International Petition to the US Government Pay Equity Now! Nurses in Scotland set to win pay equity WHEREAS the US government opposes pay equity – equal pay for work of equal value – in national policy and international agreements (i.e. the ILO Convention, CEDAW, and the Beijing Platform for Action); and WHEREAS by opposing pay equity in international forums, the US government encourages multinational corporations to underpay women everywhere in the global economy; and WHEREAS the US (the only wealthy country where women get no paid maternity benefits or leave) also opposes international agreements which call for other financial benefits for women, including paid breastfeeding breaks; and WHEREAS underpaying women is a massive subsidy to employers that is both sexist and racist; and WHEREAS women are often segregated in caring and service work for low pay, much like the housework they are expected to do for no pay at home; and WHEREAS all women, particularly mothers, who do the vital but unpaid job of caring for children and/or other dependents, are penalized by getting the lowest pay when they go out to work and are discriminated against in such areas as pensions, health care, and social security credits, among others; and WHEREAS closing the wage gap between women and men cannot be achieved without revaluing the responsibilities and skills women use in their work compared to what men use in theirs; and WHEREAS in the US, the richest, most powerful nation on earth, women's average pay has dropped from 76% in 1992 to 73% of men's wages (62.6% for Black women, 53.1% for Latina women), and WHEREAS pay equity is a major step toward revaluing all women’s work, raising all women's wages and status, and establishing all women’s entitlements; THEREFORE WE THE UNDERSIGNED demand that all branches of the US government stand with women, the vast majority of whom are overworked and underpaid, and
NAME ORGANIZATION (IF ANY) ADDRESS PHONE/FAX EMAIL ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Issued by the International Wages for Housework Campaign (WFH).Endorsed by Philadelphia Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) and Philadelphia and PA National Organization for Women (NOW). Mail to: WFH, P.O. Box 11795
Philadelphia PA 19101 -----------------------------------print and circulate the petition----------------------------------------- Electronic endorsers please fill in the form below: |
| Pay Equity Now! Endorsers Coalition of Labor Union Women (Philadelphia) International Wages for Housework Campaign International Black Women for Wages for Housework International Prostitutes Collective International Women Count Network National Organization for Women (PA, Philadelphia) National Council of Women’s Organizations* Payday Men’s Network Wages Due Lesbians Women’s Fitness Club Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (Germantown) WinVisible: Women with Visible and Invisible Disabilities * National Council of Women’s Organizations Members: |
| 9 to 5 National Association of Working Women, AAUW- Legal Advocacy Fund, African-American Women’s Clergy Association, Alexandria Commission for Women, American Association of University Women, American Medical Women’s Association, American Nurses Association, American Physical Therapy Association, American Women in Radio & Television, Association of Junior Leagues Int’l, Inc., Black Women United for Action, Black Women’s Agenda, Inc., Betty Friedan, Board of Church & Society of the United Methodist Church, Business & Professional Women/USA, Catholics for Free Choice, Center for Child Care Workforce, Center for the Advancement of Public Policy, Center for Policy Alternatives, Center for Women Policy Studies, Child Care Action Campaign, CHOICE USA, Church Women United, Clearinghouse on Women’s Issues, Coalition of Labor Union Women, Cornell University- Institute for Women & Work, ERA Summit, Equal Rights Advocates, Inc., Economists Policy Group on Women’s Issues, Feminist Majority Foundation, General Federation of Women’s Clubs, Girls Incorporated, HADASSAH, Institute for Health & Ages- University of California, Institute for Women’s Policy Research, INTERACTION- Commission on the Advancement of Women, International Wages for Housework Campaign, Jewish Women International, Jewish Women’s Coalition, MANA: A National Latina Organization, McAuley Institute, MS. Foundation for Women, League of Women Voters, NOW Legal & Defense Education Fund, NA’AMAT USA, National Abortion Federation, National Alliance for Caregiving, National Association of Commissions for Women, National Association of Female Executives Women’s Foundation (NAFEWF), National Association of Orthopeadic Nurses, National Association for Women in Education (NAWE), National Center on Women & Aging, National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease, National Committee of Pay Equity, National Council of Jewish Women, National Council of Negro Women, National Council of Women of the United States, Inc., National Foundation for Women Legislators, National Hispana Leadership Institute, National Hook-Up of Black Women, Inc., National Museum of Women’s History, National Organization for Women, National Partnership for Women & Families, National Political Congress for Black Women, National Women’s Party, National Women’s Conference, National Women’s Health Network, National Women’s Health Resource Center, National Women’s History Project, National Women’s Law Center, National Women’s Political Caucus, Inc., NCA Union Retirees, Network: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby, Network of East-West Women, Older Women’s League, Organization of Chinese American Women, Inc., Pamela Moffat, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Postpartum Support International, Public Leadership Education Network, Radcliffe Public Policy Institute, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, Sorptimist International of the Americas, The Center for Reproductive Law & Policy, The Society for the Advancement of Women’s Health Research, The White House Project, The Woman Activist, Fund, The Women’s Law Center of Maryland, Inc., Third Wave Foundation, U.S. Committee for UNIFEM, Washington Women’s Television Network, Wider Opportunities for Women, Women’s National Democratic Club, Women Employed, Women Executives in State Government, Women in Government, Women Leaders ONLINE, Women of the West Museum, Women’s Action for New Direction (WAND), Women’s Business Development Center, Women’s Campaign Fund, Women’s Center for Ethics in Action, Women’s Division, United Methodist Church, Women’s Edge, Women’s Environment and Development Organization, Women’s Foreign Policy Group, Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement (WISER), Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Women’s International Public Health Network, Women’s Policy, Inc., Women’s Research & Education Institute, YWCA of the USA. |
