5 Signs the U.S. Is Failing to Protect Women’s Rights in the Workplace

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/labor/5-signs-us-failing-protect-womens-rights-workplace



***SNIP

1. Women are working more, but they’re still carrying most of the workload at home, too.

As a new report from the Center on Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) shows, the number of paid hours worked by the average woman rose from 925 hours per year to 1,664 hours between 1979 and 2012.

***SNIP

2. The wage gap hasn’t improved.

Years after passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Act, the wage gap remains unchanged. Why? The Ledbetter Act allows employees to challenge wage discrimination. But the Paycheck Fairness Act, which provides a toolkit for establishing wage equality, has not yet been passed. “Giving women my Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act without the Paycheck Fairness Act,” said Ledbetter herself, “is like giving them a nail without the hammer.”

***SNIP

3. Austerity cuts are disproportionately harming working women.

Private-sector job gains are already far too weak, even in good months, to provide the employment gains our economy needs. Now, a new study by the National Women’s Law Center shows that public-sector job cuts have offset even these modest gains or women. “Women accounted for 40 percent of the 217,000 jobs added last month,” said the NWLC’s Joan Entmacher, “but their loss of 8,000 public sector jobs cut into their private sector gains.”

***SNIP

4. School cuts have been especially harmful to women.

Ben Casselman notes in the Five Thirty Eight website that school funding is faring worse in the recovery than it did in the recession. Stimulus funding initially helped to offset some of the impact of the crisis. But Washington’s austerity fixation has led to ongoing cuts in education budgets. As a result, federal per-student spending fell more than 20 percent between 2010 and 2012, and has continued to fall, while state or local funding remained essentially flat.