Thank you for joining us. I am honored to be here with my women colleagues who have taken the lead on when american succeeds women succeed. And we have the leader of the issue here. She is the booster of it all shall we say and sets the pace for all of us. Donna edwards the share of the Workman Group is here. We have the vice chair of the ste steering community. You will be hearing singing from Michele Grisham from new mexico and judy chew of california is here of the asianpacific organization. At lunch we presented what we will present to you to our members. It was not only advocacy, but a case study on how we are using Traditional Press on this issue and rosa will talk about our 16,000 person teleconference. As well as the social media. So with that, shall we play it again . [video playing] give sherrys berries. Lets pea treated equal this valentines day. What a girl wants, what a girl needs is equal way for equal work. For valentines day flowers, chocolate and a fine dinner are all great but they only last for a day. What women really need for the valentines day is equal pay for equal work. So on valentines day you can get chocolate and your contribution to the fact that women need quality. [music playing] i saw a tweet a with bunch of Women Holding chocolate hearts saying we dont want chocolate, we want equal pay. So bosses, dont give chocolates for valentines day. It is time to do away with work place policies that begin in a madman episode. Lets come together and businesses from wall street to main street to give every women for the opportunity she deserved because i believe when women succeed America Succeeds. All women need and want for valentines this year is to be paid equally to their male workers for the same job because we know when women succeed America Succeeds. I am joyce baity and i approve this message. Happy valentines day. As i mentioned, delor is our leader on this issue and we will be hearing from her. But first we will hear from Donna Edwards who is the head of the Valentines Day Campaign for women. Thank you, madam leader. And thank you all, too. What women really need for valentines day so we can afford to buy our own Valentines Gift is raise in the minimum wage and sick time and paid leave. We have launched this campaign and our is womensucce womensucceedraisetheway. Today men and women tweeted on the minimum wage. Today, february 13, marks the day when tipped worker havent had their raise in 23 years. Increase the tip minimum and we can go buy our own chaocolates. That hash tag is trending now. Look at all of members here. Our members have jumped on this men and women. We have held more than 60 events in congressional districts all across the country and there are more celebrating the idea that we can stand together for what women really need. You can say not just the members, but our allies, too. Women succeed when America Succeeds. Thank you very much, donna. Can you believe that minimum wage restaurant workers make 2. 13 an hour . Today, february 13, 2. 13 at 2 13 we had a tweet storm. You had a snow storm, we had a tweet storm and it is trending now so we are exciting about that. And all part of the three pillars of pay, of sick leave and of child care as i say inspired and led by the Congress Women. Thank you, madam leader. Great to see you all today. Hardy souls to be here with my colleagues. Over a number of months and a year, year and a half, both from Empirical Data and conversations with people all across the country, the issue of the economic challenges facing women is staggering. Women are in the workforce in great numbers. They are half the workforce and 2 3rds of the bread winner. They come in in jobs and occupations that pay less. There is the discrimination with regard to pay equity. 77 cents on the dollar. 23 women are minimum wage workers. They have less pension were protection retirement and more likely to be in bankruptcy. But they have the primary responsibility for all of the household duties including child care and also taking care of elderly parents. As a result of that data, and those conversations, what we put together was these economic agenda for women and family which is based on three pillars. Pay equity. Work life balance with paid and medical leave and child care. We have been talking about that for months. And grs one of the things we did on january 29th, which was the fifth anniversary of the signing of the lily led better fair pay act, we did a teleconference where we had 16,000 folks from across the country, the leader, congressman edwards and myself spoke. The stories were poinant from the women who were looking at leaving their children and going to work sick. Or taking their child to school sick. Or the inability to make medical leave. It was an incredible success listening to people relating their stories and then their questions to us about the agenda because this isnt based on something that is avemeral. This is agenda sponsored by a number of members. Paycheck fairness, 1213 years i have been working on it. Minimum wage, mr. Miller has been working on it a long time. These are real legislation that address the issue of economic insecurity for women and their families. This is another reincarnation of what women wont and that is pay quality, increased opportunity and educational opportunity. They want a better life for themselves and family because when women succeed america succeed. When women make less, over 60 of the people making minimum wage are women, and pay equity has its own toll. If women make 77 cents on the dollar, her male counter part who is equal means the first three month of the year the woman is working for three. It impacts her pension as well and the sick pay leave affects elder care. And we have worked on this issue in all phases of life but her focus was senior citizens. Thank you. Income discrimination follows women throughout their entire lives. If there were a private