Yey, Us!!!

Sometimes activism actually pays off. After hearing from thousands of constituents, the US House of Representatives did the right thing and passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act. But we're not done yet. The Senate still has to pass it and the President has to sign it. You can urge your senators to pass this bill here.

If you're not familiar with her story and what the Fair Pay Act is about, here's Lilly herself telling her story.



The tragedy is that the Supreme Court ruled that, according to the law, she didn't file her claim soon enough. She was supposed to have filed her claim within 180 days after she got her first unequal paycheck. BEFORE she even knew she was getting unequal pay. Yeah. Makes absolutely no sense. So clearly we need to change the law to work for us and not against us.

It also occurs to me that while these laws are desperately needed measures, it's not the only way we'll end unequal pay. Employers often justify this unequal treatment by claiming that women are less of a sure investment as they are more likely to put in less time or leave their jobs to care for their families. The cold hard fact is that they are more likely to do those things because corporate America hasn't quite figured out how to accommodate the needs of working families. If employers embraced flexible work policies to allow either parent to take their kids to the doctor, stay home with sick children, go to parent-teacher conferences, etc., perhaps they'd have a better chance of retaining valuable employees.

Yey, Us!!!

You Gotta Love Michelle

Being back at work this week has reminded me why I like work and why I hate work all at the same time. I love being around smart, talented people and learning new things everyday. Oh, and that paycheck's kinda nice too. Yet I hate getting ready for work, battling traffic, work-related stress, battling traffic all over again to get home and then arriving home exhausted and spent and yet still having to jump right into my primary job of being mommy.

When it comes to the struggles of working moms, Michelle Obama says it best.


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I love it when she says she's losing her mind trying to do it all. I know I certainly am.

Speaking of working moms, all of the major women's/moms organizations -- Momsrising, 9 to 5 Association of Working Women, National Partnership for Women and Families and the National
Organization For Women -- are gearing up for action. Congress is set to vote on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act this week in the House and next week in the Senate. Both are critical to ensuring equal pay for women and for making sure that those that suffer from pay discrimination can take action against their employer. Take a minute, click here to read more about it and click here to send your congressman a note to urge them to vote for these important bills.

You Gotta Love Michelle

Get the Led Out for Ledbetter

Remember this post (another thriller where I whine about not having enough time to right all the wrongs of the world)? Well, the National Partnership for Women and Families (another fine organization I forgot to mention in my last post) informed me today via email that the Senate is set to vote on the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act this week.

An excerpt from the email:

Your voice is needed — today! The Senate is scheduled to vote this Wednesday on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

E-mail your Senators now and urge them to vote “YES” for fair pay for working women. Then forward this e-mail to your friends, family, and co-workers.

Why is this important to you? Women in the United States are still paid only 77 cents for every dollar paid to their white male counterparts — more than four decades after Congress outlawed wage discrimination based on gender. For women of color, the numbers are even starker — African-American women earn 63 cents and Latinas earn 53 cents for every dollar paid to white men.

Outraged? Tell your Senators to support the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

What are you waiting for...click here and email your Senators before Wednesday!

Get the Led Out for Ledbetter

(No) Time to Activate

Turns out that its alot harder to rid the world of cancer (my day job) AND right the wrongs of corporate America for us moms (oh yeah, AND do that mommy job) than I thought.

Yesterday I got an email from Momsrising.org asking for volunteers to coordinate a meeting with one of our GA Senators to encourage them to pass the Fair Pay Restoration Act. This Act reverses a recent Supreme Court ruling in Ledbetter vs. Goodyear that now gives employees a mere 180 days from the time a pay rate is set to discover heinous and unfair pay discrepancies based on gender, race or other discriminatory factors and to file a claim to right the wrong.

Man, I would have LOVED to have coordinated that meeting. I can just imagine strolling into that Senator's office all fired up, channeling my best Julia Sugarbaker (remember "Designing Women"? Love that show!!!):

"Senator So and So, we're here representing Momsrising.org, Mothers and More and the thousands of hard-working employees here in the state of Georgia who have a high likelihood of experiencing pay discrimination. We are asking that you vote to pass the Fair Pay Restoration Act when it comes up in the Senate. Now we don't know what our distinguished Supreme Court justices were smoking when they ruled on Ledbetter vs. Goodyear, but surely you can see the folly in allowing only 180 days from the time pay is set to file any kind of pay discrimination claim. Because unless you happen to be psychic or lucky enough to stumble upon a pile of your co-workers' pay stubs, there is no way in hell you could discover and prove potentially discriminatory pay practices in that short of a time period!"

Ok, I probably wouldn't say that. But Julia would. Unfortunately, when I looked at my calendar to see when I could hold such a meeting, it was already jam-packed with cancer-fighting meetings. And since I'm actually being paid with money that people have donated from their hard-earned paychecks to fight cancer and not the working mommy issues, I decided I'd better stick to my original schedule.

So, my working mommy issue fighting will have to be limited to signing this Momsrising.org online petition and writing a letter to my Senators ("Dear Backwoods Senator..." Just kidding. I wouldn't write that either) in my off hours for now. I encourage everyone reading this (all 11 of you) to visit Momsrising.org (haven't joined yet...what are you waiting for?) and get involved. They are looking for people in all 50 states to coordinate meetings with their Senators, sign their petition and to express their support of the issue.

Time to activate!

(No) Time to Activate