Hate the Pay Gap? Take the App Challenge
 |
If you’re frustrated about the wage gap that persists between male and female workers, you can channel your energy into a new contest sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor and President Obama’s National Equal Pay Task Force.
The Equal Pay App Challenge invites the public to create innovative software applications that use the department’s data to educate users about the pay gap, and provide tools to combat it.
Women earn about 80 cents for every dollar earned by men doing comparable work—and the gap is wider for Latinas and African American women. Over a lifetime, the pay gap results in lost wages, reduced pensions and diminished Social Security benefits.
Of course, unionized women do better than their unrepresented sisters, thanks to the power of collective bargaining. Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that union women earn nearly 34 percent more than nonunion women.
Software apps that “improve the accessibility of pay data broken down by gender, race and ethnicity, and provide coaching on early career pay, pay negotiation or career mentorship” are among the goals of the challenge. March 31 is the deadline and prizes will be awarded around Equal Pay Day in April. Find development tools here.
Solis to Receive Top Award at MLK Event
 |
Tonight in Detroit, where hundreds of activists are gathered for the annual AFL-CIO Martin Luther King Jr. Day Observance, participants will honor several individuals for their outstanding contributions to working people. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis will receive the top honor for her extraordinary dedication and commitment to improving the lives of workers throughout her lifetime. The At the River I Stand award is given to a national leader who has demonstrated an unyielding commitment to civil rights and workers’ rights.
Since her 2009 appointment as labor secretary, Solis has worked to end wage theft, improve job safety by holding employers accountable and spotlight abuses like sexual harassment, workplace violence and gender discrimination. She also has significantly broadened the department’s outreach by holding a series of webinars, parterning with Facebook to help people find jobs and launching an app to help workers track their hours and how much they should be paid.
Solis Highlights Plight of Vulnerable, Underpaid Workers
With a new webcast series, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis is shining a spotlight on the plight of the nation’s most vulnerable workers. This month’s edition focused on perils faced by women who work in restaurants, where the pay for most is low and benefits nonexistent. Addressing the webcast panel discussion, Solis said:
[R]estaurant jobs provide poverty wages and little access to benefits, such as paid leave when a parent or their child gets sick. And because the majority of restaurant workers are women, the pay gap issue that affects all of us, affects them even more adversely. The gender pay gap for female restaurant workers is 86 cents on the dollar compared to male restaurant workers.
As we reported, the National Restaurant Association, a trade organization Read the rest of this entry »
National Taxi Workers Alliance Gets AFL-CIO Charter at Future of Work Event
 |
||||
|
||||
 |
||||
|
||||
The National Taxi Workers Alliance made history when its leader, Bhairavi Desai, accepted the organization’s charter as a member of the AFL-CIO during an event today on “The Future of Work.” Highlighting the changing shape of the union movement, the event opened with remarks by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis. Desai then took part in a panel discussion which included representatives of other labor organizations that represent workers who are either traditionally excluded from coverage by labor law, or for whom the changing shape of the economy means the protections they have on paper mean little.
Joining Desai were Ai-jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance; Justin Molito, director of organizing for the Writers Guild of America, East; and Bill Cruice, founding executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, NNU. The panel was rounded out by economist David Weil, a professor at Boston University, who discussed how changing business models affected the exercise of employee rights. Before the program began, dozens of exuberant taxi workers, wearing T-shirts emblazoned with ”Justice, Rights, Respect, Dignity” crowded around Solis, Trumka and Desai. Trumka said the taxi workers are:
an inspiring example of how working people are organizing even in the face of employment relations that have eroded all of our rights.
Next Up: Young People Take Action to Address Economic Inequality
 |
|
| Rally in front of City Hall, Minneapolis | |
 |
|
Emmelle Israel, AFL-CIO Media Outreach fellow, is in Minneapolis for the Next Up Young Workers Summit and sends us this report.
Along with 800 young workers, students, and activists, I marched down the streets of downtown Minneapolis, calling for “Good Jobs Now!” during the 2011 AFL-CIO Next Up Young Workers Summit.
The march from the summit to the City Government Plaza Light Rail Station was nearly a mile long. Next Up attendees chanted and raised signs to make their demand of “Good Jobs Now!” known the whole way.
Several taxi drivers, postal delivery workers and bus drivers honked their horns in support as the group marched to the light rail station.
