Meagan Jeronimo: Ask a Working Woman Winner

by Rachna Choudhry, Aug 7, 2006

And the winner is…
 
In July, the AFL-CIO launched its online Ask a Working Woman survey to enable women to come together to make their concerns heard on the issues most crucial to them: the rising cost of health care, jobs, wages and their children’s future. More than 22,000 women have taken part in the survey this year, and on Labor Day we will issue a report summarizing their concerns and deliver them to every member of Congress and local lawmakers as we head into the 2006 election season.

A majority of the 22,000 women who responded say they are worried about basic economic issues like paying for health care, not having retirement security and pay not keeping up with the cost of living. Many working women report lacking basic benefits. 
 
Affordable health care tops the list of concerns for working women—97 percent of women across age and race lines say they are worried about the rising costs of quality health care. Some  65 percent of women rank health care as their top legislative concern.

Meagan Jeronimo, a Working America member from Houston, Texas, not only took the survey, but encouraged hundreds of working women to take it, too. And I’m excited to announce that because she succeeded in getting the most women (49) to complete the survey, Meagan becomes our 2006 Ask a Working Woman survey contest winner! She joined us today in Chicago during a meeting of the AFL-CIO Executive Council for the national release of the survey results.

I had the privilege of letting Meagan know that she is our winner. From my first conversation with her, I knew she understood the importance of what the survey is about: coming together as working women to send a powerful message to our nation’s leaders. She doesn’t just understand the concerns and priorities the survey highlights—she lives them.

As a 27-year-old working mother with an adorable 3-year-old, she is always trying to balance work and family. She and her son also face health problems, and she has had to grapple with the rising cost of health care and not having access to paid family and medical leave.

When I asked Meagan why she took the time to complete the survey and encourage others to do so as well, she said her life experiences had taught her that when change is needed, she needs to be part of making change happen. As Meagan puts it:

I strongly encourage other working women to band together to network, learn and lobby our legislators for effective solutions to the work/life balance dilemma and the health care crisis. Write to your representatives and speak to them about the issues that most affect you. Or start by taking the Ask a Working Woman survey. The world cannot change unless we make our issues known.

As Meagan’s son was nearing age 1, she looked for support in her life as a new mother in the workforce. When she couldn’t find support for working parents, she founded an Internet group in Washington, D.C. (where she was living at the time), which now has grown to nearly 1,000 working mothers sharing  suggestions on how to succeed both at work and at home—and to effect change.

The group meets for monthly lunches and online chats to discuss various family- friendly solutions and support each other. Many of the women also are members of Working America, the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate that enables them to stay up to date on issues such as health care and the economy and participate in the national debate online. 

Her enthusiasm inspired me. As working women, we’ve all worried about our pay not keeping up with rising costs, whether we’ll have time off to care for a child or a parent, or if we’re treated differently on the job just because of our gender.

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