Where's our dough?
According to recent reports, women are increasingly the primary or sole family breadwinner due to the recession [1]. With women still earning only 78 cents on the dollar to their male counterparts [2], you gotta wonder: How are we supposed to win enough bread for our families, when we're not getting the dough?
Urge your Senators to co-sponsor and move to quickly pass the Paycheck Fairness Act http://action.momsrising.org/cms/letter/action_980/
This Friday is the one year anniversary of the passing of the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the first piece of legislation signed into law by President Obama. This was a huge victory for MomsRising members and all women and people of color in America who worked hard to ensure passage of this important civil rights legislation. But our work is not done yet. The Paycheck Fairness Act, the essential companion legislation to the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, has passed the House but remains stalled in the Senate.
Why do we need the Paycheck Fairness Act if we passed the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act?
As Lilly Ledbetter said a year ago: Passing the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act without the Paycheck Fairness Act is like giving someone a nail but not a hammer.
The Paycheck Fairness Act, a much needed update of the 46-year-old Equal Pay Act, is a comprehensive bill that would create stronger incentives for employers to follow the law, empower women to negotiate for equal pay, and strengthen federal outreach, education and enforcement efforts. The bill would also deter wage discrimination by strengthening penalties for equal pay violations and by prohibiting retaliation against workers who ask about employers' wage practices or disclose their own wages - provisions that would have helped Lilly.
In these tough economic times pay equity is even more critical, not simply to family economic security, but also to the nation's economic recovery.
When the House passed both the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act a year ago, they demonstrated a firm, bipartisan resolve to attack wage discrimination on all fronts. Now, a year later, it's past time that the Senate does the same.
Send a letter to your Senators now asking them to co-sponsor and quickly pass the Paycheck Fairness Act! http://action.momsrising.org/cms/letter/action_980/
P.S. Thank you to the American Association of University Women (AAUW) for their help with this message!
[1] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33196583/ns/business-consumer_news/
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