Every Mother is a Working Mother Network

 Based in the USA in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Philadelphia, we are a national multi-racial grassroots network of mothers, other carers and supporters. We campaign to establish that raising children is work, and that the time mothers spend doing this caring work has economic value, entitling us to welfare and other resources. 

We campaign for the abolition of welfare "reform" – which denies that every mother is a working mother and forces mothers to put their children in someone else’s care – and for payment and resources to enable every mother to choose whether to raise her own children full-time or to also work outside the home. We won a $74 million after-school care program in LA in 1999 that will serve over 16,000 low-income children. EMWM has the support of nearly 250 organizations and prominent individuals.

Philadelphia, USA:

Come to a Community Dialogue and Speak Out: Mothers ROC!

Reclaiming Our Children from DHS Monday November 12
Across the US, families are losing custody of children – that is, children are losing their families – at an alarming rate – Philly’s rate among the highest.

US Campaign against Welfare 'Reform':
Caregivers Count, Value our Work in Welfare Policy!  Support US Campaign against Welfare 'Reform'!
As welfare “reform” reauthorization moves through its last stages in the Senate, those of us who are mothers and other carers are determined to continue to claim our right to welfare for the caring work we do.  We can’t afford to give up.  Our lives, the lives of those we care for, and the health and welfare of all our communities, are at stake.  With Bonnie Macri of JEDI for Women in Utah, and an ad hoc emergency coalition of Welfare Warriors, Welfare Made a Difference Campaign, Parents for Justice, Interfaith Coalition for the General Welfare, Flushing Greens and others, we are taking our case directly to Congress.  We refuse to accept the current premise of their debate: that mothers and other caregivers are non-workers.  We demand that the vital and essential work we do must be valued.  Our refusal has already had an impact: there are now proposals in the Senate that begin to value caring work.  But we urgently need your help to strengthen the power of our case,
We are calling for caring work to be valued and for this to be reflected in welfare policy.  We are asking you to endorse and circulate the enclosed petition and lobby letter, as well as to support our grassroots "pots and pans protest" in Washington DC on June 18.  
More on this...

Every Mother is a Working Mother Network – USA

SENIORS WIN ROUND AT CITY HALL ON PGW (GAS) DISCOUNT!
Philadelphia USA, April 2003

Invest in Caring not Killing! Statement for the April 20, 2002 DC march against the war

Lobby letter to Members of Congress to endorse (please print and circulate)

Submission to the Office of Family Assistance, Health and Human Services from the Every Mother Is a Working Mother Network, November 29, 2001

Value Caring Work in Welfare Benefits - Petition (please print and circulate)

Valorar el Trabajo de Cuidado en los Beneficios de Welfare

Mothers and other Carers Under Attack! Act Now!

Every Mother is a Working Mother Statement for the HHS protest

Grassroots Women Demand that Mothers’ Work Count in Welfare Reform, Article published in Poor Magazine, San Francisco

Every Mother is a Working Mother Statement given by Lynda Brewer, Town Hall Meeting, November 17, 2001, Los Angeles, CA

Every Mother is a Working Mother Statement for the HHS protest

Caring Work Counts! Mothers Challenge Advocates & Poverty Lobby

For more information:

Victory for Grassroots Women!
Q&A on welfare
Press coverage of the three-city Community Dialogues ( July 2001)
LA Times front page article on our winning after-school care program
EMWM Information Sheet

Home