what we did though since there were so many important issues that we were unable to address we've invited organizations to place information on the air and at the back table and these are equally important of what we're discussing today and we have time right after this some community one will still have coffee out and we're going to have our jazz musician and representatives of those organizations are going to be kind of lingering by those tables so please do go back that information talk to them about their issues i'd like to honor all of the legislators who are attending today it turned out to be a really busy day at the capitol so legislators are going to be coming in and out but out quick read the names of those who are going to attend sen sandy soon and i'm not sure felt able to join us today her husband recently died only all extend our deepest sympathy to her we also have a couple of dignitaries that are joining us today the commissioner of the minnesota department of human rights kevin lindsay and coming all the way from new york city just for this event is the regional administrator of the u s department of labor women's bureau grace protests did i miss anybody who's asian american in philanthropy a special word about the women of color session that we have today imagine the challenge of bringing together the voice of all the many minority communities in minnesota and t what our session this promises to be an historic session you'll hear from women from minnesota's african american asian american an american indian latino liberian and so molly communities this a glimpse into why this war new schedule is so very thorough and why regrettably were not able to include question in answer time from the audience and we were very sorry about that but we do or do you instead to continue this discussion after  one of those back networking tables but also online through twitter and our hashtag is yes yes it's at the top right hand of every slight and also just talk to the presenters and to each other f life so we're ready to go promises to be a very fun ride this morning i'd like to introduce now to patrick who is going to be our overall moderator of the event his director of the university of minnesota humphrey school center on women in public policy she's also a founding member of the minnesota women's economic security coalition thank you everybody welcome  that we do with the women's foundation of minnesota we produce a report every couple years that looks at how women are doing across the state when the girls are doing across the state of minnesota it's in your pact thank you to take a look at it but really talks about how minnesota cross sectors so i encourage you to take a look at that so today i did want to just spend a few minutes talking about some trends that i think make me optimistic about our ability to  move on these issues of economic justice and economic inequality in the state of minnesota to killer for women so the this is not a map actually  biking spans are concentrated it is actually a map of where working women are concentrated and you can see that minnesota is above average so purple is above average on this map and minnesota is actually a national leader in women's workforce participation and that is super good news for our economy but it also is challenging for our families and but it's also really critically important for the prosperity and growth of our state so we also know that of course really important that we take advantage of all of the talent in our state and it really imperative actually for our state to continue to grow and prosper and i think there's a couple of areas where we have some opportunities we have opportunities to make better to make better use of the women in our state who are mothers better opportunities to make use of the older people in our state including women and of course we have great opportunities to make better use of the people in our communities of color black lives do matter in this context as well as in our soap and as well as in our justice system the second trend that i think is really important is that there's a growing recognition that policies that are good for women are also good for men and they're good for kids and they're good for families and they're good for our economy and so we know the millennial zur demanding more  balance in their lives and recognizing that outdated gender norms about work and family are not only hurting women but they hurt men as well and so the research is really stacking up about the importance of paid paternity leave which is even more rare than paid maternity leave and we know that these paid maternity leave not only benefits men and kids but results in higher wages for women survey found that seventy five percent of people forty to sixty five years old are expecting that their families are going to provide their long term care and so we know that in the end the cost benefit analysis kind of comes down in favor of helping our seniors age and place with dignity and with the support of their families and we know that states that advance creative solutions to keep people in the workforce through aging and care giving are going to win and finally the last thing i just wanted to mention is that we poll after poll that our policies are really out of step with voters that we know that by wide margins people across the political spectrum republicans independents and democrats really support paid family leave paid sick leave childcare support and other like these that help families balance work and family now this young some of you may have heard of young she was fired for asking for a light duty assignment at u p s when she was n of the u s women's chamber of commerce recently wrote an op ed about this case and she said that every american should hope the u s supreme court acts affirmatively in the upcoming young s case the decision on young versus u p s will not only speak to the rights and value of women in our workforce today the outcome will have a profound impact on the continued growth and prosperity of the american economy so regardless of what the supreme court does in that case the minnesota women and on its security act ensured that the youngs of the state of minnesota and