Once at the City Government Plaza Light Rail Station, Jessica Hayssen of the AFL-CIO Young Workers Advisory Committee and the Minnesota AFL-CIO MCed the rally. First up was Mike O’Brian a.k.a. OB, from Steelworkers (USW) Local 6500, who performed his original rap, “One Day Longer.” The song was about a strike his union went through and encourages those on the picket line, telling them that “One day longer” makes them “One day stronger.”
Next, Mike Stenberg, a Metro Transit Operator from ATU Local 1005 in Minneapolis, spoke about how the union job he has now improved the lives of him, his wife and their two young children. He said:
I worked jobs before that were non-union. I wasn’t able to support my family… But now with Metro Transit I’m able to supply my family with a better livelihood. My American dream can come true where before I couldn’t see that happening.
House Budget Attacks Job Safety for Rooftop Workers
This just in from the Center for American Progress:
HOUSE GOP BUDGET LAUNCHES FULL ON CLASS WAR – Dave Jamieson: “In addition to blocking President Obama’s health care law and slashing funding for job training, the budget plan presented by House Republicans for health and labor programs this week would scuttle several worker safety protections put forth by the Department of Labor…The budget also takes aim at an obscure but notable Labor Department rule intended to reduce the death and maiming of construction workers who toil on rooftops. The department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) had planned to ramp up the enforcement of harness rules for roofers working on residential construction sites. In a move that will likely please the construction lobby, the Republican plan forbids the agency from doing so.”
Shout Out to Public Workers in Presidential Proclamation
Some good stuff in the Presidential Proclamation on Labor Day issued by President Obama today.
The right to organize and collectively bargain is a fundamental American value. Since its beginnings in our country, organized labor has raised our living standards and built our middle class. It is the reason we have a minimum wage, weekends away from work to rest and spend time with family, and basic protections in our workplaces….The principles upheld by the honorable laborers of generations past and their unions continue to fuel the growth of our economy and a strong middle class.
And more:
This year has seen a vigorous fight to protect these rights and values, and on this Labor Day, we reaffirm that collective bargaining is a cornerstone of the American dream. From public employees — including teachers, firefighters, police, and others who perform public services — to workers in private industries, these men and women hold the power of our Nation in their hands.
Read the full proclamation here.
And check out a Labor Day video message from Labor Secretary Hilda Solis here.
Report: Blacks Lag Behind Others in Slow Economic Recovery
 |
While the economic recovery is moving slowly for everyone, African Americans, especially teens, are trailing far behind other workers, according to a new report.
“The Black Labor Force in the American Recovery,” released today by the U.S. Department of Labor, shows that last month the unemployment rate for blacks was 16.2 percent; down only 0.3 percentage points from the peak of 16.5 percent in March and April of last year. The national jobless rate in May was 9.1 percent.
Solis Tours ‘Green’ Minnesota Company
This is a cross-post by Barb Kucera, editor of Workday Minnesota.
Viking Drill & Tool employee Doug Sachs says the transition to more environmentally friendly production at the St. Paul company has benefited management, workers—and their wallets. “When you say green, people think cash,” he said.
With training provided through the GreenPOWER program, workers are reducing waste, increasing recycling and cutting energy usage in many areas of the production process. On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis toured the plant to learn more about the changes. Solis said, “Viking Drill & Tool is doing what it takes to improve their bottom line, become more energy efficient and prepare its workers for a changing landscape of American manufacturing.”
That’s what I call a triple win.
America’s ‘Go to Work Sick’ Culture Is Out of Balance
Mariya Strauss, media coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association (ILCA), sent us this report.
Today’s jobs—especially in the hotel and restaurant industries—”don’t fit today’s workforce,” said Joan Williams, president of the Center for Worklife Law at the University of California/Hastings. Restaurants and hotels typically employ low-wage workers with “just-in-time” personal schedules, meaning the workers’ reliance on family members for child care and their need to care for elders who need medications at certain times often clash with their employers’ habits of scheduling them differently from week to week and day to day.
Williams gave the keynote address yesterday at a symposium on the National Dialogue on Workplace Flexibility, a series sponsored by the Women’s Bureau of the Department of Labor. The series is designed to bring together employers and workers’ advocates such as unions to discuss how new workplace policies can help alleviate some of the burden on women and children of meeting both their jobs’ and families’ needs. The dialogue focused on addressing the work-life blance in the hotel and restaurant industries.
