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Unremunerated Work Act of 1993 The Unremunerated Work Act of 1993 (HR 966), initiated by the Wages for Housework Campaign, was introduced in the US Congress by Representative Barbara-Rose Collins (Democrat-Michigan) with the support of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues. The Bill required the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics to conduct time use surveys of unremunerated work performed in the United States and to calculate the monetary value of such work. The Bill had the support of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues. Endorsers included International Business and Professional Women, the National Organization for Women (NOW), National Women's Studies Association (NWSA), the San Bernardino Diocesan Commission on the Status of Women in Church and Society, and over 150 additional prominent individuals and organizations. What the press said Congress Again Asked to Put Price on Cooking, Diapering. “We want the caring work that women do officially counted as an actual contribution to the economy of the United States,” said Margaret Prescod, director of the U.S. chapter of the International Wages for Housework Campaign…. Prescod and other activists launched their battle for housework recognition in 1972, buttonholing lawmakers around the world. In 1985, the United Nations reacted by adopting a resolution calling for member countries to include women’s work in their national economic measurements….” “For Collins, a single mother, the issue had personal resonance.
‘I worked two, three jobs for years, then came home and worked
the fourth job,’ she said. ‘But the work I did at home--which was valuable to my
children, valuable to my nation – had no value whatsover’ in
society’s eyes.” What the AFL-CIO Union said “Currently national economic and statistical accounts ignore unpaid work. Thus, this work is invisible in the estimates of economic productivity and well-being in the United States. This situation particularly affects women, who perform most unremunerated work in the form of family care and household maintenance. Although this family care work is essential to all Americans and therefore critically important, no thorough measure of unpaid work in the United States is available. This lack of information leads to policies and practices toward women and families that are often based upon false assumptions about the nature of family care work…. “U.S.
statistical agencies should develop measures of unremunerated work in the
new satellite accounts of the system of National Accounts.
Detailed, reliable data should be constructed to aid in arbitration
and litigation regarding death, divorce, child support, alimony and
division of property." |