International Women’s Day: Women Still Trail Men in Pay After 100 Years

by James Parks, Mar 7, 2008

One hundred years ago, 15,000 women marched through New York City on the first International Women’s Day, demanding shorter working hours, better pay, voting rights and the end to child labor.

Today, in virtually every country, women still face discrimination in the workplace. Consider that some 1.2 billion working women—about 40 percent of total world employment—earn less than men for the same jobs, are more likely to be unemployed and poor and face violence and harassment in the workplace.

To address these issues and bring them to the forefront, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and Global Unions federation are launching a two-year “Global Campaign for Decent Work, Decent Life for Women” campaign. The AFL-CIO Executive Council meeting in San Diego this week endorsed and joined the campaign.

In honor of International Women’s Day on March 8, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says:

 I can think of no better way to honor those 15,000 women marched down the streets of New York 100 years ago than to ensure their legacy lives on. This campaign is an opportunity to build a better union movement, and ultimately, a better, more inclusive world that makes the most of the talents of all its citizens. 

To mark International Women’s Day, unions across the country and world will highlight the plight of women workers. In Washington, D.C., the Maryland State/DC AFL-CIO is hosting a forum today on “Women in Leadership: Changing the Landscape of America.” Yvonne Scruggs-Leftwich, a professor at the National Labor College, will  be the keynote speaker. 

On Saturday, union members in Korea, Croatia, Colombia and Italy will hold mass marches. In Angola, Montenegro, Belgium, Sierra Leone, Ukraine, Argentina, Netherlands, Slovakia and Canada, unions will negotiate with governments and corporations over ways to improve maternity protection rights, child care facilities and the gender wage gap. Unions in the United Kingdom, Malaysia and Cyprus will collect signatures to call for decent work for women and gender equality.

Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker, the highest female officer in the AFL-CIO union movement, says: 

I am extremely proud to stand with my sisters and brothers around the globe to join hands and join forces in the fight for a more equitable world for our daughters and sons. There is much work still to be done.

Here’s why the campaign is needed. A new ITUC report, Global Gender Pay Gap, reveals that, on average, women throughout the world are paid 16 percent less than their male counterparts. The gap is even wider in the United States. In 2007, women were paid only 77 cents for every dollar a man is paid, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Economist Evelyn Murphy, president and founder of The WAGE Project, estimates the wage gap costs the average full-time U.S. woman worker between $700,000 and $2 million over the course of her work life.

These figures are even worse for women of color. African American women earn only 68 cents and Latinas 57 cents for every dollar that men earn. Asian American and Pacific Islander American women earn less, too. Their pay inequality is less severe than for women as a whole, but they still earned only 88 cents for every dollar that men earned in 2000.

ITUC President Sharan Burrow says despite decades of anti-discrimination legislation and changes in company rhetoric,

the pay packets of women, whether they are in New York or Shanghai, are still significantly thinner than those of men. The positive news for workers around the world is that trade unions are succeeding in bridging the pay divide, as the data in this report confirms. Through collective bargaining, women and men get a better and more equal deal.

Burrows adds: 

Through our campaigns for equality and other workers rights, unions are playing a vital role in educating and informing workers about gender pay issues, in the face of strong resistance from some governments and employers. We are resolved to continue and strengthen this work, to ensure that women in all corners of the world, employed across different industries and performing hundreds of different jobs, can achieve equal pay. 

The campaign for women’s equality is also part of a broader “Decent Work, Decent Life” campaign launched in 2007 sponsored by the ITUC, European Trade Union Confederation, Global Progressive Forum, Solidar and Social Alert International. The campaign, which the AFL-CIO has joined, aims to show decent work is fundamental to democracy.

One key definition of decent work is the opportunity to have a voice on the job through labor unions. But U.S. labor law is so broken that in reality most workers in America do not truly have the right to form unions and bargain for better pay and working conditions. On Oct. 7, the World Day for Decent Work, the AFL-CIO union movement will highlight the necessity of passing the Employee Free Choice Act as critical to ensuring decent work in the United States. Meeting in San Diego this week, the AFL-CIO Executive Council emphasized the campaign is an important opportunity to strengthen gender equality both at work and in the union movement. 

It advocates decent work for women and gender equality in labor policies and agreements.  It seeks gender equality in trade union structures, policies and activities and significant increases in the number of women organized into unions and in elected positions. 

Click here to read the council statement, “International Women’s Day: Decent Work, Decent Life For Women.”

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