Although women have come a long way in establishing their equal rights, many women, especially poor women, women of color, and immigrant women, do not enjoy these rights in practice. Little change has been made for women in the most precarious employment situations. Poor women still work in sweatshop-like conditions where they are not paid the minimum wage or overtime, given the least-desirable and worst-paying jobs, sexually harassed, not permitted to take time from work for medically-necessary reasons, and fired once it is discovered they are pregnant or once they leave work to give birth. In sum, the poorest women workers continue to be treated the same as workers who struggled to make ends meet at the start of the last century.
In response to the need to enforce basic employment and discrimination rights for all working women, the ACLU Women's Rights Project has launched a Latina workers' rights project. The project focuses on low-wage Latina workers' rights in the New York area, including freedom from sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and pregnancy discrimination, and full and fair wages for working women's labor. The Women's Rights Project is collaborating with a broad range of community organizations that serve working Latinas and is conducting know-your-rights workshops for working women at these organizations. A know-your-rights pamphlet, covering gender discrimination, pregnancy discrimination, sexual harassment, wage and hour laws, and the Family and Medical Leave Act, has been developed in English and Spanish. It is our hope that the Latina workers' rights project will be a first step in ensuring that all women can one day enjoy equal rights in the workplace.