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ACTION ALERTS
Response to Joe The Plumber
October 16, 2008 Contact: Lauren Sugerman: 312-942-1444 ext. 214
For Immediate Release 773-704-3627
Joe the Plumber got to ask his question,
Now it’s Sarah the Plumber’s turn
Chicago Women in Trades Sweet Sixteen Questions
Sarah the Plumber, Teresa the Tinknocker, Elsie the Electrician, Barb the Bricklayer, Mei the Machinist, and Carmen the Carpenter have yet to hear much about the issues that matter most to them. Times are tough for all construction workers, but these tradeswomen want to know what will it take to crack through the concrete floor to gain and maintain secure high-wage, high skill jobs. Here’s their top sixteen list of questions for the candidates:
- How can women who left TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families- also known as welfare) to take personal responsibility for themselves and their families, (and found themselves in jobs that paid minimum wage with no benefits), gain access to training and job opportunities that provide them with the wages and security to achieve the American dream?
- What will be done about providing working mothers (and fathers) with affordable, quality, accessible childcare during our nontraditional work hours?
- What are your plans for ensuring that working women (or any person) who has/adopts/ or cares for children, the sick and the elderly can get paid family and medical leave like almost all of the other major industrial nations?
- When will women not have to work four extra months to have an annual salary equal to men’s wages?
- If we get into the “old boys network” will there be a safety net to ensure health care? Can this cover our spouses/domestic partners and children as well?
- When exactly does the statute of limitations run out on pay equity? Is pay equity a trial lawyer’s dream, or a simple woman’s hope for (spare) change to pay the babysitter?
- How much energy do women have to expend before we get (financial) independence (or at least a 23% discount on our bills to reflect the wage disparity)?
- Do we have to kill a moose to demonstrate we can handle tools or provide leadership on the job?
- How many bridges (or highways and high-rises) do tradeswomen have to build to stop being seen as ‘just’ homemakers and breakground into male-dominated jobs?
- When can we anticipate that the free market and voluntary corporate efforts will level the playing field for women and people of color? When can we expect reparations for the disparity created by race and gender discrimination? Is this covered in the bailout bill (TARP) under executive compensation?
- Can we expect the government to actually enforce safety regulations on the jobsite and ensure that personal protective equipment like hardhats, safety belts, gloves actually fit a woman’s physique?
- Is the bailout (rescue-recovery plan?) a bridge to economic equity for working women, (and people of color and men), and exactly where does it go?
- Is a pink hardhat safer than a bonnet to protect us from the falling dollar and crashing stock markets?
- How much straight talk will it take before gays and lesbians can move from being just “tolerated” to full equality in our work, civic, military, family, and love lives?
- If we change “business as usual in the beltway”, how many documents will a worker need to be treated fairly and equally for day’s labor and to share the wealth they help to create?
- How many “hands across the aisle” will it take to create a bi-partisan bill to rescue women from second-class citizenship, low wages, and discrimination on the job? Can poor women be appointed to fill all the positions on the oversight board to assure compliance? Can full childcare be provided at all meetings?
Chicago Women in Trades (CWIT) is a nonprofit organization committed to improving women’s economic equity by increasing the number of women working in well-paid, skilled trade jobs traditionally held by men. For more information, visit www.chicagowomenintrades.org. or call us at 312-942-1444.
In the interests of full disclosure, CWIT is a community organization that formerly received funding from the Woods Charitable Fund and has associated with ACORN in the past and supports their campaigns for living wages and poverty reduction. All the women named above are pseudonyms to protect the identities and jobs of real tradeswomen who go to work everyday and come to CWIT with the above concerns.
