White House Forum: Women Need A Voice
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Working women told a White House forum today that women need protections on the job as much now as they did 100 years ago when the Triangle Shirtwaist fire killed 146 garment workers—most of them young women—and spurred the first nationwide call for workplace safety.
Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to President Obama and chairwoman of the White House Council on Women and Girls, hosted the Women’s History Month forum with women workers and organizers sharing their stories of courageous action. In a statement they note that “this compelling history highlights the critical need to ensure worker safety and labor standards for all workers—including a new generation of immigrant workers.”
“We’re not trying to get rich doing these jobs,” said Allison Julien of Domestic Workers United. “We just want to be protected like other workers.”
We go home happy that we did a good job, but broken hearted because we have no protections. Labor law has to change.
During a reception at the AFL-CIO for the women who spoke at the forum, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker told the women today’s forum was proof of how important it is to get involved politically and elect the right leaders. She praised Jarrett and Solis for their bold leadership on issues affecting working women.
Solis, White House to Host Online Triangle Shirtwaist Forum
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Ceremonies and events honoring the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire that killed 146 garment workers—most of them young women—and spurred the first nationwide call for workplace safety, continue Monday morning with a special online forum that will examine the connection between a voice at work and job safety.
Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis and Valerie B. Jarrett, senior adviser to President Obama and chairwoman of the White House Council on Women and Girls, will host the Women’s History Month forum with women workers and organizers sharing their stories of courageous action. In a statement they note that “this compelling history highlights the critical need to ensure worker safety and labor standards for all workers—including a new generation of immigrant workers.”
Chamber Poll Makes Case for Stimulus Over Deficit Reduction
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s so-called Jobs Summit yesterday in Washington, D.C., produced little in the way of real solutions to our economic crisis. Instead, there were the usual complaints about regulation and taxes—it opposes both.
But the real news came from outside the summit, where a new poll commissioned by the Chamber unintentionally showed that its own members agree with the AFL-CIO and most progressives that the federal government should spend more money stimulating the economy rather than reducing the deficit—the direct opposite of the Chamber’s position.
Writing in the New Republic, Jonathan Chait points out that in a poll conducted for the Chamber that only 45 percent of small business owners believe the government could improve the economy by spending less and reducing deficits. Chait writes:
Interesting! Small business owners are more conservative than the average American, but they’re also more economically literate than the average American. In this instance, the economic literacy is overwhelming the conservatism to make small business owners more pro-stimulus than the public as a whole. [The Heritage Foundation, which released the poll] concludes, “Small business is the backbone of the U.S. economy, and those who keep those businesses running know better than anyone what they need to stay afloat.” So I guess that means we need to spend more and increase deficits, then.
Holt Baker: Employee Free Choice, Health Care Key Priorities
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The Obama administration should make labor law reform and affordable, available health care top priorities when it takes office in January, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker told two key members of the incoming Obama administration and community leaders from across the country.
Speaking at a roundtable today in Washington, D.C., on “Realizing the Promise: A Forum on Community, Faith and Democracy,” Holt Baker outlined the major changes needed to turn America around for working people. Roundtable participants included Melody Barnes and Valerie Jarrett, two top advisers to President-elect Barack Obama. Barnes has been designated as director of Obama’s Domestic Policy Council. Jarrett, who is co-chairing the transition, will be a senior adviser in the Obama White House.
Holt Baker told the more than 2,000 community leaders participating in the forum labor laws that deny workers the freedom to form unions and the high cost of health care are “undermining everything we need to be doing.”