| The Facts on Pay Equity |
| 1. Internationally women do 2/3 of the world’s work for 5% of the
income (ILO 1980 figure); 2. The figure quoted most frequently for women's wages, 73% of what men earn, only examines hourly rates. The gap in actual earnings, what women have to live on in comparison to men, is in fact much wider - men earn on average 49% more than women* (ft: Government Census Statistics - McNeil 1997). The discrepancy results from a number of factors including that women's unwaged work caring for children and others reduces their availability for paid employment, - women are available for less overtime and hold two thirds of all part time jobs (often because that’s all they can get) as well as much temporary and seasonal work. The relative earnings statistics would be even worse if women who work full time in the home, and women in the informal sector, were included. 3. Most – 59% -- of the narrowing of the wage gap since 1979 is due to a fall in men’s wages. Nor did the gap narrow at the same rate for all women: over a 15 year period women in general went from 59% of what men earn to 73% (a 19% change) while Black women went from 54% to 62.6% (only a 14% change) and Latina women from 50% to 53.1% (only an 6% change). 4. The occupations held overwhelmingly by women are always lower paid. In fact, for each 1% increase in the number of women working in any given occupation, wages decrease by 11%. 5. The Clinton Administration has initiated a public campaign to increase enforcement of the law which requires ‘equal pay for essentially the same work’. While such a campaign is needed, it will have little effect on most women, who are segregated by sex, that is, in jobs and lines of work done almost exclusively by women. For example, 'equal pay for equal work' can't tackle the pay differential between engineers and nurses – even though in one evaluation, nursing was the equivalent of engineering in skill, responsibility, complexity and education. But pay equity -- 'equal pay for work of equal value' -- does tackle it. 6. In addition to methods that already exist for comparing the value of even very different jobs, the US agreed at the UN Women’s Conference in Beijing to put a dollar value on work done without wages at home, on the land and in the community. This valuing of unwaged work can be used to uncover the hidden skills and responsibilities women bring from home that are never included in job descriptions. This includes simultaneous activity and other management skills, emotional support work, and dealing with sexual and racial harassment. Uncovering and revaluing this very skilled work revalues all women's wages. The Department of Labor is to oversee its implementation in the US. |
7. Some of the international treaties where the United States has refused
to sign on to pay equity or other provisions that have to do with money, benefits and/or
other resources for women, include:
8. The US is one of only six countries out of 152 surveyed by the United Nations that does not have a paid maternity care policy for women. 9. Economists as well as trade unions have said that a major factor widening the US wage gap between women and men (from 24% to 26% since 1992) is ‘welfare reform’ which began with the Family Security Act in 1988 introducing forced "workfare" and continues today with the abolition of AFDC and welfare as an entitlement. Welfare reform is forcing hundreds of thousands of women, mostly single mothers, into the lowest paying jobs or ‘community service’ for no pay at all, driving down women’s pay first of all, and then everyone's. 10. Two thirds of people living below the poverty line in the US are women with dependent children who get the lowest pay when they work outside the home. 11. Women with disabilities in the US have the lowest pay of all: $1000/month (severe disability) - $1200/month (non-severe disability) as opposed to men with disability $1262/month (severe) to $1875/month (non-severe) or women with no disability ($1470/month) to men with no disability ($2190/month). 12. Lack of pay equity, which begins with girls, drags women's income down even after retirement: women in the US with pensions receive half the amount that men receive: $4200 annually compared to $7800 for men – a retirement wage gap where women receive 53 cents for every dollar a man receives. |
| No wonder then that in survey
after survey including by the AFL-CIO, For more information, contact the Wages for
Housework Campaign Mail to: P.O. Box 11795 Philadelphia PA 19101 MAIL TO: Box 11795 Phila PA 19101 % (215) 848-1120 Fax: (215) 848-1130Email: philly@crossroadswomen.netDear Friends: January 2000 We are writing to request your endorsement of the enclosed petition, Pay Equity Now!. The petition was issued by the Wages for Housework Campaign/Phila with both input from and the endorsement of Phila Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) and Phila and PA National Organization for Women (NOW). We are hoping the petition will have as many organizational endorsements as possible before it goes to the UN Commission on the Status of Women Feb 28-March 15 in New York and is formally launched on International Women’s Day, March 8, 2000 in Philadelphia.
