In 1999 he tried to buy my case. We didnt get there until 2003. My case was heard in my home county in alabama in january of 2003. After a week of testimony the jury came back with a verdict in my favor. I had two women who came forward, one of them still working at the plant and at the time she took a tremendous risk, and she paid a horrific price for doing this. But she had suffered a lot of discrimination as well. And she has never gotten anything for it. The other had sold her service and have been working 22 years. She went to work for honda as a supervisor. She took a personal day and came to court and testify on my behalf. The lawyer asked her why she never complained and she said i was a divorced mother supporting a blind and handicapped son and i live paycheck to paycheck and i couldnt afford to bring up my pay. Because you see, we were all told in management but if you discuss your pay, you will not work here. Evidently, no one ever did discuss their pay. And she said that i knew that if i brought up my pay, but i would not have a job. And i couldnt afford to lose my job. Most of the years that i worked there i was in a supervisory perdition. A general Maintenance Man was going to testify for me. There was another area manager sitting there to testify as well. But we didnt need them after the two women. All of the managers names in our salaries and what we started at and where we worked up a time and it was a disgrace. That is really all the jurors should have seen. It was beyond a shadow of doubt that i have been discriminated against simply because i was born a woman. But that was 2003. The verdict came back and they said i lost the age determination just a couple of other ones that were thrown in. But the pay discrimination they found in my favor. 3. 8 million. They said dont cry, dont quit, dont do anything. When i heard that verdict, thats all i needed to hear. I will tell you this. When i saw this, i knew i would never give get any money. My husband and i were trying to keep my kids in college instead. And that is hard. Thats the normal family life. The judge explained to the courtroom why i was only entitled to 300,000. The only discriminatory item that i had was the fact that i was a woman. I didnt have color or anything else. So i could only get 300,000. That page, you can only go back two years. I knew that going in. I did not know about anything else. Backpay can only go back two years. I hope i live long enough to see the cat taken off of this. The cat needs to come off. Because that is the only way we can compensate an individual for all that lost money. The judge took the lowest paid mail and he only been working at goodyear just a little over one year. He had less education unless experience. And he already made 600 more a month than i did from a lower paying job. The judge calculated my two years backpay, and i was given 30,000 per year. So i left the courtroom with 360,000. The headlines said from california to chicago to new york and florida, all across this nation the headlines read jacksonville, alabama, woman awarded 3. 8 million from Goodyear Tire and rubber. They say that i got that money. The gadsden headline said that as well. I got a lot of compliments of the headlines in the news. Well, that was 2003. He went to the 11th circuit record and then my guilt was hurt in the Supreme Court in november of 2006. Life goes on. We had our normal family life the best we could do. But i worked the case just like it was a job. I called over 100 people to find the people that we needed to testify on my behalf. People were afraid of losing their jobs. They were so afraid. That is why they switched over. Most of this was color coded. But life went on and my husband had two surgeries on his back. He was laid up for weeks. Then he had cancer on the writer and the left ear. They removed the left side of his face and grabbed the skin off his right leg. I left him at home with a Health Care Nurse to travel to the Supreme Court to hear my case. Because it was important for me to be there. All i heard was leadbetter and she and this is our story. But the equal Employment Commission has supported my case all the way from the time it started until the Supreme Court. The law was on my side. All the cases previous to this was based on paycheck, which meant we were still getting a paycheck, it started a new Accounting Period but when the government reviewed the goodyear side, it would be such a hardship on the corporation, they claimed. Well, we waited until may of 2007 and the verdict came out. They came back five to four and Justice Alito red everything. He said that i should have filed discriminatory behavior during the first paycheck that i got them even, even though i didnt know it. What this means is that if you have a new job, you have six months to file any charge. But i dont think people go around and try to figure out should i be filing a charge. You are trying to learn the job. I barely learn how to get to the restrooms at that point. Thats just not the waves was to be. But Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she doesnt understand what these people go through in the real world. The ball is in your court, and you can correct this injustice and stand up and change the law back. Shes exactly right. Congress are heard loud and clear. That was may of 2007. The lawyers will be when they call, that you dont have to respond to the media, but the law was on my side. I have worked in this case. My lawyers have worked there. We didnt have anything to be embarrassed about. The arbitration Case Settlement that we had allowed me to come back and work two days a week and i could get my old rate of pay. I said look, i dont want to earn any more money, i just want what im entitled to because i shouldve had it when i was working. I dont want to earn any more. And i said i know how goodyear things. I would be on the mailroom on saturday and sunday nights. And they said oh, no, you can get along with hr in scheduler with them. And i said no, he has been a goodyear just the right time to transfer