CLUW Highlights National Women’s Health Week
 |
|
Mothers always look out for their family’s health. During National Women’s Health Week May 10-16, you can encourage Mom to make sure she is healthy, too.
National Health Week is a weeklong health observance coordinated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office on Women’s Health. The nationwide “It’s Your Time” initiative encourages women to take simple steps for longer, healthier lives.
As part of its campaign to raise awareness about how to prevent cervical cancer, the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) is working with other community and women’s groups during National Women’s Health Week to educate women about steps they can take to improve their physical and mental health and lower their risks of certain diseases, particularly cervical cancer.
Colombian Workers Pay High Price for Flowers
 |
||||
|
||||
This Mother’s Day, remember the mothers in Colombia who grew, cut and trimmed the flowers you receive. Six days a week, Amanda Camacho and thousands of her co-workers at flower plantations in Colombia cut and trim at least 350 flowers an hour. In the weeks before holidays like Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day, the work extends deep into the night—all for about $8 a day, less than the cost of a bouquet of carnations in the United States.
Speaking today at a brown bag luncheon at the AFL-CIO in Washington, Camacho, a Colombian union leader and activist, said the mostly female flower workers in Colombia are treated like slaves and the flower companies’ claims that they are treating their workers well are simply “lies.’
Camacho begins a national tour next week sponsored by the International Labor Rights Forum’s (ILRF) Fairness in Flowers campaign, Jobs with Justice (JwJ), the Coalition of Labor Union Women and U.S. Labor Education in the Americas Project (USLEAP).
Equal Pay Day: April 28
 |
|
April 28 is Equal Pay Day and workers across the country will commemorate the day by reaffirming their determination to make sure women are paid equally as men for the same work. Equal Pay Day symbolizes how far into the year a woman must work, on average, to earn as much as a man earned the previous year.
Equal Pay Day 2009 comes at an exciting time for those who support equal pay for women. President Barack Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law on Jan. 29 and established a White House Council on Women and Girls in March. Yet more than 45 years after the Equal Pay Act was signed, women in the United States still earn only 78 cents for every dollar a man earns—even with similar education, skills and experience—and African American and Hispanic women earn even less.
Members of the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) will commemorate Equal Pay Day with rallies around the country in support of the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Employee Free Choice Act. CLUW is urging all workers to wear red on Equal Pay Day to symbolize how far women and minorities are “in the red” with their pay!
AFL-CIO Groups Highlight Cervical Cancer Awareness Month
January is Cervical Cancer Awareness Month, and as part of its campaign to raise awareness about how to prevent this deadly disease, the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) is teaming up with the Metropolitan Washington Council’s Community Services Agency (CSA) at one of the largest health and fitness expos in the nation.
The two groups will take part in the NBC4 Health and Fitness Expo in Washington, D.C., Jan 10-11 at the Washington Convention Center. The Expo—with more than 200 exhibits, health screenings, demonstrations and more—promotes good health and provides advice in making healthy lifestyle choices.
The CLUW/CSA exhibit will focus on cervical cancer prevention, women’s health and how unions can have an impact on women’s health by bargaining contracts with strong health care provisions. The first 1,000 visitors who show a union card or union label will receive a “Pearl of Wisdom” pin, symbol of a new cervical cancer awareness program set to launch later this month.