Your input into the petition’s Fact Sheet, a work in progress as organizations such as yours make more information and statistics known, is welcome. We cannot guarantee to accommodate all suggestions, but we will certainly consider them. We know how strongly women feel about this basic women’s issue and we have all benefited so much already from collective input. We also welcome your ideas for and your participation in circulating the petition and launching the petition in other cities. Please email your endorsement to philly@crossroadswomen.net. Or endorse the enclosed draft and fax to 215-848-1130. If there is no time for the organization to consult and endorse, the endorsement of the national president of the organization is welcome. We will be sending out the final version with all the endorsing organizations in the beginning of March. A minimum and modest financial contribution of $25-$50 would be greatly appreciated to help us cover the costs of printing and mailing.May we also bring to your attention the Global Women’s Strike on March 8, 2000 calling for "a new millennium which values all women’s work and all women’s lives". Please let us know your plans! Phoebe Jones Schellenberg, Wages for Housework Campaign/Philadelphia
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| Background Since 1972, the Wages for Housework Campaign (WFH), of which International Black Women for Wages for Housework is a leading part, has been working internationally to make visible women’s "double day": unwaged and low-waged work – housework; all caring work including for children and older people and those who are ill or disabled; work in family businesses and on family farms; and volunteer work – and for all women’s work to be paid with money, services, land, etc., to be paid for first of all from military weapons spending. During the UN Decade for Women (1975-1985) we pressed for the recognition of all women’s work, gaining pathbreaking UN commitments and the introduction of legislation in a number of countries to count the value of women’s work in the gross domestic product. We also worked to oppose punitive welfare reform which denies that raising children is work. We publicized widely the International Labor Organization statistic that women do 2/3 of the world’s work for 5% of the income. In 1991, we worked with the Utility Workers Union of America to win a 13-28% pay increase for women clerical workers at the Southern California Gas Co., the largest pay equity settlement in private industry that we know of in the US. WFH was very active in the run up to, during and after the 1995 UN 4th World Conference on Women in Beijing, focusing in particular on gaining the support of over 1500 non-governmental organizations representing millions of women and men worldwide, and getting governments to agree to the issue of measuring and valuing women’s unwaged work. Measuring and valuing unwaged work revalues women’s waged work, and establishes women’s entitlement to land, aid, piped water, technology, welfare, pay equity, free or low-cost childcare and health care, paid leave for maternity and other caring, pensions, grants, etc. Many considered this the major macroeconomic decision to come out of the Beijing conference. Since Beijing, we got legislation passed, or other decisions agreed, to measure and value unwaged work in Spain, Switzerland and Trinidad & Tobago, among others. Similar efforts are underway in many countries. We continue to work for implementation of this decision at the UN Commission on the Status of Women (the UN body responsible for overseeing implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action), including in drawing out the implications for waged work of that decision. In the course of our work at the UN, we discovered that the US "took out a reservation" on pay equity (equal pay for work of equal value) in the Platform for Action, preferring the narrower ‘equal pay for equal work’. We further learned of a similar reservation in the US opinion on CEDAW. And at the 1999 ILO conference in Geneva, the US did not support maintaining paid breastfeeding breaks in the Maternity Protection Convention, a right for women at the waged workplace that has been on the books for 80 years! For 1998 Equal Pay Day, we announced our intention to issue a pay equity petition to tackle these US policies and have been working since then on gathering input from women in our network in non-industrialized and industrialized countries, as well as from other organizations and individuals generally. Attached please find Pay Equity Now!, which we hope your organization will endorse and, once launched, circulate for signatures. Home |