Black women continue fight for economic justice while Trump abandons equal pay protections

For Immediate Release
August 31, 2017
Contact: Alexa Mauzy-Lewis, Camino PR
alexa@caminopr.com / 212-255-2575

Statement from In Our Own Voice
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, the White House revoked an Obama administration equal pay rule that required employers to disclose the amount they pay their workers by employee demographics. Despite her call for equal pay for women during the Republican National Convention, lvanka Trump released a statement, supporting her father’s decision to roll back these protections for women. Marcela Howell, founder and executive director of In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda, issued the following statement in response:

“President Obama’s equal pay rule was just a first step in closing the wage gap between women and men. And even it was not enough to address the bigger gap between the 63 cents that Black women make compared to the white man’s dollar. Although we are not surprised by Trump’s anti-woman agenda, this unnecessary removal of equal pay protections is an insult to working women everywhere.

“Equal pay is only one component of a multidimensional, ongoing fight for economic justice for Black women and other women of color. Our recent report, ‘Our Bodies Our Lives Our Voices: The State of Black Women and Reproductive Justice,’ outlines an agenda for action to disrupt the systematic and institutional oppression of Black women in the workplace and beyond. While the current administration will obviously not protect us, Black women will continue to demand transparency in the workplace and hold employers accountable for blatant discrimination and inequity.”

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In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda is a national reproductive justice organization focused on lifting up the voices of Black women at the national and regional levels in our ongoing policy fight to secure reproductive justice for all women and girls.