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"For every $9 a female employee earns at a retail job, her male counterpart makes $10.13. Utterly unjust? Undoubtedly. Want to do something to help? Find out how, after the jump. During the busy holiday season, a lot of people pick up extra hours at their mall jobs to help make ends meet--but women will be taking home less pay for more work, according to the Retail Action Project, an advocacy group dedicated to improving the environment for retail employees. The organization&amp;#x27;s communications director, Yana Walton, explains how they arrived at the results: &amp;quot;With the industry growing and becoming more important in putting the unemployed back to work, we felt now was the time to really look at the quality of jobs in the retail industry,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;Therefore, we launched a survey of 450 retail workers, in conjunction with the City University of New York&amp;amp;#8217;s Murphy Institute, in the retail capital of the country: New York City. The gender gap in wages, benefits, promotions arose when we compiled our data, and it&amp;amp;#8217;s especially important to look at during the holiday shopping season as retail companies profit from paying women less.&amp;quot; She says the wage gap hits black and Latina women the hardest, and common causes for women making less on the whole include the system for placing employees in different positions--&amp;quot;Some of this dynamic can be explained by tasks, with women being tracked into cashier jobs with lower average pay, and men being tracked into stock position, with higher average pay,&amp;quot; Yana says--and women being frequently passed over for raises and promotions. Camille Crossdale, a mother who has held retail jobs at both Urban Outfitters and Banana Republic, shared her specific struggles with us: &amp;quot;I&amp;amp;#8217;m a mom so arranging for childcare when my schedule wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t steady was hard enough. But when I realized I was paying more for transportation and childcare than I was making at my job, I decided it just wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t worth it. It&amp;amp;#8217;s so frustrating, and this isn&amp;amp;#8217;t just happening to me. I&amp;amp;#8217;ve shared my lunch with co-workers on lunch breaks who couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t even afford to eat while at work. It&amp;#x27;s infuriating to hear that women are paid less than men in retail all do the same work. We have to do all the same functions in the job. The cost of living for men is not greater than for women.&amp;amp;#8221; In light of their frustrations, the Retail Action Project has set up a petition at change.org, imploring the Retail Industry Leaders Association--a lobby group made up of corporations like WalMart, Target, and Best Buy--to give women equal pay for equal work. They&amp;#x27;re on their way to collecting 5,000 signatures, which they&amp;#x27;re hoping will spark a national conversation about the inequalities and hold companies accountable for profiting off of underpaid women, particularly during the holiday season. If you believe women deserve equal pay for equal work, head to change.org now to sign the petition. Do any of you ladies who work in retail have similar experiences to share? Have you been passed over for a promotion in favor of a male co-worker? And are you surprised to hear that the wage gap is still so prevalent in a female-dominated industry like retail? Discuss. Photo: Andersen Ross/Digital Vision"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/fashion/blogs/dressed/2011/12/sign-this-petition-to-get-fema>