Whereas the Congress recognizes its obligation to guarantee equal protection of the law to all workers;

Whereas this obligation requires the Congress to safeguard workers from unequal treatment on the basis of real or perceived sex, gender, or nonconformity to norms or stereotypes thereof;

Whereas working families are working paycheck to paycheck and deserve a quality, affordable life, which can only be made possible by addressing the needs of the approximately 75,000,000 women in the workforce;

Whereas recent executive and administration actions have caused disproportionate harm to women in the broader rollback of workplace rights, freedoms, and protections;

Whereas women comprise nearly half of the Nation’s workforce, and are essential to the economic stability, growth, and prosperity of the United States, and make indispensable contributions across every sector of the economy, serving as leaders in education, health care, public service, caregiving, and other vital industries;

Whereas persistent wage disparities, loopholes in section 6(d) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (commonly known as the Equal Pay Act of 1963) (29 U.S.C. 206(d)), occupational segregation, workplace discrimination, and gender-based violence and harassment continue to disproportionately burden working women, particularly women of color;

Whereas recent progress toward pay parity and gender equity has been undermined by deliberate, coordinated opposition, including legislative, administrative, and judicial actions weakening civil rights enforcement, removing workplace protections, limiting access to essential health care, and destabilizing programs that support working families;

Whereas the administration has specifically targeted for elimination such Federal programs which advance gender equity in the Nation and abroad;

Whereas actions of the President have threatened to eliminate the Women’s Bureau of the Department of Labor, which was established by Congress in 1920 and is the only Federal agency tasked with advancing economic opportunity for working women and which, for more than 100 years, has concretely worked to improve the wages and working conditions for women across the Nation;

Whereas the targeted elimination of equal opportunity obligations under apprenticeship programs of the Department of Labor has undermined women’s pathways to high-paid careers in the trades traditionally dominated by men;

Whereas the rescission of the Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has created intentional confusion and left women vulnerable to harassment in the workplace;

Whereas reductions in staffing, funding, and enforcement capacity at Federal agencies charged with protecting workers’ rights and enforcing civil rights laws have weakened oversight of workplace discrimination, harassment, wage theft, and retaliation;

Whereas women are disproportionately represented in public sector employment, and cuts to public programs and services disproportionately threaten women’s employment, wages, and retirement security;

Whereas the administration has undertaken reckless mass layoffs which gutted Federal agencies with majority-women workforces, including the Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of the Treasury, and Department of Housing and Urban Development;

Whereas not only are women of color and immigrant women overrepresented in care work, but the critical caregiving services women provide are often otherwise taken on as unpaid labor by women;

Whereas the lack of Federal actions to create a robust, well-paid care industry harms women’s economic opportunity and directly exploits some of the most vulnerable women;

Whereas the administration has unjustly sought to push Federal contractors, grant recipients, and even private employers to abandon efforts to promote gender and racial equity at work;

Whereas the administration has sought to erode workers’ ability to form unions and collectively bargain for their rights, who organized as such have won a narrower gender pay gap;

Whereas, consequently—

Whereas women continue to face barriers to economic advancement, and disproportionate caregiving responsibilities, all of which are exacerbated by the cost of living crisis and rising costs of housing, health care, childcare, food, and education; and

Whereas Congress, the first branch of the United States Government, has a duty to act decisively to advance the rights and freedoms of working women in face of these barriers: Now, therefore, be it