stay on the job  their policy for everyone across the country so these policies are driving national change now this is not an onion headline perhaps it was overstatement but the nation watched in two thousand and fourteen as minnesota became the first state to pass a comprehensive package of bills designed to address the gender pay gap and modernize our workplaces and i am thrilled that two of the legislative leaders who not only put their political reputations but put their political power behind this bill to make minnesota a model for the nation are here with us today now in the state of the union address president obama asked states to step up and make the kind of changes that our families need and the kind of progress that isn't possible in washington right  now and representative paul tesing and senator sandy pappas did just that as well as many other legislators who are in the room today and i also want to acknowledge some other key folks that were involved in this  efforts and i also just want to acknowledge that that many thousands of people across the state of minnesota and organizations contributed to passage of the women's economic security act if you were one of those people that wrote a letter called somebody vance knowledge about this actually does raise your hand excellent so this was a really broad based effort so i think that i wanna just now introduce a couple of our legislative leaders on this act is not an exaggeration to say that without representative paul to us and we said we saw it would not have happened he and representative eric murphy and i don't know she's here yet really brought the founding members of the minnesota coalition for women's economic security together to help design the best bill possible and then put the full power of the speaker's office behind  bill and fought tooth and nail to get risa through multiple committees in a short legislative session and to the senate floor where it barely survived a thirty four thirty three nail biter motion to send it back to conference committee where it probably would have died or passed or best and significantly weakened so at that i'd like to invite senator pappas and representative up to share some of their thoughts about what we did with the women's economic security act and where we're going from here we're actually not going to talk about what we did last year and remind you about our victories and our successes that deficit's patrick alluded to we're talking about what's next because there's still work to be done to improve the workplace life for women and their families and the men that love them and support them so first of all i want to ask how many of you in the audience have ever gone to work sick how many of you in your workplace now have earned sick pay not all of you how many of you have gone to work sick because you would lose pay if you didn't go to work all right forty one percent of workers living in minnesota lack even a single earned pay day this is even more pronounced among low income and part time workers time a little bit of a funny feedback here workers living in minnesota lack even a single earned sick day and this is even more pronounced among low income and part time workers access to earned sick pay promote safe and healthy work environments by reducing the spread of illness and workplace injuries reduces health care costs and helps parents care for their children so i'm going to give you some statistics here which is always more difficult to follow than wonderful stories which ok i'm sure you'll be hearing later today among all workers in minnesota forty nine percent have earned six but over one million workers or forty one percent do not were doing a little better in the public sector eighty two percent of public sector workers have paid sick but only sixty percent of private sector workers have earned sixty hispanic workers are even less likely to have earned sick days sixty percent lack access to earn said not unexpectedly the lowest penetration for urban sick days is the service industry were only thirty five percent of current sec and only twenty six percent of part time workers have earned sick pay and only one third of full time workers earning under fifteen thousand dollars annually have earned sick day so part time low income servers are the least likely to have earned sick days so what are the benefits if employers do provide hern sick research research documents show that workers with influence perform more of variety of tasks than the healthy workers we all know about a recent study found that employers to provide earned sick reported fewer occupational injuries and earn sick helps reduce the spread of illness in the workplace by making it possible for contagious worker is to stay home where they belong parents without an access to earn sick or earn sick that doesn't include care of children are twice as likely to send their children to school or daycare so again sick children who can stay home are not spreading illness and their schools and daycare centers are finally earned sick leave allows workers to take time away from work for medical appointments rather than waiting until after work hours when they're more likely to use more possibly hospital emergency services ok so what's the good news minnesotans loved earned sick days seventy two percent support workers having paid sick days my guess is they don't really want sick people serving food or cooking their food in restaurants infecting their parents and grandparents in nursing homes and spreading illness to their kids in school or daycare so seventy two percent of minnesotans we actually have that break down county by county which will bring legislators you know legislators so we're going to be introducing the earned sick day pill bill in the senate and in the house on monday so watch for it in the news this is a little advance to represent john lashes carrying the bill in the house again and i'm carrying the bill in the senate and we're going to be holding a press conference and duluth on tuesday will take action and a soda the senate bill will be heard  the state local government committee and then and we hope and the house for not we're not sure this point if the bill's going to get a hearing