of the discriminatory act. This had previously been interpreted to mean that each paycheck was a “discriminatory act.” However, in their 2007 decision in Ledbetter vs. Goodyear, the Supreme Court ruled that the 6-month clock started ticking when the employee’s pay rate was set or changed. This is an impossible standard to meet in many cases: as with Ledbetter, the employee may not even know about the discrimination until long afterward. And many jobs have a 6-month probationary period where the employee can be fired without cause. (Yes, retaliatory firing is illegal….but if the company respected employment law, they wouldn’t be discriminating in the first place.) Congress stepped up, and in 2009 President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The loophole was closed for future litigants, but Ledbetter herself never got a settlement from Goodyear. She continued her activism, wrote a book about it, Grace and Grit, and was the subject of a movie, Lilly, that premiered shortly before her death. Because of her, pay discrimination laws can actually be enforced — they’re useless if they only exist on paper. On to Top Comments! From Rise Above the Swamp: Here’s a comment by JustMike that I came across in Cheers & Jeers that I think deserves another look. He was remarking on tfg’s dancing style. “I’m really not one to talk, but looking like your trying to keep your balance in a free-falling elevator is not really dancing to me.” Highlighted by renren: Highlighted by DD on Kos: Certainot explains the difference between the “Dean scream” and actually disqualifying episodes for TFG. Top mojo, courtesy of mik: [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/10/16/2276892/-Top-Comments-Lilly-Ledbetter?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/