Lower pay – especially for women. That’s what so-called “Right to Work” laws do to union and non-union women workers across the country¹.

Maine lawmakers should not weaken the very institutions that improve the well being of women and working families – especially during tough economic times. Unfortunately, the Legislature is poised to do just that. L.D. 309 will weaken Maine’s public sector collective bargaining rights. Like any “Right to Work” law, it would allow workers to pay nothing and get all the benefits of union representation.

When those who do not pay their fair share get all the benefits of a union membership, the union has less power to negotiate for fair wages. That means a lower standard of living for all workers (union and non-union alike), higher poverty rates, less access to health care, and less safe workplaces. In states with these laws in place, the data could not be more clear. Right to work laws equal lower wages and a lower standard of living for everyone.

Unions – the Great Equalizer for Women

Maine women believe in equal pay. But did you know that the very best way to win paycheck fairness is to be covered by a union-negotiated contract?

Let’s not turn back the clock on Maine’s tradition of collective bargaining.

Please email your legislator now and tell them to protect collective bargining rights.

Take a Stand for Collective Bargaining

Union contracts are one of the best methods for ensuring equal pay for women. Stand up for fair pay and collective bargaining by contacting your state representatives today.

A movie starring them (it’s really cool)!

As you know, the  Maine Women’s Lobby is fighting for Maine women – and the families they care for.

This week alone, we’ve been working on protecting reproductive choice, stopping the roll-back of child labor laws and the Kid Safe Products Act, monitoring attempts to dismantle vital social programs, and defending access to quality, affordable health insurance. Now, we’re adding another cause to our docket – Mother’s Day.

As we all know, moms are the hardest workers around – balancing care for kids, jobs, households – and oftentimes, their own moms! This year we’ve made it possible for you to thank all the moms you know with a customizable video announcing them as the star of an upcoming movie “World’s Greatest Mom.”

Each mom you send the video to will see her name appear as the inspiration throughout a faux movie trailer of an upcoming film.  Check it out – and then send to your favorite mom(s) here: http://movies.cnnbcvideo.com/index2.php?p=mwl

Then, don’t forget to send it to all the moms in your life, because every mother deserves to be a star.

And here’s a gift that keeps on giving … a membership to the Maine Women’s Lobby! Call Kim today at 207.622.0851 and she’ll put a membership welcome letter in the mail today to your mom.

Your mom’s membership will contribute to our efforts to protect teen workers, advocate for chemical safety, promote workplace fairness and flexibility, advance marriage equality, champion freedom from violence and ensure equal pay for equal work (just to name a few of the numerous mom-centric causes we love).

Happy Mother’s Day!

What’s that? This day represents the amount of time into 2011 it took women in the United States to work  (600 extra hours!)  to catch up with what men earned in 2010. Well, I hate to state the obvious but, it has been a long time since January 1st. While working women have been catching up to men’s 2010 wages, a lot has happened in Augusta to attempt to devalue the wages of all Mainers:

• The Legislature has introduced a bill that would implement a sub-minimum wage for teen workers. What is a sub-minimum wage? This bill would pay teens $5.25/hour – a whole $2.25 under the minimum wage for the first 6 months a teen works! In an excellent piece that ran today in Women’s e-news, Susan Feiner points out that, “At the $5.25 per hour rate proposed by Maine Republican young women wouldn’t get to equal pay day until June!”
• Another proposal at the legislature is considering are so-called “right to work” laws. As Sarah Standiford pointed out in an opinion piece in the Portland Press Herald this morning, “‘Right to work’ laws make it illegal for unions to collect fees for services that the law requires them to provide. The result is clear: weaker unions with fewer resources to defend the workers they represent.” What does this mean for working women? As Sarah further pointed out, “because, simply put, unions are one of the very best ways for women to achieve paycheck fairness.”

1.) Paid Sick Days Campaign

We kicked off the year in full force with an exciting new campaign for a critical protection: paid sick days. While, unfortunately, the bill did not make it through the legislature this year, significant advances were made by way of increasing public understanding and dialogue of the policy and demonstrating public support for this workplace standard.

A highlight from the campaign was when we partnered with the Maine People’s Alliance and MomsRising.org to deliver a heap of fortune cookies with personalized messages in support of paid sick days to the legislature. Why? Because healthy workplaces are worth a fortune!

What’s next? We’re not giving up! Right now, more than 200,000 Maine workers lack even a single paid sick day from work. Thousands of others risk discipline or termination simply for using time they’ve already earned. Maine Women’s Lobby will continue to work with the Maine Working Family Coalition to advance legislation to support working Mainers, including paid sick days.

Read all about it here – for all of our blog posts from the campaign.

2.) Lilly Ledbetter in Maine

Right now, the wage gap is at 77 cents to the dollar – which is to say that for every full dollar a male earns, a woman earns, on average, 77 cents. The plaintiff in the employment discrimination case Lilly Ledbetter vs. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. and namesake for the 2008 Lilly Ledbetter Fair Paid Act, Lilly is one of the nation’s foremost advocates for closing the wage gap. We were incredibly fortunate to have Lilly come to Maine and deliver an inspiring speech on her long-fought battle for equal pay. In the midst of our campaign for paid sick days, her passion and story were particularly inspirational for our work.

Check out some great photos from the event here.

3.) Safe Cosmetics

Toxic chemicals in my shampoo? Oh my! This year, the Maine Women’s Lobby’s sister organization, the Maine Women’s Policy Center, vamped up organizing with young women and worked to support the formation of a student-run group, Women Against Toxic Cosmetics Harm (WATCH). This group of 20 passionate young women worked together to advocate for needed political reform of our broken chemical safety system. In their first six months of operation, they successfully launched three creative and successful press events, conducted campus and community-wide public education, initiated online actions, organized in-district visits, and placed a number of opinion pieces in both campus and local newspapers.