there's lots of enthusiasm for this very important legislation and it's really really the next step after raising the minimum wage in other ways a provision that we did last year for all of you it's very important that you let your legislators house and senate members let them know that you support are in sick day for all workers with all the reasons i listed above the public health issue sick people are contagious it's a workplace safety and productivity issue were people sick people are more likely to have accidents and make mistakes and it's a caregiving issue six children shouldn't have to go to school or daycare it's really a quality of life issue for all of us have been saying let sick people stay home and in bed where they belong thank  letters and doing whatever you did to make sure that we were able to make the progress of that we made last year i do want to thank sandy in particular for the incredible work she did on the senate side you know one of the great things about the we seville is that it in the house in it wasn't a partisan issue but an issue for minnesotans but perhaps the most dramatic moment of the legislative session last year i was sitting in my office with a number of other folks watching the senate debate on the bill in the motion to refer it back to conference committee that that talked about and it really i don't know it was ten twenty minutes that we were waiting for that vote to finally get to thirty four and and the one person i do kind of two people i guess i want to acknowledge tom sac that bill through  you know and deb touched on this is well but one of the other great things about this is it really has become a model for stuff going on across the nation we were us and i both in the conferences if the white house and the other places talking about this bill when we talk about what we were able to accomplish in minnesota because of all the work that all of you did people really they they really can't believe it and a lot of this you know it's a lot of talk in other places but here in minnesota we were able to turn it into of how they're going to close the gap and pay equity and it was an all male committee as it turns out but those legislators there said that they needed more proof that a problem existed before they're willing to take action and in north dakota where it was eighty cents on the dollar here in north dakota they're at seventy cents on the dollar for women they rank forty seventh in the country so they probably don't need much more proof but it just shows that the progress made here is not something that automatically happens when it only  happens because of the work that all of you are doing and all of you know done and so we made you know great stress strides in terms of moving toward equal pay ensuring that businesses are complying with existing people they laws towards greater pay equity in the private sector  to make sure that women are paid for job the same as men for job comparable work but those inequities are continuing and it's not the only inequity that we have to address here in sandy touched on one which is  the earned sick leave which is something that is really important and that we need to move forward on this year but the truth is that a number of other workplace policies in this country and in the state lake behind most other industrialized nations and it's limited  in the impact of it is it really is there's a human impact that limits the ability spouses to care for loved ones for parents to care for sick children for people to hold down good paying jobs because these leave policies and if those leave policies are offered at all they're unpaid and so we're fame basically what we're doing is forcing families to make impossible choices and that i think is what this really comes down to we shouldn't be putting families and men and women and other minnesotans in general and it is in a situation where they have to choose between staying at home with a sick kid or because they're sick staying at home to care for an older loved one and going to work and losing their job or losing significant pay we shouldn't be putting families in the position and this is joe  line but i think it really sums up really something's up really well we shouldn't be putting families and parents in the position of having to put choose between either putting bread on the table or being around the table at dinner time with their kids and that's really kind of i think what this this ultimately comes down to so you know we did make some progress on this front we moved from six to twelve weeks of unpaid leave for a number of employers last year and we now allow the leave to be for parenting leave to be used before birth during pregnancy as well as afterwards if that is  needed and while that's welcome that unpaid nature of the leave makes it very difficult for some lower income and middle class families to take advantage of it because they certain they simply can't afford the financial hit so one of our top priorities this year building on the progress we made last year is going to be paid family leave and you know right now only eleven percent of private sector workers in the united states have paid family leave most other countries as i said offer this and allow this but in the united states that's not the case now minnesota's not quite the leader in this california new jersey and rhode island and now offer paid leave programs for their for their residents and workers in these states are eligible for six weeks of paid family leave between fifty five and sixty for sixty six percent of their salary and this partial wage replacement really is what can make the difference between whether family can access this paid family leave or not it's good for the workers and their families for obvious reasons but we also know that it's good for business and one of the conferences i was at this summer around these issues a number of c e o s of major corporations probably one of those eleven percent that offers this corporation absolutely helps their competitive situation because they're able to retain workers they're able to keep qualified and skilled employees morale in productivity improves when they have this paid family leave policy in place and  costly