WHEREAS, This City Council previously passed a resolution to recognize Equal Pay Day as the day established to draw national attention to the wage gap between women and men, a gap that, according to the National Committee on Pay Equity, has widened since last year, so that women in the U.S. working full-time earn 72 cents to every dollar a man earns, with Black women earning 65 cents and Hispanic women 52 cents compared with white men; and
WHEREAS, According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), women perform two-thirds of world’s work, and two-thirds of this work is unwaged; and
WHEREAS, The 1995 United Nations 4th World Conference on Women, in which the United States government participated, agreed to measure and value unwaged work and include that value in economic statistics, yet this decision has still not been implemented in the U.S.; and
WHEREAS, After retirement, women with pensions receive 53% of what men receive, while many women have no pension at all; and
WHEREAS, Among the world’s industrialized countries, the U.S. has the highest proportion of women living in poverty - 60% of those living below the poverty line are women with dependent children, and 1 in 6 children are living in poverty; and
WHEREAS, The U.S. is one of only six countries surveyed by the United Nations that does not have a paid maternity care policy for women. The U.S. has also opposed international agreements which call for other financial benefits for women, including paid breastfeeding breaks; and
WHEREAS, Economists as well as trade unions have said that a major factor widening the U.S. wage gap between women and men is welfare reform, which is forcing hundreds of thousands of women, mostly single mothers, into the lowest paying jobs or “community service” for no pay at all; and
WHEREAS, On March 8, 2001, International Women’s Day, women and girls around the world and in Philadelphia are mobilizing a Global Women’s Strike to highlight the major inequities that women experience as a result of their work being unpaid or underpaid and as a result of racism, homophobia and other discrimination; now therefore
BE IT RESOLVED, THAT THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY PHILADELPHIA, Honors the Philadelphia Wages For Housework Campaign, the Philadelphia Coalition of Labor Union Women, and the Philadelphia and Pennsylvania chapters of the National Organization for Women for their efforts to eradicate the inequities in the treatment of women, and supports their Global Women’s Strike activities on International Women’s Day including the call for a Two Hour Lunch Break Against No Pay and Low Pay and for Pay Equity.
Be it further resolved, That an engrossed copy of this resolution be presented to leaders of’ the aforementioned organizations as evidence of the sincere sentiments of this legislative body.
End