Lilly Ledbetter, equal pay icon, dead at 86

Lilly Ledbetter, a champion of women getting paid the same as men for doing the same work, died Saturday night, her family said in a statement. She was 86.

AL.com was first to report that she had died.

According to that outlet, the statement said she died “peacefully” and “surrounded by her family and loved ones. Our mother lived an extraordinary life. We truly appreciate your respect for our privacy during this time of grief. “

Ledbetter’s activism led to the first bill Barack Obama signed into law after becoming president in 2009.

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The law, called the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, made it easier for workers to sue after discovering what they believed to be pay discrimination.

In signing the measure, Obama said that it sent the message “that there are no second-class citizens in our workplaces, and that it’s not just unfair and illegal, it’s bad for business to pay someone less because of their gender or their age or their race or their ethnicity, religion or disability.”

Ledbetter worked at Goodyear Tire & Rubber in Gadsden, Alabama, for nearly 20 years before discovering she was being paid less than men doing the same job.

The legislation effectively overturned a two-year-old, 5-4 Supreme Court decision that found that Ledbetter didn’t have grounds to sue because she didn’t discover the alleged pay discrimination within six months of it first taking place.

The bill signed by Mr. Obama changed the rules so Ledbetter and workers like her could sue within six months of discovering the alleged pay discrimination, regardless of when it began.

The former president paid tribute to Ledbetter in a post on X, saying she “never set out to be a trailblazer or a household name. She just wanted to be paid the same as a man for her hard work. But this grandmother from Alabama kept on fighting” until he signed the bill bearing her name.

“Lilly did what so many Americans before her have done: setting her sights high for herself and even higher for her children and grandchildren,” Mr. Obama said.

Among others also paying tribute, the AFL-CIO, which called her “a true hero” and Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, who said she “forever changed my understanding with the simple but powerful phrase, “Equal pay for equal work.” It’s shocking that, as a CEO, I witnessed firsthand how wide the pay disparities were—not just in my own company, but across so many others we acquired. Lilly taught me the fight for equality starts with pay equity.”

Ledbetter continued her advocacy well after the law was signed.

She received the Future Is Female Lifetime Achievement Award from Advertising Week last week, AL.com noted.

And a movie about her life, “Lilly,” starring Patricia Clarkson, just premiered at the Hamptons International Film Festival.