out, and he did two months after the verdict came out. Now he does work for goodyear anymore. Two weeks after the birth, my lawyer bobby a plane ticket and said we are going to washington to testify before the house. I did so twice before the house and twice before the senate. And i had the opportunity the first time in the senate to testify before ken kennedys committee. The chargers showed how they had voted since they been on the bench, and it was they didnt always appear to be the same individuals. My case is not the only one that they have reversed would change log for. I spoke at the democratic convention. I was invited by the president. In the meantime, we are doing radiation and chemotherapy at my house for my husband. And i am flying back and forth to washington. The coalition in Washington County up there three or four days a week. I would be up at 5 00 a. M. And i would do a tv spot, and we were getting support from democrats as well as republicans. The Lily Ledbetter is bipartisan. It does belonged to the republican or democratic parties. It is fundamental to each american life. The we are able to be paid for we have legally been entitled to and have earned. I could see the tears of the Democratic National convention. They asked when did i endorse obama, and i said tonight. I knew that i had to get off the fence and go for him because john mccain had just said that womens problem was that we didnt have enough education or training. Thats why we didnt make enough money. I couldnt can let that go. I had to start campaigning and tried to get the laws changed. Because it was important. It was a record deal. It took us 18 months to get the Lily Ledbetter bill passed. And the paycheck fairness act. Fifteen years in the works, it failed by two votes. All democrats voted for it, but no republican would come across the aisle and vote for it. It was the same as the Lily Ledbetter bill. Had that been the law, i wouldve known that i was getting shortchanged. Way back when and i couldve done something about it. But theres his peoples lives. This is not a game. This is families across the nation. And i have learned that young people are suffering because her mothers are working two jobs and they still cant make ends meet. And their mothers are not there to prepare good healthy meals, the kids are becoming obese, they are not there to go to the Parent Teacher conferences, education is hurting. This needs to be turned around. This is what is driving the nation down. The fact that so many people are underpaid or the work that they do. Simple to me because when people are paid fairly, it benefits the community and the state and the nation. They will turn them on a background in the neighborhood, and they will spend it and it makes things longer all the way around. I also have learned that doing the right thing may not be popular. But doing the right thing sometimes means having the courage to speak the truth. That came from a judge in birmingham, and i so believe it. I also learned that its not so much what happens to us, but how we react to it. I lost my husband in december of 2008. I came home from doing a 2020 mac that meant in new york and found him and he was already cold. The treatment had worn them completely out. We have nine operations on one of his eyes. He never did regain his eyesight. And he had prostate surgery the previous year, plus all the other treatment. His body was so worn out. But i could not let it go. And i wont let go today because we still have a lot of work to do. I am disturbed right now that they are trying to take away the rights and the decisions that us women have made for our bodies. We have to wake up. I did learn that one person can start a battle. But it takes a lot. Everyone across this nation, one of the headlines read that she struck a nerve, and thats exactly what i did. People got behind me. In that same interview, it was a good job. Those of you that worked at the plant, you know that those were good jobs. I just got if i wouldve just gotten paid what i was legally entitled to, i wouldve let it go. I thought about it long and hard. Because once i had started, i knew i would be in for a long time. But that was the price i was willing to pay and my family supported me. I could not let it go. My title immediately became troublemaker. So id carried it through. The birmingham attorney sent back information to the media, and i have not heard from them. But this is something that we all need to get behind. We cant let this go. The kind of people who went to the white house the first time was senator Hillary Rodham clinton. The second was from president obama and the third letter was from michelle. I would suggest this. Until the College Students that. Research people. Research their voting records are what have they done for you back home . Those are the people that you need to support. Not what they might do or might think about doing, but what they have done. I couldnt let this go. I cant let it go today. I have traveled the world. In march of 2009, i shared my story for six days. I have never lived anywhere but alabama and the south. And this had to be a big southern problem, but no, no, it is coasttocoast and north to south and east west. Its also around the world. We shared my story with french and the japanese, and they send reporters into the country and interviewed me. And they put articles out there as well. The chileans newspaper interviewed me for the second time. They have the same problem. What is sad is that they are looking at the United States for leadership to set an example. But there is a lot in the book. And i would love to share with you a little bit about what we have and give you some information there. Then we can open it up to questions. I hope you have seen the rachel interview on hardball. It is online. There are a lot of videos on the internet and there are a lot of people who have done a good job. On Tuesday Morning we are going to harvard and boston. Tuesday night. So i think that lanier scott ison captured my story extremely well. Since this is a