turnover is avoided so it's good for the workers and families it's good for business and it also and i also think it's important to emphasize this isn't just for parenting leave this isn't just for new moms and dads one of the big challenges that was pointed out by  demographic challenges we see is this growing age weight and i don't know if folks know it but you know if you think about all there's going to be a lot of discussion around nursing homes and long term care this year but ninety percent of the care for older minnesotans is not paid for by taxpayers through medicaid for nursing home do anything else it's conducted by what we call informal caregivers people to take care of their or aging spouse or for their parents at home and provide that service just as a family  what you do is a member of a family or what you do as a friend for your aging adult friend and it saves us in the states literally hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars every year you know if those people went on medicaid and had to go to a nursing home or we paid for  a professional caregiver to go in and take care of these aging adults it would cost us hundreds and hundreds of millions of more dollars as taxpayers nearly two thirds of workers between the ages of forty five and seventy four provide some care to an aging result family members and these workers need to take time off from work there's economic impacts health impacts for this informal caregiving so we need to do some homework on that and it is going to make a big difference for us so the reality is without paid family leave these informal caregivers are going to continue to face this financial insecurity that we're facing in assuming these caregiving roles will save less for the future they'll put their health more at risk because of the stress they'll be forced to leave the workforce which again if you look at the demographics we're going to we're actually going to have a few short of workers in the next ten to twenty years and they're going to need to rely on expensive out of home care for the loved ones which at the end of the day all of us as taxpayers are probably going to pay for it so we can do better than that in minnesota  and one of the things we absolutely need to do is move forward on this problem the legislation that will be introduced in the next week or two to provide a program of paid family leave for minnesota families from minnesota workers in a way that actually is go make sure that workers have the kind of flexibility that they need in the workplace shot one of the one i want to touch on is child care costs and it's something that we didn't make the progress we would have liked to have made last year minnesota ranks among the most expensive stay as many of you know  child care and you can see that the governor is taking some strides in this in his most recently passed budget but we need to do better on our sea cap program as well and actually fully fund our child care supports and expand what we did when i came in the legislature in two thousand two we had a huge budget deficit and that was one of the places that we balanced the budget working families with kids by cutting child care assistance and we've never recovered that and we need to do that soon as possible you know president obama said in his state of the union child  high quality child care is not a nice to have it's a must to have and it's an economic imperative for a country and i think that we need to move forward on that so you know that's the reality is all these policies that we worked on the ones we passed last year the ones that we're going to pass this year on sick leave paid family leave they're not necessarily new ideas they're not really radical concepts in a lot of the world but here in minnesota i think we really can make progress on these things and again set a model for the country in terms of what a state that really believes in their workers a state that really believes in their people a state that really believes and families can accomplish and it's going to make a difference in those workers lives in the leisure family's lives that make a difference in all of our lives because it's going to make this state better place we can do this we know we have to set the example from last year that we can accomplish this let's make twenty fifteen an even better year for economic security for families than two thousand and fourteen was because if we do that we really are going to transform the state and make all of our lives a lot better thank you last year this is just the latest example of governor davis leadership on issues important to women and families tirelessly during this time made great progress but is still is still of a patchwork in minnesota and you know james madison once said that men were angels government would not be necessary well i haven't seen men become any more enjoying their youth eight years a government so we have this inconsistency where some of it in dobbs is a very light practices i don't like to families five days a year and a minimum wage of ten fifteen hour and and five paid their silly days is going to cost the state if it's approved by the workers then approved by the legislature want to make a career out of take care of other people and then our pain or responsibility for for their efforts to do so so we are looking at a long ways to go and we're looking at a need to continue to have the legislature in the executive branch of the government set to set the bar higher and higher so that won't be needing to suffocate in the alley and the years ahead what ok so thanks to everyone who is still here and those who've come and gone and it has been so exciting to see this room packed all day it means so much to have us all here together and for everyone to take this much time out of their day and i've got to say what an amazing day i feel privileged to have learned from our panelists all day and i thank them so much for sharing their stories and their experience and their ideas and same with the audience i i'm here my name is lisa stratton i'm a co founder of one of the newer organizations in minnesota that works on gender equality we're called gender panelist talk to kind of reflect a little bit on a few things