Directs Department of Labor To Examine the Impact of COVID-19 on Women in the Workforce and Explore Equitable Solutions
Issues Proclamation and Orders State Assets Illuminated in Recognition of Women's Equality Day
Governor Hochul: "I want to hear from everybody on how we make sure we lift women up and never ever again go back to this dark place where women in this state and this nation bore the brunt of a global pandemic. It was unfair. We had to figure out how it happened and make sure that we have the procedures in place so women are in a far better place, and don't let it happen again."
Hochul: "We'll keep fighting back here in New York, it's in our DNA to be fighters, but this is a tough time for women in our country. It really is. The impact of the pandemic, now having their rights devalued, destroyed, stripped away. And everyone always thought that in America, we always move toward progress. We don't roll back progress. So, this is a hard hit for young women who are learning about government in places like this, but I want them to not give up. I want them to suit up for battle, and be part of the next generation of fighters. Just like the brave women, who's DNA we share as New Yorkers who fought for the simple right to vote."
Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced that the New York State Department of Labor will provide a report analyzing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women in the workplace with a particular focus on the multi-layered gender wage gap. This report will build on the findings of the 2018 Gender Wage Gap report, co-chaired by Governor Hochul and NYSDOL Commissioner Roberta Reardon, which included a number of policy and programmatic recommendations to close the wage gap.
Governor Hochul announced the new report on Women's Equality Day, a federally recognized holiday celebrating the 1920 adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment, which granted women the right to vote. The Governor also signed a proclamation declaring August 26 Women's Equality Day in the State of New York and ordered state assets illuminated purple and gold in recognition.
VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of the event is available here.
PHOTOS of the event are available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:
Good morning. And thank you, Dina. Thank you for rousing up this crowd on Women's Equality Day, and for your leadership with this incredible institution that is creating leaders by the day. And I know many of them work with my administration. I've had a chance to see their passion for public service. So, thank you for everything that's done here at the SUNY Center for Women in Government and Civil Society.
I also want to recognize Commissioner Roberta Reardon, who's been at my side through many, many challenges. It's great to see her doing a fabulous job. Assemblymember Patricia Fahy has joined us here as well. Great champion. Starletta Smith, the Executive Director of the YWCA is here. Thank you, Starletta, you'll be hearing from her. Karen Carpenter-Palumbo, you've been recognized three times now, but go for it, Karen. Julie, the Dean, I want to thank her and everybody who's here today.
So, really, really, really, really proud to be here on this anniversary. 102 years since women secured the right to actually just cast a ballot. Not to run for office, not to do anything else, but just be able to walk into a polling place and cast a ballot. And it was a big deal. It was a big deal because women had been denied this right to participate in democracy since the beginning, the founding of our nation up until then. So, this was significant. And we talk about this a lot, especially as I chaired the Centennial Commission for Women's Suffrage here in New York. We were ahead of most major states. That's what we do. We're New Yorkers, we always have to be first. It's a matter of pride. So back in 2017, we celebrated the entire year and culminating in a great celebration all across the table. One in New York City, where we lit up everything purple, and all of our colors and just really put a spotlight on the responsibility that women of New York have because it was our four mothers and four grandmothers who went on this long, long journey since 1848, when a small community called Seneca Falls hosted 300 enlightened individuals. And it's amazing to think to this day, how did 300 people know where to go without social media telling them where the event was? I don't know. It's extraordinary. It's extraordinary to the women there, but also the enlightened men.
We had people like Frederick Douglass, who spoke passionately about the women's right to vote. And so, we've always had and needed strong allies. But the women really stood up with their voices and went against the tides of their society, their churches, their communities, and indeed in many cases, their families. So, it was profound courage that they did it. So, we should never lose sight of the fact that these were courageous individuals who put us on a different path. So, 70 years later, right here in Albany, we would secure that right to vote for New York women. So every day since then, we honor those early trailblazers. We honor the Sojourner Truths, the Harriet Tubmans, who are also part of not just freedom for slaves, but also the Women's Rights Movement. Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Eleanor Roosevelt, and more recently people like Shirley Chisholm. True people who stood up and said, "I am a woman, and I have a place and that place is anywhere I want it to be." And that's where we are today.