In 2011, we will continue this work by engaging with student leaders and working with Planned Parenthood of Northern New England to create a statewide network of young women advocating for chemical safety reform.

For press clips, and videos from this work, click here.

4.) Elena Kagan

On August 5, with a 63-37 vote, the United States Senate confirmed Elena Kagan as the next associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. And this fall, three women took their seats together on the bench for the first time in United States history. The Maine Women’s Lobby was there all along working to engage Mainers in the process and to advocate for Kagan’s confirmation. We convened a coalition in support of the effort, organized watch parties across the state, and met with our Senators’ staffers. We want to sincerely thank Senators Snowe and Collins and all of our activists out there for making sure that Elena Kagan was confirmed as the fourth woman to join the bench in the Court’s 221-year history.

Read more about the confirmation process here.

5.) She Decides

This fall, the Maine Women’s Lobby launched a new campaign to make sure that women’s economic concerns were front and center this election year. SheDecides is a nonpartisan campaign to demonstrate the importance of women – particularly unmarried women – in the elections. SheDecides is our pocketbook agenda, and it’s a roadmap for candidates who want to speak to the economic reality of women’s lives.

We asked candidates to share where they stand on the minimum wage, paid sick days, family friendly workplaces, paycheck fairness, and access to jobs and education. And, we took those messages to the campaign trail. After holding a kick-off event on Women’s Equality Day, women in bright green SheDecides t-shirts were visible at forums across the state and earned coverage on WMTW and in the Bangor Daily News and the Portland Phoenix. We matched these on-the-ground efforts with online action—our activists generated 500 e-mails to ask candidates where they stood on our pocketbook agenda. Then, the SheDecides team knocked on doors and shared these answers with women voters by sending a voter education mailing to more than 14,000 women statewide. Check out www.SheDecides.org to learn more.

And, that ain’t all! As we gear up for the start of the new legislative session next week, look out for the SheDecides team! We’ll be brushing off those green t-shirts and heading to the legislature to advocate for Maine women!

Check out this great piece from Maine Women’s Lobby member, Professor Susan Feiner, in Women’s E-news about the wage gap, the need for federal action, and The Paycheck Fairness Act.

As we emerge from one of the worst recessions in history, this bill would have ensured that American women and their families are not bringing home smaller paychecks because of discrimination.

Unfortunately, neither Senator Snowe nor Senator Collins voted in favor of the Paycheck Fairness Act.

With women still earning 77 cents to a man’s dollar, the question before Maine women is now: How long will we have to wait for fair pay?

At the Maine Women’s Lobby, we want to thank you for your action to support this important issue and ask you to express your disappointment to the Senators.

Please take action here.

Watch President Obama’s statement on the vote here.

Maine Women’s Lobby Responds to Vote to Defeat Paycheck Fairness Act

Statement of Sarah Standiford, Executive Director, Maine Women’s Lobby

“The failure of the U.S. Senate to proceed to an up-or-down vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act has jeopardized the economic standing of Maine’s women, and the families that they support. The Maine Women’s Lobby is disappointed that Senator Snowe and Senator Collins refused to support the cloture motion on Paycheck Fairness.

“The principles of fairness and equity were set back today. Unfortunately, so was the Nation’s economic recovery. Recent U.S. Census data demonstrates that the gender wage gap is widening in Maine. Women in Maine are now earning just 77 cents to a man’s dollar. The bill would have provided grants to improve women’s ability to negotiate for equal pay and deterred discrimination by strengthening penalties for equal pay violations (bringing them on par with other civil rights violations). It was designed also to provide greater levels of wage transparency, allowing employees to discover instances of employer discrimination.

“Even though 84% of Americans support these new tools to promote equal pay, unfortunately today, the U.S. Senate failed to stand up for the needs of working women.

“The recovery of the American middle class begins and ends with well-paying jobs, but that cannot happen if women are bringing home less and less each year. Women are increasingly the sole breadwinners for their families. That means equal pay is not just a matter of fairness—but also the key to a family’s ability to make ends meet.

“The question before Maine women is now: How long will we have to wait for fair pay?”

The Maine Women’s Lobby is a non-partisan, non-profit, membership organization working since 1978 to increase opportunities for women and girls through advocacy and legislative action. www.mainewomen.org

# # #

This morning on public radio, our Labor Secretary, Hilda Solis, stated that:

So what we’re looking at here is really trying to create a level playing field, and actually having the government help provide support — data collection — so that we could really look across the board to see where these inequities exist.

Check back in for more updates as we get closer to the vote!

This bill would deter wage discrimination by closing loopholes in the Equal Pay Act and barring retaliation against workers who disclose their wages to coworkers.

Women still earn 77 cents to every dollar that a man earns.

Both Senator Snowe and Senator Collins have stood up for equal pay in the past, and today we need to ask them to do it again! Our Senators’ votes are essential for the passage of this bill.

Time is running out for our Senators to get this message from you, “Support the Paycheck Fairness Act!“

Please take a moment – right now – to make the call. Click here to take action.
When you are done taking action, watch this awesome video put together by our friends at the National Partnership for Women and Families.

Click here to view the embedded video.

“Twice in the past few weeks, candidate for Congress Dean Scontras has suggested equal pay legislation is unnecessary. In fact, he’s gone so far as to say that the law should have no place at all in fighting workplace discrimination.

“Most recently, on Tuesday, Dean stated, ‘The free market works because bad decisions like that are penalized. We don’t need Washington, DC telling the free market what to do. If you don’t hire somebody because you don’t like them, you’re penalized for it.’ Read More…