Tag: Worker’s Rights

The Best Present for Minnesota Mothers: Paid Family Leave

In April 2020, my daughter was diagnosed with cancer. Caring for my medically complex daughter was one of the hardest things I have ever done. 

I am thrilled that my home state of Minnesota just approved paid family and medical leave—joining 11 other states and the District of Columbia in offering this program. Signed into law on Thursday by Gov. Tim Walz (D), Minnesota’s new plan recognizes the incredible labor that family caregivers—the vast majority of whom are women—put into caring for their loved ones, often at financial, physical and emotional cost to themselves.

The next step is for Congress to pass federal paid leave and expand access to FMLA.

Women Workers Can Help Rebuild the U.S. Economy—If We Can Solve Their Care Challenges

The United States has significantly fewer supports for caregivers than our peer countries. We lack paid family leave and public childcare. Our long-term care infrastructure is a mix of private and public, means-tested programs. Persistent low wages across the care industries have ensured that supply is unstable and insufficient.

If the U.S. is serious about bringing women into the workforce permanently, we need a robust suite of care policies—including fully public childcare, reentry programs for women who have taken time out of the workforce for childcare, and more robust long-term care options.

From the Ashes of Rana Plaza: ‘Consumers Want to Know How Their Clothes Are Made’

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The year 2013 saw the worst accident in the history of the international garment industry: A clothing factory collapsed outside of Dhaka, Bangladesh, killing at least 1,127 workers, mostly young women, and injuring another 2,500.

“Ten years later, the anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster offers an opportunity to reflect on the progress that has been made and the work that still needs to be done to ensure decent conditions for Bangladesh’s more than four million garment workers.”

Recognizing Our Essential Workers: The Women of the Long-Term Care Industry

Long-term care workers like myself—an industry that is almost entirely women of color—are some of the most disrespected, unprotected and underpaid workers in the country.

On Tuesday, President Biden signed an executive order to improve care and support care workers—the most comprehensive action yet to address this industry in crisis. This is a great first step, and I hope for the sake of my community and our loved ones that this starts to pave the way for necessary change. We will take this win and use it to motivate our continued fight. 

Women Need Julie Su as Our Next Labor Secretary. The Labor Movement Is Ready to Fight for Her

Julie Su would make history as the second-ever Asian-American woman to hold the role of labor secretary and only the fourth-ever woman of color. But this is about more than representation.

Her knowledge of wage theft, immigrant worker abuse and labor law is personal and encyclopedic. But she also has a deep understanding of what’s happening on the ground.

“A win for Julie Su is a win for women and workers all over this country. Let’s get it done.”

Keeping Score: Mourning Nashville and a U.S. Culture of Mass Shootings; Democrats in Congress Reintroduce Bills to Protect Abortion Access

In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.

This week: Remembering Nashville’s Cynthia Peak, 61, Katherine Koonce, 60, Mike Hill, 61, and Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney, all age 9; “You lobbied for weaker rules [and] got what you wanted,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren demands Silicon Valley Bank takes responsibility for its collapse; LAUSD employee strike secures a pay raise and better benefits; Utah governor prohibits abortion clinics from getting licensed; study show abortion by mail is not less efficient; the House’s first-ever Congressional Caucus for the Equal Rights Amendment; and more.

A Feminist in Frills: Why Sexism Is a Problem In Opera

As a chorus member in my last opera production, I watched our stage director (a man) lean toward the lead soprano (a woman) and say, “If you put some dark makeup between your breasts, it will make them show up more.”

Sexism in opera extends far beyond small-town productions like mine: There are 3.5 times more jobs for men than women in mainstage opera. A 29 percent pay gap exists between women classical performers and their men counterparts. Women opera singers also hold more debt and receive fewer scholarships. For opera to be an industry where women are respected, its leaders need to adopt more progressive practices that make women feel safe and comfortable.

Aren’t We Workers, Too?

Our work as street vendors seems invisible—and up to 2 billion workers worldwide are not recognized as workers and do not have labor rights. We are the workers of the informal economy: the street and market vendors, the hawkers, the mobile traders and the domestic- and home-based workers, many of whom are women sustaining households by themselves.

Whether in the rain or scorching heat, we sell affordable products to workers bustling to and from their jobs in urban centers, because we cannot afford not to work.