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MAJORITY RULE 3Our Work Is Valued

We are paid equally for our work and get promoted equally too. The jobs primarily done by women — from teaching to caregiving — are valued and supported. All women can retire with dignity and enjoy the life they worked hard for.

Overall, women in the United States are paid only 83 cents for every dollar their male counterparts are paid.

Overall, women in the United States are paid only 83 cents for every dollar their male counterparts are paid. Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander women are paid 75 cents, Black women are paid 64 cents, Indigenous women are paid 60 cents, and Latinas are paid 57 cents. Women make this nation run every single day, and there is a need for a reckoning to address the way we women are treated in the workforce. These problems existed long before the pandemic began. And the solutions are evident — if we want our society to function, we must pay all women equitable and livable wages, strengthen collective bargaining rights to narrow the racial and gender wage gap, and institute stronger protections from workforce discrimination and exploitation.

State legislators have leveled the playing field for women in the workplace by:

Click to hear from Nevada State Senator Dina Neal

Case Study: Giving Home Care Workers Bargaining Power, Sen. Dina Neal (Nevada)

Healthcare workers play a pivotal role in our communities, especially home care workers who provide crucial lifelines to their elderly and disabled clients that are homebound. But in Nevada and across the country, many of them can neither access a fair wage nor do they have the ability to advocate for themselves.

In May 2021, State Senator Dina Neal (District 4, Clark County) and Senator Fabian Donate (District 10, Clark County) introduced SB 340, a bill that designates programs that provide services to elderly persons or persons with disabilities as home care programs and establishes a board to develop recommendations regarding the wages and working conditions of home care employees. The legislation was signed into law by Governor Steve Sisolak on June 9, 2021.

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Click to hear from Nevada State Senator Dina Neal

Case Study: The C.R.O.W.N. Act, Sen. Dina Neal (Nevada)

Hair discrimination is an undue burden that polices the identity of Black and Brown women and upholds white supremacy. With no nationwide legal protections against hair discrimination, women of color are often left to risk facing consequences at school or work for their natural hair or forced to spend money and time to conform to Eurocentric professionalism and beauty standards.

State Senator Dina Neal and State Senator Dallas Harris (District 11, Clark County) introduced SB 327, the C.R.O.W.N. (Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair) Act, that amends employment discrimination protections to include protections against discrimination based on traits associated with race, including hair texture and protective styles. This law, enacted in June 2021, allows the Nevada Equal Rights Commission to accept complaints of discrimination based on race for hair discrimination in employment and in public and private schools.

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