News

On Women's Equality Day in the USA, the anniversary of the day Congress stopped denying women the right to vote women workers in low paid industries all over the country have participated in a day of action to highlight that women's equality is still a huge issue, not least in the workplace where women still earn only 77 cents for each dollor earned by men (US statistics). Worse still, are the facts that African American women are paid only 66 cents for every dollar earned by America's men, and hispanic women only 58 cents.

The SEIU, representing low paid women in the care industries, took to the twittersphere, using the #WEmatter hashtag, and took action at work to highlight that homecare work, despite being amongst the fastest growing occupations in the US, one of the lowest paid industries, and is domainated by women, and more than half of these are women of colour. It is an industry with average annual earnings of just over $17,000, where the median hourly wage for home care aides is just $9.38.

Workers organising in unions is one of the only ways to overcome these statistics, so it is no surprise that home care workers have been organising in huge numbers over the past 20 years. But recently, this mostly female workforce has come under attack, with legal cases aimed at preventing workers from organising to make gains at work and build a better homecare industry.

However homecare workers are standing strong and continuining to organise, because unions have the power to change women's lives. And strong unions need women. #WEmatter