For the Day of Action I talked to people in my community about 9to5 and about the importance of everyone having access to paid sick days. I also got them to sign pledge cards to support candidates who will fight for working families.
Women represent more than half of the electorate and nearly half the workforce. So you’d think that President Obama and Governor Romney, vying to win the women’s vote, would focus on pay equity and its direct link to a healthy economy. But no, it took a woman to raise the question just three weeks before the presidential election.
It’s time we give poverty, particularly child poverty, the attention it deserves. A good place to start would be the first presidential debate in Denver on October 3.
Jessica Smith started a petition to get President Obama and Governor Romney talking about paid sick days and family leave insurance. Jessica knows a little something about the need for these policies. She suffered a stroke when she was 3 years old.
9to5 held its third annual National Day of Action on August 26, Women’s Equality Day. In Atlanta, chapter volunteer Nicole Corley blogs about her experiences helping register voters at the Five Points MARTA Station.
A day after the Census Bureau reported that family income is the lowest in 16 years, a new report provides a roadmap to increase wages and benefits for strapped working and middle-class families.
On August 26, 2012, in celebration of Women’s Equality Day, 9to5 members and activists in 18 cities across the country will register voters and encourage them to call on their candidates to support earned sick days.
Pay equity stimulates the economy and reduces poverty.
9to5 is organizing people across the country to protest the pay gap that is shortchanging women an average of $10,000 annually; the equivalent of 88 weeks of groceries or 13 months of rent.
With women nationally still earning 78 cents on the dollar compared to men, supporters of the state’s 2-year-old pay equity law say now is not the time to quit working for pay equality.
