The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything

On October 16, the Center for American Progress (CAP), in partnership with California First Lady Maria Shriver, released The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything, a groundbreaking examination of how “women’s changing roles are affecting our major societal institutions, from government and businesses to our faith communities.”

For the first time in American history, women make up half of all U.S. workers and mothers are the primary breadwinners or co-breadwinners in nearly two-thirds of American families. Considering that in 1967 women made up only one-third of all workers, this is a dramatic transformation that fundamentally changes how all Americans work and live, “not just women but also their families, their co-workers, their bosses, their faith institutions, and their communities.”

Unfortunately, America as a nation has not yet come to terms with what this means.

“This report tries to chapter those things out and say all of these institutions have failed to adapt to this change that has happened, and that in order for them to survive and become smart about the American worker they must adapt and must change,” Shriver said on NBC’s Meet The Press.

“Our policy landscape remains stuck in an idealized past,” writes CAP President and CEO John Podesta in his preface to the report. “This report contemplates what a new America should look like after we finally embrace this important new dynamic in our lives and the changes it has caused in our homes and businesses.”

Read the full report at americanprogress.org.

Today is Equal Pay Day, when workers across the country redouble their efforts to make sure women are paid equally for the same work done by men. This day, April 28, was chosen because it represents how far into the year a woman must work to earn the same pay as a man earned, on average, last year.

James Parks at the AFL-CIO Now blog has more:

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.

Read the full post.

In 1981, when AFSCME librarians in San Jose, California, saw glaring inequities in jobs dominated by women and the ones dominated by men, they went on strike for pay equity, marking the first time workers went to the picket line over this issue.
(AFSCME archive photo)

AFSCME is celebrating Women’s History Month by remembering the women before us who made it happen and looking to the future of our labor movement.

Early union women took on issues like child labor, safe working conditions and better pay. In 1881, washerwomen in Atlanta went on strike for better wages and gained the support of the entire city to establish black workers as instrumental to the New South’s economy.

One hundred years later in 1981, AFSCME San Jose Local 101 went on strike, marking the first time women workers went to the picket lines for equal pay.

Women continue to be a force in unions — it is predicted that by 2020 women will be a majority of the unionized workforce.

Earlier this month, AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer William Lucy joined a celebration of International Women’s Day at the United Nations — archived video of his speech at the event is available on the UN site. President Obama’s proclamation in honor of Women’s History Month is available on the White House website.

Today, President Obama signed his first bill into law: the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act – a landmark bill to protect workers against pay discrimination.

In other words, equal pay for equal work. Sounds like plain old common sense, doesn’t it? And yet to this day women still earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by men.

As Obama said, as quoted in the AFL-CIO blog:

In signing this bill today, I intend to send a clear message: That making our economy work means making sure it works for everyone. That there are no second class citizens in our workplaces, and that it’s not just unfair and illegal – but bad for business – to pay someone less because of their gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion or disability.

The bill was introduced after a Supreme Court ruling two years ago rejected a $360,000 award in back pay to Lilly Ledbetter, a woman who worked for Goodyear in Alabama. Ledbetter had previously discovered a huge gap between her salary and that of her male colleagues, prompting her to sue.

This initiative restores longstanding protections against wage discrimination and will also ensure that women and families get the pay that they deserve to pull through these difficult economic times.

Since the 1970s, AFSCME has been one of the strongest advocates for closing the wage gap. As we pointed out in a previous Greenline post:

AFSCME members have been the recipients of more than $1 billion in pay equity adjustments won at the bargaining table, in state and local legislatures, and through political action.

There is still much work to be done in the fight for fair pay but, thanks to this new law, we have taken a big step towards attaining justice at the workplace.

A series of new fact sheets from the Center for American Progress Action Fund argues that unions are good for state economies – and that more unionized workers would be even better.

From the report:

Unions paved the way to the middle class for millions of workers and pioneered benefits such as paid health care and pensions along the way. Even today, union workers earn significantly more on average than their non-union counterparts and union employers are more likely to provide benefits. And non-union workers – particularly in highly unionized industries – receive financial benefits from employers who increase wages to match what unions would win in order to avoid unionization.

If belonging to a union is good for workers, the opposite is also true: as unionization rates decline, workers are less likely to receive good wages and benefits. One way to level the playing field is to pass the Employee Free Choice Act and help improve the economic standing and workplace conditions for millions of American workers.

The factsheets look at how unions help workers in five key states: California, Louisiana, Maine, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Read more and download the factsheets at the CAPAF website.