The latest news, analysis and opinion on the state of low-income women and their families from Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity. For the week ending 4/1/2011: Women, unions and “the husband issue.”
Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity, a national foundation-led initiative, is excited to collaborate with The Women’s Foundation to bring you the latest news and analysis on women and poverty. Spotlight is the go-to site for news and ideas about fighting poverty.
Here’s this week’s news:
• A New York Times op-ed entitled “An Extraordinary Intrusion on Women’s Rights” says that several new state laws limiting women’s access to providers of abortions will especially limit access for low-income women.
• Despite massive state-wide cuts to programs that help illegal immigrants, Washington state is federally mandated to allocate $300 million in funds to services for illegal immigrants, primarily child welfare and health services for seriously ill and pregnant women, according to the Seattle Times.
• In an editorial piece for the New York Times, Natasha Vargas-Cooper discusses how she worked as a union organizer and had to overcome “the husband issue” when convincing low-wage female workers to join the unions; the women always sought approval from their husbands before joining the union, an act that Vargas-Cooper argues would not occur if the same question was posed to men.
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The Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity team