It’s simple: Working women are the experts on the challenges working women face at work, at home and getting by in a tough economy. And if you want to know something, the best thing to do is ask an expert.

That’s what Working America and the AFL-CIO are doing with the 2010 Ask a Working Woman survey, and they could use your help.

If you’re a working woman (whether you work outside or inside your home), please take seven minutes to complete the survey. This is your chance to share how you feel about your job, how the recession has affected your family and what you hope and worry the next five years will bring.

For more than 12 years now, Working America and the AFL-CIO have been surveying women every two years or so, asking about their concerns and experiences, the challenges they face and the hopes they hold. You can be sure decision makers and the media will hear what you and tens of thousands of other women have to say. Please, take the survey now.

Civil rights icon Dr. Dorothy Height passed away this morning at the age of 98. Height, a civil rights icon and a champion for women’s rights, served as president of the National Council for Negro Women for 40 years and fought for school desegregation, voting rights and equality in the workplace.

Height’s death comes on Equal Pay Day, the day which marks how long women must work into 2010 to earn the same pay as men earned in 2009. Women still earn, on average, 77¢ for every dollar earned by men. Women of color fare even worse — African American women earn 68¢ for every dollar men do, and Hispanic women make only 58¢.

Dr. Height was there when Pres. John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act in 1963, and returned to the White House for the 35th anniversary of that legislation when Pres. Bill Clinton called for additional laws to ensure equal pay for women. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the first piece of legislation signed by Pres. Barack Obama, added legal protections for those discriminated against in the workplace. Still, additional legislation such as the Paycheck Fairness Act is needed to eliminate this inconsistency once and for all.

AFL-CIO Exec. Vice President Arlene Holt Baker issued this statement on Dr. Dorothy Height’s passing:

Today the nation lost a great leader in Dr. Dorothy Height. Dr. Height’s contributions to advancing freedom and equality in this country have left an indelible mark on our history and our future. She was a champion of civil rights, human rights, women’s rights and workers’ rights. She was on the battlefield with Eleanor Roosevelt, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., A. Philip Randolph, Hillary Clinton and Pres. Obama, just to name a few. She remains a strong hero to so many, but especially for African American women, young and old. She embodied struggle, strength, determination, love and elegance. Dr. Height will be sorely missed but she leaves a legacy that earned its way into our history books and our hearts.

MSNBC.com has posted this 2004 NBC News story on Dr. Height:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.