September, 03 2018, 12:00am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Mai Shiozaki, 202-628-8669, ext. 116; cell 202-641-1906
Labor Day Is Another Day Of Struggle For Working Women
Statement by NOW President Toni Van Pelt
WASHINGTON
Labor Day is meant to be a day of celebration, marking the contributions made by all working people in the U.S.--but for women, it's a reminder of how far we remain from full equality.
Women make up 47% of the labor force and are the sole breadwinners in 40% of families with children--and yet, the wage gap between working women and men persists in nearly every occupation.
Despite civil rights laws and advancements in women's economic status, workplace discrimination still persists. For women of color, this inequity can be devastating. According to the National Women's Law Center, African American women working full-time are paid 64 cents for every dollar a man earns, and Latina women are paid 56 cents for every dollar a man earns.
Women remain segregated into jobs where they are underpaid and undervalued. Women make up 95% of the workforce in industries considered "women's work," such as home care, child care and housekeeping--yet most workers in these fields lack basic employment protections enjoyed by workers in other fields. And women are particularly vulnerable to an artificially low minimum wage that puts their families at risk.
Labor Day won't be a holiday that's truly worth celebrating until the gender pay gap is erased, the minimum wage is raised to at least $15, paid parental leave is universal and parents have access to subsidized childcare.
Until then, Labor Day will remain just another day for shopping and barbecues.
The National Organization for Women (NOW) is the largest organization of feminist activists in the United States. NOW has 500,000 contributing members and 550 chapters in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
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As Israel continued to wage what critics are calling a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, just 13 U.S. House Democrats and one Republican on Tuesday voted against a GOP resolution that conflates anti-Zionism and antisemitism.
House Resolution 894 passed with support from 95 Democrats and 216 Republicans, including its sponsors, Reps. David Kustoff (Tenn.) and Max Miller (Ohio), who are both Jewish. Almost as many Democrats—92—voted present.
The resolution, which embraces the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's controversial working definition of antisemitism, was widely condemned by progressive and Jewish groups this week ahead of the vote.
Republican Congressman Thomas Massie (Ky.) joined the 13 Democrats who opposed H.Res. 894: Reps. Jamaal Bowman (N.Y.), Cori Bush (Mo.), Gerry Connolly (Va.), Jesús "Chuy" GarcÃa (Ill.), Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.), Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), Summer Lee (Pa.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Delia Ramirez (Ill.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (N.J.).
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According to The Hill, Bowman said after the vote that while he "strongly condemn[s] antisemitism and hate in all of its forms," he voted against H.Res. 894 because "it fuels division and violence, conflates criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism, and ignores one of the greatest threats to the Jewish community, white nationalism."
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While the United Nations climate summit continued in the Middle East, researchers in Germany warned Tuesday that depending on technology to trap and sequester planet-heating pollution could unleash a "carbon bomb" in the decades ahead.
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