Goodyear Case

1-Why was the case brought?

The case was brought to court by Goodyear's former employee Ledbetter where she sued Goodyear for not taking into consideration and denying raising her salary based on her performance evaluation. Ledbetter indeed claimed that her performance evaluations were filled in poorly due to her sex.

2- What were the main arguments in favor of the case?

The argument in favor was that at the end of her work period, Ledbetter was paid significantly less than her male co-workers, which led the court to award her backpay and damages. This was the only argument I could find in favor of the case and to my mind, it is not a strong one.

3-What were the main arguments against?

One of the main arguments against the case was that Ledbetter filled in the EEOC questionnaire (the official file where she complains about not being paid as much as her co-workers) after the 180 days limit. Indeed the last pay revision was made by Goodyear on September 26, 1997 and she filed it after November 2008, more than a year after that. Also, Ledbetter did not have enough evidence to prove that her poor work evaluations were due to sex discrimination.

4-What is the relevance of this case to Human Resource Management?

This case relates to Human resource Management because it concerns an issue on wages, which is one of the main activity of an HRM. Furthermore it concerns employee discrimination and the relation between HRM and the employees.

5- Do you agree with the case and why ?

I personally agree with the case in the sense that, first of all, there is no evidence to prove that the work evaluations were filled in poorly due to sex-discrimination. Also the law is the law, and Ledbetter did not respect the 180 days period she had to fill in her complaint. However I think that it is fair that Ledbetter got some compensation for damages before Goodyear's appeal.