pension it is going to be reduced and when she gets her Social Security check it is going to be less. So equal pay, as we found with lily ledbetter, meant that right now. Lily is living on a shoestring because for 17 years she didnt know her male counter parts doing the same jobs were getting paid the same. It is equal pay for equal work duh. This is 2014 and it is time for us to finally get there. It is 50 years since the first passage of the equal pay act and yet we are still struggling. Women on average make 77 cents to the dollar but women of color do far worse. Diamonds may be a girls best friend and chocolates are fine, but we need an economic agenda that works for us. Thank you. My colleague from california is going to talk about what she is going to do next. We are proud of her work as chair of the Asian Pacific chair in the house. In los angeles everywhere i say the words women succeed America Succeeds i am met with wild applause. And i decided to have my own event and it is on march 10th and Speaker Pelosi is coming. We will hear from women. We will hear their stories. We will hear from women who are earning less than minimum wage and are working fulltime yet still cant make ends meet and still live under the poverty level, in fact. We will hear from women who are working at the same job and earn less than a man earns. And we have going to be focusing our attention especially on women of color who experience these inequalties at greater degrees. And we will have a jobs boot camp so we can offer real help so women can get the assistance they need. There is a huge anticipation on this event. We have had this whole flurry of events all across the nation. I happen there is going to be huge anticipation for what will come. And i am very much looking forward to spreding this word. We usually have folks going up to the microphone but we are excited about the roles that our colleagues have played in this. Joyce baity has energized the caucus. Thank you, leader. Being from ohio, the seventh larger state in the nation, i could not think of a better way to have a year of action. And thanks to the leader for the idea and the outreach. We, too, in ohio are going an event in early spring. We hope to bring thousands of women so they can witness what we see and say when women succeed, America Succeeds. When you talk about equal pay for equal work, it reminds me of my grandmother and my mother and how hard they worked. I am doing this for my granddaughter because it will make a difference in our lives and for the future. And you know why . When women succeed, America Succeeds. She started off with a song and i dont know if we can coax her into singing more, but she set the tone and pace for our wonderful film. I want to yield to the member from new mexico. Congresswoman grishem. I solved the old time saying should you sing or lip sing, and i think i should have lipped sing. I come from a state where we have been a minority majority. And women of color make less than 77 sents on the dollar. As a proud mother of two grown daughters i watch them struggle in this environment. It is unjust, immoral and with the number of women with und undergraduate degrees, think about the money that is in the economy. So we are talking about an opportunity agenda for the entire country. In a state that is so poor and needs assistance, supporting women in a we should have been all long is something i am very proud to promote. And very excited about the message. Thank you, mitchell. As we talked to you yesterday, we talked about an economy that works for all americans and that is including all of us and that is one Important Pillar of the economic agenda going forward. We are very proud of it. It is something that is catching fire across the country. I presented it to the members, well they hear about it every week if not every day, but as a case study of how we will advance our agenda. We started with the paul tonko of new york about his event that had the headliner on the first page. It talked about how four stations played it. One as a preview and three covered it. And then it went on to the social media. So respectful of the role you play, we want you to be the one to see it first. And then we will, rosa, talks about how we talked about this and i thought it was like 17,000 people i could hear breathing but if you say 16,000 that would be standard fair for us. And donna is finding more innovative ways to reach out. She has probably had five sessions in her community. And then we go to the social media. This is our message today. At 2 13 we acknowledged and it was nice to see the look on the face to see the workers in the restaurant saying everybody be ready for the 2 13 protest. We have going to share chocolates with you. They have things on them that say pay leave. Equal pay. You get it. You get it. Child care. So happy valentines day. We will give you chocolate, you give us equal pay. Any questions . How will you advance the equal pay . That is what we have talking about. I keep coming back to lincoln. Public sentiment is everything and we will talk about that when we come in with the leadership. As you know, George Miller and tom harkin have legislation for this and 70 of the American People support raising minimum wage. On paycheck fairness, that has been passed twice in the house . You want to talk about other issues . How do we advance paycheck fa fairness . It has been an issue for a long time it passed under the leadership of Speaker Pelosi and the house of representatives and with 14 republican colleagues. On the first go around in the senate we lost by two votes. And i will not tell you who the two were. In any case, we lost a second time in the senate because of the fill buster. But it has been in the press that the colleagues on the senate side are raising the issue again. We are ready. We have 200 democrats and i am trying to get republicans on the legislation. But 200 democrats