Join March 29 Rally to Support Wal-Mart Women
Hundreds of people will show their support outside the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday, when the High Court hears oral arguments in what could become the largest class-action civil rights suit in U.S. history.
The Stand with the Women of Wal-Mart rally will take place as the nation’s highest court hears arguments on Wal-Mart v. Dukes to decide whether the case can move forward as a class action.
Ten years ago, a group of women who worked at Wal-Mart stores, led by Betty Dukes, filed a lawsuit alleging the corporation engaged in company-wide gender discrimination by paying women less than men, promoting fewer women to management positions and promoting male employees more quickly. The case, now a class action, has made its way to the Supreme Court.
Wal-Mart is challenging the decision by a lower court to allow the women employed at Wal-Mart stores across the country to join together in a class-action lawsuit to challenge pay and promotion practices that discriminate against women.
Trumka’s Message to LGBT Teens: It Gets Better
 |
|
The union movement has long been in the forefront of the fight against discrimination in the workplace and throughout society. Spurred by the reports of bullying and suicides of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual (LGBT) students in schools, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka joined President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other leaders who are filming videos for the It Gets Better campaign.
Begun by columnist Dan Savage, the It Gets Better campaign supports and encourages LGBT teens to “hang in there” because they are not alone. It lets them know others are working to ensure that things will get better for them.
In his video (above), Trumka, who comes from an East European immigrant family, relates how hard it was growing up in the coal mine country of southwest Pennsylvania. When he was kid, he says, there were ugly names for everyone. His older relatives spoke with thick accents and were routinely given the hardest and most dangerous work in the mines. Their pay often was shorted because they did not understand the language and were afraid to speak out.
Equal Pay Day 2010: Women, 78 Cents, Men, $1
 |
|
Today’s the day when women workers finally catch up with the pay men received last year—the day we mark as Equal Pay Day. Being three months and 20 days behind men’s wages means women who work full-time still are paid, on average, 78 cents for every dollar men are paid. According to the most recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median wages of full-time, year-round workers in 2008 stood at $35,745 for women and $46,367 for men.
The wage gap is even worse for women of color. In 2008, the earnings for African American women were $31,489, 67.9 percent of men’s earnings (a drop from 68.7 percent in 2007), and Latinas’ earnings were $26,846, 58 percent of men’s earnings (a drop from 59 percent in 2007).
The chart here shows the molasses-like movement in closing the wage gap. One way to speed up the progress is to urge lawmakers to support the Paycheck Fairness Act, which was passed by the U.S. House in 2009. It updates the Equal Pay Act by giving employees the tools they need to close the wage gap and providing the government with enforcement power to correct pay inequities. Momsrising has an action here to urge your senator to close the wage gap and back the Paycheck Fairness Act.
Thomas Perez: Fighting Discrimination a Top Priority
 |
||||
|
||||
More than 40 years after Martin Luther King’s death, the nation still has a long way to go to achieve his dream of equality and justice, says Thomas Perez.
In a Point of View guest column at the AFL-CIO site, Perez, assistant U.S. attorney general for civil rights, says if King were alive today, he would be fighting for economic justice:
He would continue his quest for economic justice for all Americans to be able to access the great wealth and promise of our nation….He would urge our nation’s leaders to move forward on health care reform, repeating his painfully accurate observation that “of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”
He would join with you, and with your fellow workers nationwide, in calling for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act to ensure that workers can stand up for their rights in the workplace.
He would ask the question: If women outnumber men in the workplace, then why are women still fighting for pay equity in the workplace?
Recession Bad for All, Really Bad for Black Men
This info just out today from the Center for American Progress:
The recession is taking a toll on most Americans and has resulted in job losses not seen in almost 25 years, but black men have felt its effects particularly hard.
Black men have long faced limited employment prospects and disproportionately low rates of unemployment. Even as the economy thrived and the participation of low-skilled women in the labor force increased over the last two decades, many black men remained largely disconnected from the labor market. While the unemployment rate among black men has declined dramatically over the last few decades, the level of workforce participation among African-American men has not increased and remains stagnant. The current degree of job loss among black men is particularly alarming. These losses will likely only increase as the economic crisis deepens.
