Grace and Grit by Lilly Ledbetter

Author:Lilly Ledbetter [Ledbetter, Lilly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-88793-1
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2013-02-25T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

Holding the Tiger by the Tail

Tiger, Tiger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

—WILLIAM BLAKE

I CALLED A specialist to schedule an appointment for my knee but had to wait a couple of weeks before he could fit me in. In the meantime, I kept working as best as I could. Then, before my shift one day, I found the torn piece of paper stuffed with the mail in my cubby listing my name next to the names of the three other area managers in the tire room.

The note showed my salary, down to the dollar, and the male managers’ salaries: I was earning thousands less than they were. I earned $44,724 while the highest-paid man earned $59,028 and the other two followed close behind him, earning $58,464 and $58,226. I don’t know how I made it through that night. I was scalding on the inside and out, as if someone had thrown a skilletful of hot grease on me. One minute I wanted to give somebody a piece of my mind, wondering how many people knew about this; and the next I wanted to throw up from the anxiety, remembering how much we’d done without as a family. All night, humiliated and devastated, I struggled over what to do. If I ignored it, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. It would gnaw away at me. If I said something, there’d be retaliation, payback far worse than any I’d experienced before.

By the end of my shift that day, I was so tired I could barely walk, and I was sopping wet with the effort it took to keep my emotions at bay. On the way home, I didn’t bother to go through the drive-through at Hardee’s for my usual bacon biscuit, and I didn’t turn on the country music station that never failed to soothe me. Heading back to Jacksonville directly into the morning sun, I let my emotions flow through me—anger, sadness, fear. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was something of a relief, like blood returning to your arm or leg when the circulation has been cut off.

The drive that morning in March 1998 seemed like the longest drive I’d ever made. I could feel myself holding the steering wheel so tight that my fingers tingled as I saw my life at Goodyear flash before me. I remembered all the times I brought a cake Edna had baked and the guys almost finished it before I set it on the break-room table. I thought about more serious moments when the men I supervised, with a simple nod or a few quiet words, thanked me for looking out for them, making sure they were paid properly for overtime or given the right number of vacation days.

What upset me the most was what could have been. If I had ever been accepted by management at Goodyear, I know I could have accomplished more and contributed more—not just made more tires but helped to make the plant a better place to work.

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