A day ahead of Latina Equal Pay Day, the Los Angeles City Council Wednesday honored Mónica RamÃrez and Alexandra Torres Galancid for their work for women’s representation and equity in the workforce.
Latina Equal Pay Day, which is commemorated on Oct. 5, is the symbolic day when Hispanic and Latina women’s earnings “catch up” to their counterparts in the workforce. Studies show that while Latinas are among the fastest-growing and influential groups in the United States, they are paid 52% less compared to men on average.
Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez, who led Wednesday’s presentation, said addressing that issue is important for the city to “correct and reconcile” because it’s “not going to happen on its own.”
The councilwoman introduced RamÃrez, founder and president of Justice for Migrant Women, and Galancid, executive director of Women In Non-Traditional Employment Roles (WINTER).
“We know what the talent, what the work ethic, is and how we are deserving of being respected when it comes to compensation,” Rodriguez said. “Sadly, it has continued to lag, but it is not without this incredible effort that we continue to forge a path forward and create that space and be unapologetic about speaking truth to power and how we must change it.”
Latinas are working hard in every single industry and sector across the country, RamÃrez said, and have created “incredible businesses.” But the wage gap has “devastating” consequences that can impact lives and families, according to RamÃrez.
She added that officials were able to expand the wage gap calculation to include the experience of part-time, seasonal, migratory and other workers.
“We’re now better able to understand the reality of 27 million working women across this nation,” she said.
Latinas are paid 52 cents less on average, and 57 cents less for full-time workers, the officials said. While the national average for the wage gap is 57 cents to the dollar, in California it’s 56 cents.
For the average immigrant worker, Latina or foreign-born Latina in the United States, the gap is 46 cents to the dollar, she added.
“We started what is the National Latina Equal Pay campaign with our first big public actions in 2015, and we have been continuing to build power and to gather people by marching, by having educational summits, by going to Congress, by meeting with political bodies like yours — to say that enough is enough,” RamÃrez told the council.
WINTER was specifically founded to serve women of color who work in union construction jobs, according to Galancid.
“Women do not face a glass ceiling in the construction and building trades. They face a stone fortress, a citadel, reinforced with concrete, steel and barbed wire all around it,” Galancid said. “WINTER was founded to chisel it away.”
In the city, there has been “incredible transformation” in the construction and building trades, she added, in part for those who “chip away tirelessly on cultural, legal and institutional secret discrimination against Latinas and women.”
Council members Nithya Raman, Eunisses Hernandez, Imelda Padilla and Heather Hutt each took a moment to applaud the two honorees and highlighted the significance of the wage gap.
“The way we (address) this is we do it together as allies,” Hutt said. “We have the same problems in the Black community when it comes to maternal morbidity, pay equity, even when it comes to colleagues in that we are not looked at as 100% equal.”
“We deserve better,” she added.