that people said that seem to resonate and seem to be common among all of the panels and one of those was the assets and deficit and there was a lot of talk about sometimes women and particular communities being viewed as deficit when in fact their assets and the fact that we have the giant workforce participation rate that we do as women in this state the highest in the nation means we are assets we are assets to this economy we are x assets to this government we are access we have our i'm sorry assets to our families and we are doing all of those things and i think we heard from each panel how hard that is hitting and how do we get there why is that well we weren't working we weren't of course at certain paid jobs outside the house we were not welcome for many years we are now out there in force in the economy but the vision of what is an ideal worker the way that our economy was set up in organized is still organized around the prior notions and  outdated scheme that was designed to work well for people who have someone at home supporting them taking care of home and needs of children and elders the disabled and  now we cannot continue to do both of those things without you know as they say burning that candle at both ends and it's so wonderful to have had legislators who are here and listening and helping and working with us to try to make our workplaces change to fit our current reality and in doing so i think it was wonderful to hear from a business owner who said you know my employees are my asset right there not a deficit and if we can do this we can both have workers who have the ability to do the things they need to do in their lives and a successful economy they are not mutually exclusive i wanted to say also that it was just a great feeling i hope i can imagine i'm not speaking for everyone if i say what great energy today and what smarts just thrilled to see this expanding conversation and to hear new voices today and learn about not only what is the same about us but what makes us different and our common sort of common challenges and denominators so i can tell you before last year i had never done any work in the minnesota legislature in my life i happen to be a lawyer but i've spent most of my time working representing individuals or classes of people more in court so i'm here to tell you anyone out there i know a lot of you do work regularly at the legislature but anyone who doesn't it's not that hard people rant to hear from you and believe me those of you who are not regularly engage the capital of people who are working to advocate for bills they run around saying to find some real people where the person we really trust him to talk about this so your stories are relevant your legislators want to hear your stories and they want you to come and say how public policy could be changed to help you and your family and your community so i encourage everyone to do that just start no matter how small an effort it is a letter or a call and e mail it really makes a difference  tell you just a little bit before we can let everyone go about status this year of legislative efforts that we started last year you all got your packets today who has one i just love this we got women's economic security act unfinished business we did a lot of amazing things last year that i'm so proud of and i'm so proud of everyone in this room who helped but there's more to do and we are we have worked up an agenda we've thought really carefully and listen to everyone who brought things to the table with ideas for what should a women's economic security coalition work on at the legislature this year we invite all of your input on that there are i have some here if you want to come up to me or on the back table there are one page fryers that detail not only are sort of primary agenda which includes fighting for earned sick leave and safe leave which did not we worked on and we  year but did not make it to give just one hour of every thirty hours worked earned paid leave for when you and your family are sick we have a really exciting new thing that's patrick's been working really hard on it of starting to have paid family leave insurance you know we're just one of the pariah countries that doesn't do anything for paying parents when they have children or their children are sick or have needs so we're working on setting up a whole new system and so that on a lot of advocacy will teach you to be out there coming with us to testify and calling your legislator so that's the second month and we are working on helping more women get into nontraditional jobs  like you heard from this panel we want to see if they're going to say it's going to be a transportation session let's make sure that the benefits if we're going to do infrastructure spending which would be terrific but let's make sure that some of those jobs go to women if you look at the statistics on the flyer that the first panel prepared for us look at the statistics of the number the percentage of women working in jobs in construction and related industries it is abysmal you were talking single digits low single digits so we're working on that if you want to support our agenda or a couple ways that you can do that first of all contact any of us who have popped up in front of you here today just come talk to us were open and and read he also picked up that flyer because it has on it our website which is dot org and then from minnesota we said for the women's economic security act or agend dot org and when you get there it will you'll look at a place there's a tab called take action so you could start there we would love for you to have individuals and organizations can become part of the coalition you don't have to have a title behind you you don't have to have a big organization just you would be happy to have you and keep you informed then about how these things go in front of the legislature so have i forgotten anything  ok well thank you so much everyone and i want to say just one i don't even know if she's in the room but i said well we all decided well you only have five minutes we say you're not going to thank everyone because that would be the entire five minutes but there is one person who i think really deserves mention which is