Thank you, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee, Keith Ellison, Raul Grijalva, Garbriela Lemus for your leadership and the work of the Progressive Congress…and thank you to all our good friends in Congress and our progressive partners. It’s great to be here in Philly – on a stage with some of the change makers “sheroes” I admire most—naturally, they’re women -- Saru Jayaraman, Rep. Edwards and, of course, Leader Pelosi – and the biggest thrill is to be here representing women who are members of our country’s labor unions—women who know the value of “leaning in”…collectively. That’s what unions are all about—coming together for strength in numbers. It’s what makes union women an especially important part of our progressive movement. And it’s what today is all about—bringing our strength as women together to make America better.
Dr. Lemus asked me to come talk about how unions help women achieve economic equality. What is the “union difference?”
Well, there are so many – but let me just touch on three ways.
And I’ll start with what’s easy. Unions make a difference for women in dollars and cents—$222, to be exact. That’s how much more the typical woman in a union job makes in a week compared with a woman in a nonunion job. $222 every week. And what about the wage gap between men and women? We all talk about women making about 77 cents to every man’s dollar, right? Even more of a gap for women of color – well, with union women are 91 cents on average – the gap being about 9 cents – still not equal, but a whole lot closer than the gap between men and women overall. (I always say, the best way to get pay equity is a union contract!).
And, of course, unions aren’t just about higher wages for individual women. When enough women have bargaining power in an industry, it pushes up wages throughout entire industries where women predominate: nursing and teaching, for example. Those jobs help build the middle class. And women in unions bargaining together overtime made those jobs into careers that could support a family.
With most of our country’s future job growth expected in low-wage occupations, think of the difference it could make if more women in jobs like homecare and hospitality could bargain collectively. That’s why the work Saru is doing charting new pathways for collective power is so important!
That brings me to the second way unions make a difference for women – and it’s how we are able to shape what goes on in real workplaces all across the country.
Women who can bargain collectively aren’t settling for the “Mad Men” environment President Obama joked about in his State of the Union address. Women with bargaining agreements are blazing trails on family-friendly policies that allow women to rise—retirement security, flexible schedules, paid family leave and paid sick leave.
I’m sure you all know this—nearly 40 million people in this country do not have a single day of paid sick leave. Not one day! No woman—no man, either—should ever be put in the position of having to choose between her livelihood and staying home for a day with the flu—or because her child or a sick spouse or her elderly parent needs her. Surely in 2014, America’s women—like women in almost every other advanced nation on this planet—should be able to meet their responsibilities to their families, their jobs and themselves.
And now for the third way unions make a difference – and it’s familiar to everyone in this room – and that’s in our politics. You all can probably appreciate the union difference when it comes to electing progressive leaders and holding them accountable. We’re not shy! We’re proud of making our voices heard – and you know that the harder our elected leaders and candidates work for us, the harder we work for them!
And something that’s not talked about as much – but makes all the difference -- is the voice we have when we come together—a voice on the job to demand respect for the knowledge we possess … and a voice for legislative and political change. The power that comes from standing up and working together on a common goal.
And those voices aren’t abstract or intangible. We can count them. 6.5 million. That’s the number of women in the labor movement – about ½ our membership.
And now imagine 6.5 million women speaking together on the economy. On everything from fair wages to paid family and medical leave to economic policy and comprehensive immigration reform. That’s what we’ve got in the labor movement. 6.5 million women. Fun fact: the union movement is actually the largest women’s organization in the country.
And now let’s imagine even more people joining in the conversation on economic security – all 12.5 million AFL-CIO union members. And then let’s amplify that movement – building the voice for working people – by joining with workers all around the country, inside and outside unions – from steelworkers to waitresses -- with community partners and political allies -- standing together with one collective voice on the economy.
That’s our goal – collective action: so that workers voices can be heard in every workplace, every community, at every level of government.
That’s a good goal, right? I think we can all get behind that.
And what are those voices calling for?
Policies to tackle income inequality. Everybody, from President Obama to the Pope to Beyoncé, is talking about income inequality. But what you don’t hear much about is where it came from. Income inequality is not an act of God or of nature. It’s the result of deliberate policy decisions—bad decisions, inspired by the 1%. But…good policy, led by the rest us of, can actually turn income inequality around.
It’s the only way we can get to prosperity for all—women, men, families, responsible employers, communities, people of color, LGBTQ sisters and brothers. All of us.
Isn’t that the American Dream?
If we’re going to make the American Dream truly available to ALL, we need an all-out, long-term campaign to increase the wages of America’s working people—starting by raising the minimum wage. And that includes the tipped minimum wage, which hasn’t been raised since 1991—the woman who served you today may be making a base wage of just $2.13 an hour.
Nobody should work hard every day and still be unable to support his or her family. I’m talking especially about women … because women are two-thirds of minimum wage workers.
If the minimum wage had kept pace with inflation, it would be $10.75 an hour today. If it had kept up with the raises of the top 1%, it would be over $28.
And yet we cannot get 218 members of the U.S. House of Representatives to vote for a $10.10 minimum wage—which is STILL too low! Leader Pelosi, I know you share the frustration – my hope is that this issue fuels the fire in November so we can elect more working family friendly candidates to help you in Washington.
And paid sick days, paid family and medical leave, and fair scheduling are part and parcel of raising wages in the modern age. We’re all working more, families are stretched thin – and we need policies that provide support for what families need.
And, of course, there still are not enough jobs—one job for every three people who want desperately to work is not good enough. Prosperity for all means full employment—that goal should be hard-baked into our economic policy. What is more fundamental to the economic strength of a nation than jobs for its people?
The most immediate thing we need our Congress to do now—today—is restore emergency unemployment aid for the people who have been searching for jobs for many months…even years. The Republicans went off to their comfortable holidays at the end of last year, leaving 1.3 million jobless workers without a lifeline—and these numbers grow every week. It’s unconscionable. It’s immoral. It’s un-American.
We can do better than this. We need Congress to act on these things now.
Not to mention what working women and men need tomorrow, and next year, and for our children’s future: public investment to fix our infrastructure and create jobs; protecting and expanding Social Security benefits; fair trade agreements that help rather than hurt the working women and men of our nations and others; fixing broken immigration system; and of course, promoting the right to come together and bargain collectively with employers to build better futures and a stronger economy.
In closing, I’d like to remind you of the worker’s voices, but specifically, women’s voices that have been raised in the past year. The voices of domestic workers who’ve come together for clear standards. The voices of restaurant workers for paid sick days and a livable minimum wage. The voices of fast food workers for economic justice. The voices of Walmart workers demanding a way out of poverty. Pretty powerful stuff --
Think about the courage they showed. They don’t have a union protecting them yet they’re standing up to McDonalds when they really need those jobs. They’re standing up to the world’s largest employer and the Walton family.
If they can do that, surely we can stand up together to the Koch brothers. To ALEC. To all those who say low wages and shattered expectations are just the way it has to be.
This is America. We can do better. And when women do better, America does better.
Thank you.
And now, let me introduce someone who is working night and day for the women and men in the restaurant industry and those who aspire to improve it.
Saru Jayaraman is the co-founder and co-director of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United and director of the Food Labor Research Center at University of California, Berkeley.
ROC now has 10,000 members in 19 cities nationwide. Let’s hear more from Saru….
