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By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we’re honoring the life of Labor Historian Jane LaTour, author of “Sisters in the Brotherhoods,” and we’re also examining the enduring Gender Pay Gap.

Jane LaTour was a union activist and labor writer who documented the lives of women in traditionally higher paying male occupations like firefighting and the Building Trades. As the New York Times noted in her April 2023 obituary, these heroic women often  had to battle with “both their employers and their unions.” 

Jane is remembered by retired FDNY Capt. Brenda Berkman and retired FDNY EMT Marianne Pizzitola, who is also president of the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees. NYCOPSR is fighting Mayor Eric Adams and the Municipal Labor Committee’s plans to force 250,000 retired New York City civil servants off of Medicare and into a predatory Aetna Medicare Advantage Plan, which will have a disproportionate impact on the lower paid retired female civil servants.

And while the State of New York has made some strides towards gender pay equity, it has close to a 12 percent pay gap between for women and men doing the same work — with an even greater gap for women of color. Nearly a quarter of the way into the 21st century, Black and Hispanic women are still earning just 57 to 69 cents of the dollar made by their white male co-workers. 

Depressed earnings during your working years means a much smaller Social Security check for women because Social Security is based on your lifetime earnings. Women take an additional hit under Social Security for the years when they are not in the paying workforce to raise their children. Bottom line, more women and children in poverty — a poverty that can endure throughout their lifetime.

Berkman also reflects on the ongoing battle for gender equity within the FDNY, while Pizzitola talks about the impact of the significant pay gap between FDNY EMS, which mostly consists of women and people of color — and firefighters, who are mostly white males.

In the second half of the show, Sara Director, a 9/11 World Trade Center specialist with Barasch McGarry, joins the conversation with an update on efforts to close the healthcare disparity that existed for many years between 9/11 WTC female first responders and their male counterparts — with female reproductive cancers finally being certified only last year. 

Listen to the entire show below: