We Are One: Take A Stand for Women Workers on Monday, April 4

Across the country, workers' rights are under attack and women are bearing the brunt. On Monday, April 4, you can fight back.

Women, including teachers, nurses, social workers, and others providing vital services to local communities, make up the majority of state and local public employees, and collective bargaining rights for these employees raises women’s wages and helps close the gender wage gap, achieving greater economic security for women and their families. But just this week, following the lead of Wisconsin, Ohio sharply limited public employees’ collective bargaining rights, and the New Hampshire House voted to impose similar restrictions.
 
Also this week, the Supreme Court heard argument in Dukes v. Wal-Mart, and will soon decide whether the women of Wal-Mart can band together to challenge pay and promotion discrimination in Wal-Mart stores across the country. The Court’s decision in this case could determine whether class actions remain a viable way of challenging company-wide discrimination by large employers like Wal-Mart, but a majority of Justices appeared skeptical of allowing the women of Wal-Mart to proceed with their claims.

And women are largely being left behind in the recovery. While today’s jobs data show that women made some job gains last month, since the "recovery" officially started in July 2009, women have lost 212,000 jobs while men have gained 757,000. This is in part because budget cuts have led to the loss of public employees’ jobs, and women have been disproportionately affected. While women represent just over half (57.0 percent) of the public workforce, they lost the vast majority (72 percent) of the 378,000 public employee jobs cut between July 2009 and March 2011.

On Monday, April 4, unions, people of faith, women's groups, civil and human rights activists, students and other progressive allies will stand in solidarity for the rights of workers in hundreds of events around the country, making clear that We Are One. On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in Memphis, where he had gone to stand with sanitation workers demanding the right to bargain collectively for a voice at work and a better life. Continue his work by finding an event in your community and standing up for the rights of workers, for the sake of women, families, and communities.