EQUAL PAY DAY
It’s Equal Pay Day. What’s the best way to close the gender wage gap? Join a union (Opinion)
The News Tribune
By April Sims
March 14, 2023
For years, the gender pay gap in the U.S. was shrinking. But a new analysis from Pew Research shows that the disparity between average pay for men and women has stagnated, stymying progress for working communities. March 14 is Equal Pay Day, the day symbolizing how far into the new year women must work to earn what men earned the previous year. On average, this gender pay gap means working women lose out on as much as $10,000 annually, according to the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC). When we break down these averages, the pay gap is even more stark. Women make 82 cents for every dollar a man earns and Black women and Latinas make far less, the NWLC reports. Meanwhile, women of color are overrepresented in low-wage, high-risk jobs, and a recent study by the Washington Labor Education and Research Center found that the pandemic has worsened that disparity.
Today is Equal Pay Day. Here’s what that means
CNN Business
By Jeanne Sahadi
March 14, 2023
The gender pay gap is typically referred to in monetary terms, measuring how much women earn for every dollar a man earns. But that gap is also indirectly a marker of time, since women on average earn less and therefore have to work longer just to break even with men. How much longer? Enter Equal Pay Day — an approximate measure of just how many months into the new year a woman has to work for her earnings to catch up with what a man made in the prior year. This year, Equal Pay Day falls on March 14. That means the average full-time working woman has to work about two and a half months more than the average man just to bring in what he earned last year. The actual marking of Equal Pay Day in March for women overall is largely symbolic, in part because the date varies widely by race and ethnicity, occupation, geography, age and other issues. “March 14 is the launch of an entire year of Equal Pay Days that will highlight pay gaps experienced by women of different races, ethnicities, sexual orientation and gender identity, and by those who are also mothers,” said Noreen Farrell, the chair of the advocacy group Equal Pay Today.
JOINING TOGETHER
Faculty Union Rallies to Press State for Additional Aid for NJCU
Jersey City Times
By Ron Leir
March 14, 2023
They all came: students, teachers, union leaders, politicians from across the board, and, of course, the interim president of New Jersey City University. All of them came Monday to a union-sponsored “Fund NJCU” campus rally to plead the case for the survival of NJCU, to demand that Gov. Phil Murphy and state legislators come to the aid of the financially-strapped state-funded university. Speakers were cheered by throngs of students, professors, and members of unions representing workers from both inside and outside the university — such as the Communication Workers of America — who filled the Student Union building’s reception area where the rally was staged. What’s more, said Charles Wowkanech, president of New Jersey AFL-CIO, if a legislative majority rejects the NJCU aid package, then “(our membership) is not going to vote for them in November.” Many union family members have attended and/or work for the university, he added.
Ventura County nurses say they want less empty hero talk, more competitive wages
VC Star
By Tom Kisken
March 14, 2023
Nurses asking for more pay and benefits told the Ventura County Board of Supervisors Tuesday it’s not enough to be praised for their work on hospital front lines. “Honestly, we need less lip service that we are heroes and more tangible evidence we are valued,” Santa Paula Hospital ICU nurse Kersti Lewis said. Dozens of nurses and other health care workers represented by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United packed the board room wearing red in solidarity. They are pushing for a pay increase and a cost-of-living adjustment in pensions in changes they say will help a short-staffed county health system hire and keep more experienced nurses.
California Tech Company GetThru is Latest in Industry to Unionize
Bezinga
By PR.com
March 14, 2023
The progressive SaaS company joins industry leaders such as Microsoft, Conde Nast, iHeartMedia, and fellow political tech leaders in union recognition. Oakland, CA March 14, 2023 --(PR.com)-- GetThru, the provider of best-in-class texting and phonebanking software to more than 2,000 organizations across the country, today announced its voluntary recognition of Communications Workers of America as the exclusive bargaining representative for GetThru’s workers in their newly formed staff union, GetThru Workers United.
IN THE STATES
Michigan Senate panel advances right to work repeal, prevailing wage return
The Detroit News
By Craig Mauger
A Michigan Senate committee voted Tuesday morning to advance bills that would represent landmark victories for labor unions by repealing the 2012 right-to-work law and re-establishing a prevailing wage standard for state projects. “It is a power grab, pure and simple," Ron Bieber, president of the Michigan AFL-CIO, told the committee of the current right-to-work law.