So, that's who we are today. Women have more progress to be made without a doubt. We're going to talk about the shortfalls that exist today, but it's also on this celebratory day, Women's Equality Day, that we honor the milestones. And in case you haven't been paying attention, one of those milestones was achieved a year ago. And I am so honored to be the first woman Governor of the State of New York. And we've demonstrated - and I've said this before, I do feel the weight on my shoulders, but I'm up for it because I also know what's going on today is going to affect the ability of women to be successful in the future. We are judged today and the question being, can a woman handle the rough and tumble business of governing a state like New York? And we've been at it a year of my friends. And I believe the answer is yes. And it's not about me. It's about the inner strength that so many women have and always have had and the confidence and the ability to see a problem, not just on how to solve it, but how to make things right for people using your heart and your emotion. So, strength and compassion - that's the combination that I feel that women leaders bring. And that's how we're changing history. That's how we're changing history right here. But I'm also very aware, as the first mom of the State and the first grandma of the State, that there's a lot of families out there that are struggling.
And boy, this pandemic was cruel for women. I wrote about this in an op-ed, literally just a couple of weeks after the first shutdowns. And we saw people, the women, primarily in the low wage jobs, who still had to show up, you know, serving restaurant food, packaging up and giving people in their cars as they pulled up. They showed up. The health care workers who showed up, leaving their own children, going into a place where they could contract a deadly virus.
And so little was known back then, but they had no choice. They went, they came back at the end of the day, exposed their families, their parents, others. And they went back again the next day. And I saw the power of women being able to endure the unthinkable in those early months in particular, but there were other women whose jobs were just flat out lost. Women in hospitality, people who worked in the hotels, and so many other businesses where they just, the jobs just went away. They didn't come back, and many of them are still not back.
So, two dynamics going on here. One is that lower wage jobs are primarily filled by women. That is a problem that needs to be fixed right now, right now. But also, also just valuing them more, paying them more so they can take care of their kids and their education and all the stress that moms run around today worrying about. Am I going to have enough money to fill that child's backpack because everything costs so much more than it did one year? So, women are under stress. And what are we doing about it?
Well, first of all, we're talking about it. We're not pretending it doesn't exist. You don't sweep it under the rug. And what we've done with my partners in the legislature, we've expanded child care. I know all about child care. I couldn't get someone to watch my kids 30 years ago, and I had to give up a job I loved working on Capitol Hill, so I know what that's all about. Our income went from modest to zero from my end of the ledger. And that was a struggling time for us, but it was the reality I dealt with. That hasn't changed for a lot of women. So, for the first time ever, we have made a record investment in child care over $7 billion over the next four years to help expand the opportunity. So, over half of the children in the State of New York will be able to have subsidized child care.
We also know that when women go into the workplace, they deserve to be free from sexual harassment - period, stop. And we've had to come a long way in changing culture here in government, but also setting the message across the state, either in a private setting or in a public sector office: It's not okay. It's not tolerable. And there are consequences.
So, that is what we focused on over the last year as well. Also, putting women front and center in workforce development. Now that doesn't sound real exciting to some people, but Roberta Reardon knows that I'm talking about. I get excited about this.
We go to workforce training centers and these are apprenticeship programs. People are learning the skills and I'm telling you, these are good paying jobs. We're building back this state. And I want to see more women in those jobs, more people of color in those jobs, whether it's the green energy jobs. We're creating a whole new industry, the semiconductor industry, the trades. We're doing construction projects, putting up affordable housing.
I want to see more women in those jobs, and we are laser focused on this. So, that has been another commitment of ours. Also, streamlining the process to be certified as an MWBE. How about that once and for all? It is a hassle. I helped start a number of family businesses. My sister wanted to start a tech company. She wanted her sister, the lawyer who knew nothing about it, to figure it out many years ago, and to help her get certified as an MWBE. I still have PTSD from that experience. It is far too hard. You want to pull your hair out when you realize the opportunities are there ready to be seized. Billions of dollars of shares of State and local government contracts to help women get off the ground and start their business and do everything they wanted to do. Hire lots of people. But the regulations and the frustration around it sometimes just become too daunting. So, we're shifting our focus and making that easier so we get more women involved.
Another area we just announced a couple weeks ago, first time since the TAP program has been available in the State of New York, 1964. It was always available only for full-time students forgetting the fact that so many people, women in particular, have to work a job. They want to go to school. They have to come home and take care of their older parents, take care of their kids. They have so much going on, and we never gave them financial help to get that education until now. We said tuition assistance available for part-time students as well.
