Every worker deserves a workplace that is safe, fair, and economically secure. But for many women, that remains far from reality. Wage disparities, limited access to benefits, unfair scheduling practices, and inadequate protections against harassment and discrimination create significant barriers to women’s economic advancement. These challenges are compounded for women of color, who face intersecting racial and gender inequities across industries and job categories.
The consequences extend beyond individual workers. When workplaces fail to provide basic protections and fair treatment, women are pushed out of jobs or held back from advancement, weakening families’ economic stability and limiting broader economic growth. Discriminatory pay practices, precarious scheduling, wage theft, and unchecked harassment don’t just harm individuals—they reinforce systemic inequities that keep gender and racial structural labor market disparities stubbornly in place. Better workplace policies and practices are essential to building an economy that works for everyone.
Featured Policy Solutions
Seek opportunities to oppose discrimination, including by promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) initiatives aimed at creating more inclusive and equitable workplaces.
Policymakers should oppose and reserve efforts to undermine or restrict these initiatives.
Invest in the fight against workplace discrimination through both considering new policy initiatives and resourcing the entities responsible for preventing and responding to discrimination in the workplace.
As workers’ rights and equal pay protections continue to face mounting threats, it is crucial that policymakers ensure that federal agencies, such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), have sufficient resources and that oversight authorities are utilized to fully monitor, uphold, and enforce existing worker nondiscrimination protections and statutes. Rather than being undermined, such workers’ rights and equal pay protections must also be further strengthened by ensuring the EEOC enforces such protections, and lawmakers must work to close loopholes and gaps in statute.
Enact policies that protect and strengthen workers' right to unionize and collectively bargain for better pay and working conditions.
Policymakers should oppose any efforts to undermine existing statutes and policies that support the formation of unions and the ability of workers to engage in collective bargaining.
