Issues

March 2004

Speak out on Your Issues!

Everyday, Congress and the President are making decisions about issues that affect you and your family's lives. Overtime pay, unemployment benefits, healthcare coverage, worker's rights, child care and supports for working families are all being debated right now in Congress. If you are not voting or contacting your legislators, you're being left out of the decision-making process.

The House of Representatives recently approved a devastating FY 2005 Budget Resolution, which provides a roadmap for congressional spending and tax policies for the upcoming year. The Senate already passed their resolution. The House Budget Resolution requires cuts in funding for many programs critical to working women and their families, but makes room for $138 billion in tax breaks for the wealthy. Services threatened by the cuts include spending on child care, tax credits for low-income families, funding for schools, child and family health care services, and funding for transportation and law enforcement.

Cuts in domestic programs can have a profound effect on women's economic advancement. Without adequate child or elder care services, working women have to decide between maintaining their jobs and ensuring that their loved ones are safe. Attacks against supports for working families jeopardize women, who are often marginalized in low-paying jobs and are the first to be let go during a troubled economy. Your voice needs to be heard by legislators and the President in order to protect domestic programs. For more information, visit AFSCME's Legislative Action section on the internet.

Improve your skills

AFSCME Women's Rights Department is conducting leadership and public speaking workshops in different states this year. Learn how to be a strong spokesperson for working women and speak out on the issues important to you! For more information about these workshops, contact the WRD at womensrights@afscme.org or (202) 429-5090.

Employee Free Choice Act

A new bill aimed at enabling workers to join unions free from employer interference and coercion is steadily gaining support in Congress. Introduced in the House and the Senate on November 21, 2003, the Employee Free Choice Act has more than 170 co-sponsors in the House and 31 co-sponsors in the Senate including presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry. Both Democrats and Republicans support this bill. The bill ensures that when the majority of employees in a workplace decide to form a union, they can do so without facing debilitating obstacles employers now use to block workers' free choice.

Update: Fight to Save Overtime Pay

President Bush's Department of Labor (DOL) is moving ahead with its plans to revise rules for who qualifies for overtime protections by March 31, 2004. Until last week, Republican Senators have been successful in blocking efforts by Democrats to help workers. Now, Senate Democrats are fighting to pass a measure that would prevent the Bush Administration from gutting overtime pay protections. Time is running out to save overtime pay! Your Senators need to hear from you. Ask your Senators to pass legislation immediately that stops the DOL from reducing overtime protections.

Ask a Working Woman Survey

Working women know the pressures of balancing work and family, the difficulties of making ends meet and the challenges of getting ahead. Sound-off on your priorities for change! Visit the AFSCME Women website to fill out the ALF-CIO's 2004 Ask a Working Woman Survey.

Marching for Women and their Families

April 25, 2004 marks the date for the historic March for Women's Lives. This march is about more than women's freedom to control their own reproductive futures. It is about women being able to make decisions about what's best for themselves, their lives and their families. The March for Women's Lives is about all of the issues women's face in their daily lives. It is about eliminating discrimination in health care and ensuring that women of all races, incomes and ages are treated equally and offered the same treatment options when seeking care for their health. It is about ensuring women's access to accurate and effective sex education, contraceptive services and family planning so that they can properly and safely prevent or plan for pregnancy.

We hope to see you in Washington, DC on April 25, 2004. Drop us a note at womensrights@afscme.org if you are planning to come to DC or if you are organizing an awareness event in your community about the march.

Equal Pay Day is April 20, 2004!

Equal Pay Day is right around the corner. Celebrated annually in April, the day symbolizes how far into each year a woman must work to earn as much as a man earned in the previous year. The wage gap is real! Women on a whole continue to earn less than men — 20 cents less on every dollar — even when they have the same education and workplace experience. Women of color face an even wider gap. On average, African-American women earn 64 percent of white men's earnings while Hispanic women earn only 52 percent. In a recent study by the US Government Accounting Office (GAO), researchers found a real and persistent wage gap. In fact, since 1983, women have continually earned lower salaries than their male counterparts.

The wage gap is not just a woman's issue; it's a family issue. When a woman's pay increases, her entire family benefits. Women continue constitute a significant proportion of the labor force. In 2002, they comprised 47 percent of the total labor force. In that same year, 61 percent of married couples had both parents working. And, in 73 percent of female-headed households, the mother worked. Discrimination in pay extends beyond a woman's pocketbook. It negatively impacts her partner, children and others for whom she provides. Unionized women fair better than most, earning on average 30 percent more than non-unionized women.

Some of the overall wage gap between men's and women's earnings can be attributed to that fact the women continue to be segregated into low-paying occupations. The majority of women workers are employed in "pink collar" occupations, such as retail, service, and clerical jobs. There are also differences due to education, experience and time in the workforce. Women are more likely to move in and out of the workforce because of family obligations, such as raising a child or caring for a loved one. However, a significant portion of the gap cannot be explained by any of those factors. After examining 18 years of data, the GAO report, Women's Earnings: Work Patterns Partially Explain Difference between Men's and Women's Earnings, found that the 20 percent earnings gap can not be explained, even when accounting for demographic and work-related factors such as occupation, industry, race, marital status and job tenure.

Help create awareness about unfair pay! AFSCME Women's Rights Department is an active member of the National Committee for Pay Equity (NCPE). Founded in 1979, NCPE is a national membership coalition working to eliminate sex- and race-based wage discrimination. NCPE and its members developed a comprehensive kit to help you organize events in your community and workplace. For more information about Equal Pay Day and to download an Equal Pay Day kit, visit NCPE's website.

34 Million Friends Helping Women around the World

In July 2002, against the recommendation of a blue-ribbon panel of experts and despite bipartisan Congressional agreement on a $34 million contribution, the Bush Administration cut off funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). UNFPA provides family planning, safe motherhood, HIV/AIDS prevention services, and age-appropriate adolescent education and services in more than 140 countries.

In response, two women, Lois Abraham and Jane Roberts, began contacting friends and urging them to send $1 to support UNFPA programs. Their efforts raised nearly $2 million and sparked the formation of 34 Million Friends of UNFPA, a nonprofit that raises funding to support the work of UNFPA. Get more information or make a donation. 

The Other Women's Movement

In time for Women's History Month, Dorothy Sue Cobble, Director of the Institute for Research on Women at Rutgers University, has published a new book, The Other Women's Movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in Modern America.

The story of Rosie the Riveters and other wartime workers of the 1930s and early 1940s is well known. But, what about their sisters in later generations? Dorothy Sue Cobble highlights the struggles and successes of strong labor women of the late 1940s to present day.

The Other Women's Movement traces the story of the movement that first emerged from union halls and factory floors and spread to telephone operators, secretaries, and airline attendants. Their campaign focused on familiar themes of today — discrimination in the workplace, pay equity, and balancing family and work. Find out how the women's labor movement developed and read about the efforts of your sisters in this great new book.

Women’s Rights Department Email List

We are working to build a comprehensive contact email list and would like your help. Please forward this to other AFSCME members that might not have received it and let them know they should contact us via email so we can add them to our database. Write to womensrights@afscme.org and tell us you'd like to be added to the database. Please include your name, local/council/unit number, email address, and mailing address.

WomENews is produced by the Women's Rights Department and written by Karen Swift.

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