local audience, i will share some things. I did turn down a movie deal early on. Simply because i wanted the story to be heard across the nation. Because its important that we wake up and stop this from happening to other people and other families. We do not have to accept that. We can do something about it. Thank you. And she had said, her story is every womans story. Unfortunately, the reason why this is the case is because today, in america, you probably know this, caucasian women earn 77 cents for every dollar that a man earns. This fact is based on the median earnings of all fulltime your brown workers. Fulltime yearround workers. A woman earns approximately 11,000 less than a man. So the equal pay act was passed in 1963. Women earn 53 to every mans dollar. That was just 50 years ago. And there are two things to note. The gap has not closed. Not very much. That is about half a cent annually. If you add up that difference over the course of a lifetime, a working lifetime is considered 47 years of lifetime work. So as a high school graduate, that means that you lose 700,000 if your woman. For a college graduate, that is 1. 2 million. For a professional school graduate, you have 2 million that you have lost. So for Lily Ledbetter when she discovered that note after 19 years, that meant that she was making 40 less than the other managers doing the exact same job. In other words, she lost over 200,000 in her career and i was not taken into consideration in her retirement and Social Security. For women of color, those numbers are worse. Africanamerican women earn even less than that. Her story is every womans story. There are over 60 million working women in the workplace. So in these cases, from wall street to walmart, it doesnt matter where you look, women are discriminated in the law. Here is her story from her point of view. From a womans experience. So what we did a lot of information in the back of a book about the paycheck paycheck fairness act that still needs to be passed and about pay equity. If you read the story from you also have bad but tuity. If you read the story from you also have bad but that is a resource. And we hope that things will change. We are going to wrap it up for questions. I will give you two answers right off. I do not know who gave me the no. Because what happened after i filed the charge, i dont know who gave it to me or where it came from. Goodyear one of my bosses they are burned my personal file. The judge said let me explain the law to the goodyear attorneys. One person files a charge chart from you are required to retain those records into a closed. They could not produce it. So it wasnt there. Thats all we had other than our pay records that had been discovered that mike attorney could finally get from goodyear. So i dont know who gave me the no. And no, i do not buy Goodyear Tires. If i have a vehicle with them, i get rid of them immediately. One thing thats interesting to point out is that you have spent over a decade fighting the battle. When he got to court in 2003, the number of legal documents if you stack it up, it would be three stories high. So its hard to understand what someone really goes through and how much time and effort and energy and heart rate goes into something and experiences to stand up for whats right. I could not let it go. It just was not right. I could not let go. The law is on my side, and all it did was talk to the Supreme Court about this ruling until the next ridiculous case that came. It was on the wrong form or wrong date it should have been let go. But they thought, okay, just let that one go. The shots were not called in a correct way, in my opinion. She is right. Its a long fight on individuals and hard on families. We cannot leave home on a vacation or go on a trip because we needed to be in reachable place for the attorneys for 10 years. It took nine years in 18 months. Were we thinking at the time . You dont see any cases in the paper that are quick fixes. They dragged him out. Equal Employment Commission has more money than i do a lot of work with them now are you would think that they are doing is training governments that dont bring in the official people to train them and what they should be doing. And they go in and train those people, and therefore, they dont make these mistakes. They are doing a lot of work now as well as some who have a large sum as individuals. In my case, when i talked about that money, that 360,000, had the Supreme Court awarded as they should have, my attorney and i had to pay federal and state taxes on it. So i wouldve had less than 50,000 and spent 40 of my own money. It was not a complete washout. I had already spent 40,000, and i worked every weekend getting ready to go to trial and i was there for every deposition in i think you will enjoy the book. Especially if you work in the plant now or you have worked their way you know someone who has worked there. You are youre going to say yes, i can do that. I saw that. You really will. Are there any other questions . Im sure you have something you would like to ask. [inaudible question] i am concerned about voting. Theyre trying to stop people from voting. Youre right. And we all need to be concerned about that. Thats true. I commend you for all youve done. Please use the microphone to ask questions or everyone can hear. On the day that the Supreme Court made its decision, id like to know what you felt. Id also like to know how you felt that they president obama signed it into law. Thats a great question. The day i heard the verdict, my husband and i were at a luncheon at a senior group from the church when i got the call. The media started calling. [inaudible] Brian Williams to the questioning. The next day cnn came. It was just one media interview after the other. [inaudible] i have met him since then. Some of the videos are still on youtube. You can believe what you see on tv. They take your photos down, they rearrange or tables, they make a change and i said, i dont think so, i just lost 3. 8 million and you want me to make a change. [laughter] my husband