Lilly Ledbetter Speaks at the Democratic National Convention

Lilly Ledbetter speaks at the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 26, 2008. Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Lilly Ledbetter spoke Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention. Amid cheers, she roused the crowd with what has become her mantra: equal pay for all genders. Below is a story from April 2008 highlighting her lawsuit that led to a Supreme Court ruling and subsequent action by Congress.

Senate Republicans used a procedural move tonight to block consideration of a bill that would have made it easier for workers to sue over pay discrimination claims.

Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, returned to Washington from the campaign trail to vote for the bill, which had mostly Democratic supporters.

The 56-42 vote drew criticism from Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., sponsor of the measure. Despite his efforts, he failed to get the 60 votes necessary to clear a Republican procedural hurdle and push the Fair Pay Act through the Senate.

Tonight's filibuster was a setback for the fight over equal pay, but supporters say the issue is likely to emerge in congressional and presidential campaigns.

"It's outrageous that the Senate Republicans refused to break their filibuster against equal pay for women," Kennedy said tonight. "Women deserve a remedy when they're denied equal pay for equal work, and so do victims of discrimination based on age, race, national origin, disability and religion. As we've done on other basic bills to protect civil rights, we won't take no for an answer. This issue isn't going away."

The act would have allowed workers to file suit over wage discrimination claims within 180 days of receiving a discriminatory paycheck, rather than within 180 days of the original decision by the employer to pay them less.

In a news conference earlier today, Kennedy joined labor unions and women's groups urging lawmakers to support the measure. It sought to reverse a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that held that Lilly Ledbetter, a supervisor at an Alabama tire plant, could not sue her employer for pay discrimination because the decision to cut her wages occurred years ago.

The Bush administration and business groups were against the bill, saying it would encourage frivolous lawsuits against employers.

Ledbetter, now 70 and retired, became a national symbol for pay equity after she lost her battle with Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., where she worked for 20 years before discovering that she earned less than her male colleagues for doing the same job.

"My pension and my Social Security are based on the amount I earned while working there, so this has been a drastic loss for me," Ledbetter told AARP Bulletin Today. "It's hard enough in retirement, making your income last the rest of your life."

Under current law, employees can file charges only within 180 days of the original discriminatory action, such as when employers set workers' wages. So if female employees learn years later that they've been getting paid less than their male counterparts performing the same work, they cannot file suit because the time limit has run out.

Ledbetter learned only through an anonymous tip in 1998—as she was retiring—that her male colleagues were paid more.

She filed suit that year but ultimately lost after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the time limit had expired because Goodyear had made the discriminatory decisions long ago, when her pay was set. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, in her dissenting opinion last year, suggested that the high court's ruling conflicted with the realities of wage discrimination and urged Congress to take action.

The Senate bill, similar to one passed by the House earlier this month, would have closed a "flagrant loophole in our civil rights" by strengthening anti-discrimination laws, Kennedy said during a speech on the Senate floor last week.

Ted Frank, director of the AEI Legal Center for the Public Interest in Washington, says the case that thrust Ledbetter into the nation's spotlight shouldn't have come this far. He says statutes of limitations are necessary to prevent people from suing for very old alleged injuries.

"Memories fade...people change employers," Frank says. "If an employee can wait until a middle manager of years ago died before accusing the company of discrimination, justice is impossible."

But Jocelyn Frye, a lawyer for the National Partnership for Women and Families, called the Ledbetter case "extremely troubling" because the high court decision put the burden on workers to discover such pay disparities.

"Pay discrimination is very hard to uncover; most people simply do not know when an employer decides to discriminate against them," she says. "This legislation is essential for women, for older workers and for disabled workers."

Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, criticized the Bush administration last year for siding with Goodyear in a friend-of-the-court brief filed with the high court.

"Women workers certainly deserve better than the 77 cents that they earn to a man's dollar," she says. "They deserve the right to go to court when they discover they've been paid unfairly. They deserve a Congress and a president who will stand up for them, and a workplace that values their work equally."