Weekly Round-Up: Grantees Making Waves Nationwide

What with budget battles that always seem to target women and families first, an economic crisis that is particularly grueling for women, and a record number of anti-choice measures introduced nationwide, our grantees, women activists leading change across the US, have been hard at work. Here is just a sampling of some of their recent wins and campaigns:


Grantee win alert! Earlier this month, Connecticut Governor Malloy signed paid sick days legislation into law. Ellen Bravo of Family Values at Work discusses this win and the broader campaign for paid sick days in an op-ed with Edith Prague for the Women’s Media Center, and in this Spotlight on Poverty webcast.


Grantee win alert! Young Voices and their allies were able to prevent cuts to child care in the Rhode Island state budget -- an uphill battle that many are fighting in states nationwide. Congratulations on a huge victory that provides inspiration and hope for similar campaigns around the US!


Grantee win alert! Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice along with the Strong Families coalition, fought and won the removal of racist anti-abortion billboards in Oakland, CA. Watch the videos that helped give a personal voice to the campaign.

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles was forced to remove billboards which read “El lugar mas peligroso para un Latino es el vientre de su madre,”/“The most dangerous place for a Latino is in the womb” thanks to advocacy by women of color-led groups, including grantee California Latinas for Reproductive Justice [pdf]. In denouncing the "heinous" billboards, they wrote, "The problem in our communities is not abortion. What Latinas/os truly need to thrive is access to quality health care, good paying jobs to support their families, and quality education to provide positive life opportunities." 

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Weekly Round-Up: Grantees Making Waves Nationwide

Wow. We can't believe how much there is to report this week! Check it out:

The Ms. Foundation and our grantees have often noted how the practice of involving local police in immigration enforcement is deeply flawed, particularly because it deters women from reporting abuse to the authorities. Norma, a member of Mujeres Unidas y Activas (MUA), bravely shared her story with the LA Times about how she now faces deportation after calling the police during a domestic violence incident. MUA asks you to leave a positive comment thanking her for speaking out.

Ai-jen Poo, Director of National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), was profiled by Barbara Ehrenreich in the New York Times Style Magazine. Read the amazing story of how she helped found Domestic Workers United, a long-time Ms. Foundation grantee organization based in New York City that won the passage of historic state legislation to protect the labor rights of nannies, housekeepers and elderly caregivers.

Ellen Bravo, Director, Family Values @ Work, was honored by the Ford Foundation as one of the 12 “Visionaries of Social Change.” First with 9to5 and now with Family Values @ Work: Multi-State Working Families Consortium, she is at the forefront of the fight for pay equity, family leave, fairness for part-time and temporary workers, and an end to sexual harassment and punitive welfare laws. Congratulations, Ellen -- we've always been proud to support your trailblazing advocacy!

Why We Need to Think of Our Mothers as Caregivers by Tiffany Williams (HuffPo) highlights Caring Across Generations (CAG), a campaign led by two of our grantees -- National Domestic Workers Alliance and Jobs with Justice -- that's about to make incredible waves. CAG, which seeks to transform caregiving across the US by advancing worker and immigrant rights, creating jobs, and promoting access to affordable, quality care at all stages of life, just coalesced dozens of organizations from the disability rights, senior rights, and worker rights worlds in Washington, DC for a crucial preparatory meeting. The campaign will officially launch on July 12 at the first "Care Congress."  "What mom really needs this Mother's Day," writes Duff, "isn't a bouquet of flowers or greeting card. It's a new respect for the value of care, in all its forms, and a new vision for what we deserve as Americans when it comes to giving and receiving care."

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On-the-Ground Leaders Explore the Economic Downturn

As we've repeatedly written, the effects of the economic downturn on women and families have put lie to the claim that we are suffering a 'mancession.' According to the National Women's Law Center and its analysis of 2009 Census data, poverty among women has climbed to 13.9 percent, the highest rate in 15 years, and rates are even higher for women of color and single mothers. More than 15.4 million children lived in poverty last year, over half of them with single mothers.

Last week in New York City, the Ms. Foundation brought together a group of dynamic grantee organizations working to address the urgent priorities of women and other workers who remain largely invisible in conversations about the economic crisis. Attending were Childspace CDI, Community Voices Heard, Jobs with Justice, LAANE, Legal Momentum, LIFETIME, Multistate Working families Consortium, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, National Partnership for Women and Families, the National Women's Law Center, Parent Voices, Restaurant Opportunities Center United (ROC United), and Wider Opportunities for Women. Together they brought to the forefront the voices of women and families nationwide that have been rocked by foreclosures, job loss and insecurity, and cuts to essential social services.

Those solutions, they insist, must place gender and social justice at the center. In addition to examining the gender dimensions of the crisis, says Ai-Jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Worker's Alliance, we have to "look at how gender actually opens solutions and pathways to power," and bring the strength of the social justice community and women's organizations together to form a larger base of support and build new power.

Groups discussed the need to deepen their connections with the broader social justice community as well as how to deepen their connections with one another – across issues, organizations and geography. Ernestine Ward from ROC noted, "We are multifaceted and try to look at every aspect of the problem to see how it all relates. We must remember as we work hard on our different issues that there is a possibility of a strong collaboration with other groups."

These collaborations are already beginning to happen. The Excluded Workers Congress -- a collaboration among numerous groups including, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Community Voices Heard, Jobs with Justice and the National Day Laborers Organization, and Restaurant Opportunities Centers United -- brings together nine sectors of workers (including restaurant workers, taxi drivers, work-fare workers, formerly-incarcerated workers, farm workers, guest workers, gas workers, domestic workers, and workers who receive less pay in the South) who are excluded explicitly or implicitly from labor laws. The congress unites traditional labor, workers' centers and social justice advocates to fight for a common dream of an economy that respects all work and offers justice to all workers. Sarita Gupta, of Jobs with Justice said, "We must get people to start thinking about broadening the worker rights movement and find collective ways in which to fight for an economy that works for working people."

It was gender-justice solutions like this that grantees then brought the following day to Reinvesting in Women and Families: Developing an Economy for the Future, a summit organized by the National Council for Research on Women. And as Sara K. Gould, Ms. Foundation President & CEO, said in her opening remarks at the summit, their expertise is crucial: "Those most directly affected by the problem have to be part of the solution."

We and our grantee partners know that women, families and communities must be at the center of the dialogue and that we must address the current economy with a holistic framework that takes into account a diversity of experiences, needs and solutions. Together, our grantee partners are creating new pathways to power and security for all workers and an economy that ensures justice for all.

Photos by Kasia Gladki. Ms. Foundation grantees meet to explore gender, jobs, and justice, October 7, 2010.