Portside

As the economy opened up to women a half century ago, one in three working women was an office employee. As the clerical workforce grew by leaps and bounds, so did a sense of injustice among the women, leading to the founding of the 9 to 5 Movement.

With issues like pay, benefits, paid sick time, paid family leave, minimum staffing levels, schedule flexibility, mental health, and workplace safety becoming increasingly urgent in the pandemic, women have emerged as union leaders as never before.

What so many of today's most underpaid and essential workers have in common is simply that they are women. Are we willing to re-examine the assumptions embedded in what we have been told are “free markets” for labor?

Working women in New Jersey could soon have one of the nation's strongest laws guaranteeing pay equity after lawmakers moved Monday to pass a measure that would ban employers from paying them less than men for "substantially similar work."

"Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, which observes the amount of time it takes the average black woman to earn the same pay that the average white man earns in one calendar year." Black women only make 60 percent of what white male counterparts make. This is a clear example of the importance of race and gender in determining salary.