During my time at Goodyear, I had received many anonymous note, some serious, some not, but I had never received a note like this before. Somebody had listed my name, and the names of the other three tire managers, with the salary next to each name. I had always worried about being paid less than the men for the same work, but I never had any proof. I was kind of like a wife, nursing a nagging suspicion that her husband was having an affair, with no evidence. But then in 1998 nearly two decades after I began working there, there it was in plain black ink what I had always feared. The other managers, all men, had been earning more than I was; a lot more.
In 2009 Lilly Ledbetter’s fair pay restoration act made it easier for employee’s to file …show more content…
Thanks to her effort, never again will employees receive unequal pay, for equal work. Grace and Grit, by Lilly Ledbetter.
Maybe I was seeing things. Maybe this note was a serious mistake or bad joke. I knew in my gut that it wasn’t. If you ever hit an animal driving down the road, you know the sickening recognition the thudding sound sends through your body. I had that feeling in spades. As I read those numbers again and again, I couldn’t help but to think back to how I first started at Goodyear. Nearly 40 at the time, I was far from native. I knew by the get go that I would have to work longer and smarter than the men in order to prove myself. But how in the world, had I been getting paid less, for all these years? The difference in salaries just didn’t make sense. How arrogant to think that I was the woman who had the strength to win at Goodyear. Those numbers said loud and clear that it didn’t matter how hard I worked, how much I had wanted to succeed and do the …show more content…
It went through the court system for years. Until the summer of 2006, when miraculously, the Supreme Court agreed to hear my appeal. A full 6 months later, I heard the verdict. We lost, in a 5 to 4 decision. Unbelievably, Justice Samuel Alito wrote an opinion that I should have complained every time I received a smaller pay raise then men, even if I had no idea what the men were making, and even if I had no way to prove that these decisions were discrimination. The court ruled that 180 days after the initial paid decision, the employee is stuck, with unequal pay, for equal work, for the rest of a career, and there’s nothing illegal about it. Justice Ruth Bater Ginsburg, in her descent, hit the nail on the head when she said that the majority's decision didn’t make sense in the real world. People don’t go around asking how much money colleagues make. Most work places would have you fired when discussing one another’s salaries. But most people assume that they work for an employer who does the right thing. And most people I have talked to can’t believe what has happened to me, and they want to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. This is not a game; real people’s lives are at
In 2009 Lilly Ledbetter’s fair pay restoration act made it easier for employee’s to file …show more content…
Thanks to her effort, never again will employees receive unequal pay, for equal work. Grace and Grit, by Lilly Ledbetter.
Maybe I was seeing things. Maybe this note was a serious mistake or bad joke. I knew in my gut that it wasn’t. If you ever hit an animal driving down the road, you know the sickening recognition the thudding sound sends through your body. I had that feeling in spades. As I read those numbers again and again, I couldn’t help but to think back to how I first started at Goodyear. Nearly 40 at the time, I was far from native. I knew by the get go that I would have to work longer and smarter than the men in order to prove myself. But how in the world, had I been getting paid less, for all these years? The difference in salaries just didn’t make sense. How arrogant to think that I was the woman who had the strength to win at Goodyear. Those numbers said loud and clear that it didn’t matter how hard I worked, how much I had wanted to succeed and do the …show more content…
It went through the court system for years. Until the summer of 2006, when miraculously, the Supreme Court agreed to hear my appeal. A full 6 months later, I heard the verdict. We lost, in a 5 to 4 decision. Unbelievably, Justice Samuel Alito wrote an opinion that I should have complained every time I received a smaller pay raise then men, even if I had no idea what the men were making, and even if I had no way to prove that these decisions were discrimination. The court ruled that 180 days after the initial paid decision, the employee is stuck, with unequal pay, for equal work, for the rest of a career, and there’s nothing illegal about it. Justice Ruth Bater Ginsburg, in her descent, hit the nail on the head when she said that the majority's decision didn’t make sense in the real world. People don’t go around asking how much money colleagues make. Most work places would have you fired when discussing one another’s salaries. But most people assume that they work for an employer who does the right thing. And most people I have talked to can’t believe what has happened to me, and they want to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. This is not a game; real people’s lives are at