And then we're doing all this and getting through the pandemic and all of a sudden the Supreme Court of the United States America at the end of June changed the lives of women all across this country in a way that is cruel. It was unexpected because nominees had gone before the Senate and said they would support the law of the land, which was Roe v. Wade, something that's been in the law in New York State since 1970, three years before Roe V. Wade, we're proud of that fact. And to have those rights stripped away and told that you don't matter. And we're now going to have an era of government mandated pregnancies, stripping away your right to make a decision or even a child's right - a 13-year-old, a 12-year-old who's a victim of rape or incest, becomes impregnated, and has to become a parent before they've even reached the age old enough to drive a car. In what country does that happen? This is not a country I recognize anymore. And all the years in the century of fighting for women's rights and to see it be destroyed with one decision. We gathered back here, we stood up and said, "Not happening in New York, not under this Governor." That will not happen. I can assure you that.
So, we immediately sprang into action when the decision came down, allocating over $35 million immediately - actually, before the decision, we knew the decision was coming - to our providers, so they could start ramping up their services. And do we really need that? Yes, what's happening in my hometown of Buffalo? People are coming in from Ohio, three hours away and looking for services that are being denied to them in a neighboring state. That's already happening and all these trigger laws where today, and it may get worse, one out of three women in this country of childbearing age have lost those rights. It just seems unending.
We'll keep fighting back here in New York. It's in our DNA to be fighters, but this is a tough time for women in our country. It really is. The impact of the pandemic, now having their rights devalued, destroyed, stripped away. And everyone always thought that in America, we always move toward progress. We don't roll back progress. So, this is a hard hit for young women who are learning about government in places like this, but I want them to not give up. I want them to suit up for battle, and be part of the next generation of fighters, just like the brave women who's DNA we share as New Yorkers who fought for the simple right to vote. That's what we're talking about here today.
But in the meantime, we have to figure out what happened during this pandemic, how we solve for this, how we figure out how to get women back to where they were in even a better place. And that's why I'm calling on Roberta Reardon, once again, to convene a study of COVID-19's impact on New York's women. And it's going to be broad. We're going to peel back every dynamic, and let's look at not just in the workplace, but what happened to women when the decisions were made to have all the kids go home and learn remotely? Wow. Wow, what a mistake that was. What a mistake that was women couldn't go to their jobs. They lost their jobs, or they thought they're back at their jobs, and one child in a classroom tests positive, the whole class goes home for a week and a half. It was chaos, nothing short of chaos, and it just seems have not ended.
So, that's what I'm announcing today. Directing Commissioner Reardon in the Department of Labor to conduct this study. I want to get to the bottom of this. I want to hold hearings. I want to get testimony. I want to hear from women who've been affected. I want to hear from their employers. I want to hear from everybody on how we make sure we lift women up and never ever again go back to this dark place where women in this state and this nation bore the brunt of a global pandemic.
It was unfair. We had to figure out how it happened and make sure that we have the procedures in place so women are in a far better place, and don't let it happen again. But if we ever get to a situation where decisions are being made, that women will say, "That didn't work. We're not going back there again." And that's what I want to accomplish with this. We did a similar study back in 2018. We looked at wage gap, we went, we had hearings all over the State of New York and we talked about it. And we, as a result of what we did, we explicitly now outlaw unequal pay on the basis of protected class. We also banned employers from asking about salary history.
Boy, I wish that was in place when I was starting my career. We calculated how many hundreds of thousand dollars are not there at the end of a woman's career because she is a young 20-something, didn't know to negotiate. When I had that first job on Capitol Hill, I left a law firm, was offered a 50 percent cut in pay so I could have the privilege of public service. I did it, but didn't know the guy sitting next to me was who was not a lawyer, less education, was making more than I did. So this happened to me. I'm not letting it happen to the women of New York. I'm not letting that happen. So we made those changes, Roberta, I want to thank you for your leadership on that. So that's all I have to say now.
The torch has been passed to us, not just to hold and pass the next generation, but to make it glow even brighter, and be a beacon to other women across this country. And I say to them, "Come to New York. Bring your talents. Bring your passion." To employers, that I have to tell you, I'm on the phone calling employers every day, I'll stop at nothing. Because I'm saying to employers, "Do you really want to be headquartered in a state that is hostile to perhaps half or even more of your workforce? Do you really want to keep paying to have to fly them to places like New York? Or would you just rather be in New York?" So I'm out there making that pitch. I'm going to keep fighting for all of New York, but particularly, as we honor the people who came before us who gave us this Women's Equality Day, who allowed me to have the extraordinary privilege to represent you, in the highest levels of office, after today we say all the barriers are broken, that women will never, ever be held back in this state, not now, not ever. So, thank you very much. And with that, let's bring up our next speaker, Roberta Reardon. Thank you.