• Roughly 70 women from Junior Leagues across Louisiana met in the Capitol Rotunda on April 25 for the 2019 League Day at the Capitol. This year, the main advocacy issue for LA League members was the exemption of diaper and period products from state sales tax. While the bill passed easily out of the Senate and House committees, it ultimately failed to pass.
• Members distributed cookies with infographics on diaper needs to every senate and house representative.
• Members were recognized on the floors of both the House and Senate and had the opportunity to choose from a list of committee meetings they could attend.
• JLNO members sat in the Senate and House Labor and Industrial Relations Committee alongside First Lady Donna Edwards, where Equal Pay and Minimum Wage legislation were on the agenda. The federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour has not increased since 2009. Business leaders Warner Thomas with Ochsner Health System, Pres Kabacoff with HRI Properties and Bill Hammack with Link Restaurant Group all testified on behalf of SB 155, authored by Senator Troy Carter, in support of a constitutional amendment to establish a state minimum hourly wage of $9.00, effective July 1, 2020.
• Members had lunch at Capitol Park Welcome Center, where a number of statewide legislators stopped by to speak to
the group.
• SB 136, authored by Senator JP Morrell, would address the gender wage gap by forbidding employers from requiring wage secrecy in the workplace. Louisiana continues to have the highest gender wage gap in the nation, and equal pay was the highest ranked advocacy issue of interest identified by JLNO members in a recent poll. According to research from United Way of Southeast Louisiana and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, “Louisiana’s working women will not reach equal pay until the year 2115. Women in Louisiana earn an average of 69 cents for every dollar a man makes. That discrepancy worsens for Black and Latina women who make only 48 and 52 cents on the dollar, respectively, when compared to White men.”