have signed on for paycheck fairness. This is long overdo. We can do it. I was going to say there has been pole polling of the womens economic agenda and among women and there is discussion among republicans and democrats and who is going to get the vote, among all of the lines and everything single age, these issues have great resonence across the board. We challenge our colleagues to say women across america want this and the people in america want this. The house of representatives have the capacity to do this. And we will mobilize so people hear what we are saying 54 of the republican women support this agenda. I want to say this taking each part, the minimum wage, we talked about that. And pay equity, we talked about that. And we advanced the first bill signed by president obama and more to come in terms of pay equity. Paid leave is one of the most poplar initiatives. Paid sick days. It is astunning across the board as the Congress Women said. In every category you can name support for paid sick leave. And i will close by saying this we had the privilege of hearing from marion wright. I was telling her about the speech that was on president nixons death and he vetoed the bill. We talked about having a bipartisan meeting of the people who were part of that legislation, many are not still in congress, but it happened them and it can happen again. George miller has the Bipartisan Legislation for early childcare learning. Rosa fought hard for a stronger, deeper head start funding and the rest. So people know that this has to happen because it is so important to americas families. And when women succeed America Succeeds. Picking up on what was said, 54 of republican women favoring this and higher numbers in the democrats, why isnt this level of public support translating into a democratic majority in the house with governors . Where is the disconnect between that level of support and the republicans appearing to be on the verge of keeping the house and taking the senate . I dont subscribe to that. This is about policy and people and we will leave politics for another day. This is for us. If we could win on these issues with legislative success that would be our victory. But i do think that people are watching to see where people come down on the simplicity of this. This isnt every issue you can name. This is prioritizing women into the work place and the balance between home and work. It is the most challenging issue that working families have to deal with. So we will see what it translates into. We would rather see it translate into the legislative success. That would improve policy and the lives of the American People. If not, i am sure people would watch to see who votes what way. But all we want is a vote. We think we have the votes in congress. All we want is a vote on these issues. We are not setting out to set up a political confrontation. We are setting out to have legislative successs. Thank you and enjoy the candy and what they stand for equal pay, child care, paid sick leave it is written on there. Thank you, my colleagues. We have the german caucus and the Leadership Team here. This is day two. Great sessions. Tonight we will hear from dr. Kim. The chairman of the world bank. And tomorrow we have the president of the United States. And we have to stay tuned because since the Vice President wasnt able to approve today for the lunch key note address, we are waiting to hear word if there might be opportunity for the Vice President , as well. Generally speaking, our members are not just thrilled that we have had this opportunity to really drill deep into the these issues that are so posimportant americans but we are going to the heart of issues Americans Care about. How do you build an economy that works for allamericans and build the ladders of opportunity . Guarantee Economic Security so everyone has a chance at the american dream. That is what we have been discussing and we have had wonderful people who help us hone own how we do that. And we have several dynamic speakers to go including the president of the United States. Were ready. I think we are fired up from everything we keep hearing from folks. And we know, as you just heard from colleagues who have been working so hard on this idea that if we help women succeed in america, that all of america will succeed. And we want to get to work on that. And we have agreed as democrats in the house of representatives that the house of representatives isnt done doing its work. That while some people considering this the donothing congress, we are ready to get to work. Since the president , a year and a half ago, just a bit more than a year in the state of the union in 2013 said we should increase the minimum wage and the house did nothing. He heard the president reiterate that again and we have yet to hear from the republican colleagues saying they want to do something. And given yesterday, the president took action to help the federal contractor employees get a raise so they can earn 10. 10, we believe we should join with the president and allamericans who say it is time for america to get a raise. We are going to go back in a week to congress, and we are prepared to submit a discharge position to begin the process of collecting the vote it will take to the house of representative to increase the minimum wage to 10. 10 for allamericans. We think that is the right thing to do and it is time to do it. We are prepared to take any questions as the democrats in the house of representatives are ready to lead and waiting for our republican colleagues to join us. I want to ask our assistant leader, mr. Clyburn to address the members first. To add to that, i would say that all of talk about building an economy that works for all, must be laid upon a Solid Foundation. And there is no more Solid Foundation than the minimum wage increased. All of us are aware of where we would be around 10. 70 if we had indexed the mi