Imagine getting suspended from your job for seven days because you had to leave work for a half hour and pick up your child when no one could watch her. This is just one example of a major obstacle working women face. 

Major progressive organizations came together to kick off the Fair Shot campaign last week, which is a women’s initiative focused on elevating public policy solutions, and to demand action on the real challenges that women face today, including jobs and economic security, health care rights and opportunities for leadership and advancement.

Women will not receive the same median annual pay as men until 2058, if current earnings patterns continue without change, announced the Institute for Women's Policy Research this week. 

On the heels of today’s groundbreaking young worker and diversity conference, delegates to the AFL-CIO 2013 Convention reaffirmed the federation’s commitment to grow an inclusive labor movement dedicated to issues that will build strength for and share prosperity with women, young workers, people of color and LGBT workers.

In July, House Democrats released the When Women Succeed, America Succeeds: An Economic Agenda for Women and Families. The overall goal of this economic agenda is to address the realities, disparities and opportunities for working women and families through effective policy and legislation. 

Here's a roundup of blog posts this week from the working moms series on Blogher and Hello Giggles, brought to you by the AFL-CIO, that highlight the need for paid sick days, pay equity and child care for working women and families (see blog posts after the jump). 

Yesterday, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Elizabeth Shuler, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker and Reps. Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.) and Donna Edwards (D-Md.) led an online discussion on how we can make our movement all it can be for working women, as the AFL-CIO continues its crucial conversation about the future of working people and of unions.

See what people said about working women here and check out some highlights of the conversation after the jump.

Women at every level are “moving the labor movement in new directions” and “inventing new kinds of worker organizations and new ways of being a trade unionist,” says labor historian Dorothy Sue Cobble.

Cobble, distinguished professor of history and labor studies at Rutgers University, was among several speakers opening a two-day AFL-CIO Solidarity Center conference this morning, “Women’s Empowerment, Gender Equality and Labor Rights: Transforming the Terrain.” Nearly 100 labor and community activists from 20 countries are gathered here in São Paulo, Brazil, to share strategies for achieving gender equality and worker rights in their unions and their workplaces.

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Elizabeth Shuler, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker and Reps. Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.) and Donna Edwards (D-Md.) are leading an online discussion on how we can make our movement all it can be for working women, as the AFL-CIO continues its crucial conversation about the future of working people and of unions.

They will be moderating the online discussion on Wednesday, July 31, from 1–2 p.m. EDT. Please join the conversation at http://go.aflcio.org/ConvQ9 and encourage others to participate. We need broad and diverse voices to help shape the future of working people.

More than four in 10 private-sector workers and 80% of low-wage workers do not have paid sick days. This means people, especially women who are more likely to work in low-wage jobs, constantly have to choose between their health and a paycheck. 

House Democrats this week released the When Women Succeed, America Succeeds: An Economic Agenda for Women and Families. The overall goal of this economic agenda is to address the realities, disparities and opportunities for working women and families through effective policy and legislation.

Many of us and our families have felt the pinch of stagnant wages during the past several years, and a new study shows that while real wages (adjusted for inflation) fell by 2.8% across the board between 2009 and 2012, low- and middle-wage workers—especially women—took the brunt of the hit.