Women's Rights Employment Law Blog

By Jack Tuckner, Esq.

Today’s NYT article regarding the codification of our jingoistic immigration policies is not an issue that demands isolated concern. In the larger schema of Capitalistic prison-military-industrial complex, the United States has become an epitome of everything regressive. Labor and employment issues, the plight of working women, undocumented workers, bullying, ethnocentrism, minimum-wage increase opposition, reproductive choice issues--and the shameful Israeli/American destroyer/occupation brigades, are all related to a corporate/consumer/capitalistic/amoral/ feeding frenzy--an orgy of dominion and control exercising--killing/maiming/bombing children--hello, anybody home?--wherever and whenever we want--in search of satiation of our unquenchable thirst for more control and power over the earth, other species and each other.

Please click on the play button to see how we are supporting chemical warfare targeted against children of Beirut

As the world and our capabilities expand through technological advances, we've become ever more Klingon in our evolution, or should I say devolution--becoming, first and foremost, voracious warriors with mighty brows--incapable of taming our baser instincts with our native intelligence. The crown of creation? We're Creation's Undoing. We are the perfect embodiment of The Peter Principle writ large, we've evolved to the point of perfect incapacity--like George W. Bush as leader, we occupy the highest rung on the evolutionary food chain and we're thoroughly unable to fulfill the responsibilities of the position. Perhaps we should consider stepping down--or at least aside. Things can only get better.

By Jack Tuckner, Esq.

Following the Washington Post coverage of the Medicare drug plans fiasco, its worth noting that there is a corrupt and rotting underbelly of NY's Medicaid system.

Billions of dollars are bilked by doctors, dentists, pharmacists and Big Pharma--and related industry businesses--on our tax dime--all under the glaucomic gaze of our legislators and law enforcement overseers, who pooh-pooh this scandal completely.

Why?

'Cause the criminals are our own physicians, dentists, accountants, friends and family members; you know--white, middle class people who we know, respect and love. People like us--people who are us. So, we'll spend billions of dollars to arrest, prosecute and incarcerate some black kid who sells a vial of cocaine to another kid who wants to get high and eat some Fritos in front of his television, but we give a complete pass to the arch criminals in our midst who rip us all off--and let our kids' educational needs and health care suffer at the felonious hands of the white collar corporate criminal, aided and abetted by our government watchdogs and our elected officials.

A New York Times report May last year sheds light on the “unscrupulous and the opportunistic” Medicaid program of New York State:

New York's Medicaid program, once a beacon of the Great Society era, has become so huge, so complex and so lightly policed that it is easily exploited. Though the program is a vital resource for 4.2 million poor people who rely on it for their health care, a yearlong investigation by The Times found that the program has been misspending billions of dollars annually because of fraud, waste and profiteering. A computer analysis of several million records obtained under the state Freedom of Information Law revealed numerous indications of fraud and abuse that the state had never looked into.

New York's Highest Court Issues a Wild and Crazy Opinion on Gay Marriage Licenses.... Queers Need Not Apply

By Jack Tuckner, Esq.

"There are enough marriage licenses to go around."
-Chief Justice Judith Kaye in her Dissent.

New York's Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, ruled last month that New York State can continue to ban gay marriage in a long-awaited decision. Given the rollicking insensibility of the actual logic affirming discriminatory treatment of loving people trying to optimally provide for each other and their families (click here for the text of the decision), it might as well have said:

"We really can't think of any valid reason to continue to bar same-sex couples from enjoying the many benefits of memorializing their love and commitment to each other in a legal union that consecrates their vows and provides respect, financial benefits, security and societal sanctification to the relationship. It's really the only civilized approach to take at long last.

Especially, given the plain fact, as the Court acknowledged, that same-sex couples, who must adopt or bear children by artificial means, provide, by definition, more uniformly stable home environments for kids than opposite-sex couples may, whose babies are sometimes accidentally made. In other words--committed same sex couples certainly deserve equal treatment--but--on the other hand--fuhgeddaboutit--they're fags."

With this embarrassing decision, the Court protects no one, hurts a minority class of our friends and loved ones and, once again, a panel of eminent and wise lawyers enshrine ignorance and unconsciousness upon us by stamping this shamefulness with its imprimatur of righteousness.

Therefore, the Court's thinking is flawed, medieval and intellectually dishonest. Quod Erat Demonstrandum. As Henry David Thoreau famously said, "It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right."

Please read Katha Pollitt in this month's The Nation for a brilliant look at today's duplicity and hypocrisy surrounding same-sex marriage. Or just read it here:

Continue reading "Court Legitimizes Discrimination against a Protected Class" »

Are Medicare and Medicaid Services designed to worsen the health needs of the older and disabled Americans who are living on low to moderate fixed incomes? Today’s Washington Post analysis dispels the myth of Medicare drug plans, as the Medicare’s new Part D prescription drug program forces seniors to fork out $2,850 each before the coverage can resume.

In the coming five months, several million Americans will find themselves unable to pay for the gap in insurance, called the “doughnut hole” thanks to the shady Medicare policy which is designed to be misunderstood.

The Post says, “Under a standard plan this first year, Medicare handles 75 percent of drug costs after a deductible until the bill reaches $2,250. It does not kick in again until those costs total $5,100.”

Campaign for America's Future , a Washington-based advocacy organization, says seniors enrolled in the program at the start of the year will, on average, reach the doughnut hole Sept. 22. As of now, there are 22.5 million people who are enrolled in this program! The organization says, “President Bush's Part D prescription drug disaster is costly, confusing and corrupt. It was written by and for big pharmaceutical and insurance companies, and will cost millions of dollars in excess cost to U.S. taxpayers, seniors and disabled.”

And there are three more months to go, before we are hit by another anti-people governmental plan. Yet again.

Technorati Tag: bush medicare health

It’s too early, and entirely inaccurate to declare Rev. Gregory A. Boyd as someone who has given up conservative politics. The New York Times article “Disowning Conservative Politics, Evangelical Pastor Rattles Flock”, elaborates that Mr Boyd has been preaching to politically and theologically conservative, middle-class evangelicals about how the church should steer clear of politics, and stop glorifying American military campaigns.

Whereas these could be true, they are neither sufficient nor even necessary grounds for rejoicing. The current Middle East crisis has generated some strong emotions among conservatives. Even Mel Gibson’s alleged anti-Semite sentiments have been highly publicized already. Whether the preachers are taking a stand against the Israeli state or against the Jews should be an emerging question.

We need to evaluate if the preachers give up their core worldviews, not just their temporary stands on certain world events, before hailing them as progressives. For example, in the World War II, the Vatican stoically maintained indifference during Holocaust. One credible theory pointed that it was because the Pope was inclined more to contain Communism than to hear plights of Jews.

In the current scenario, we know that Mr Boyd is still holding onto every basic tenets of conservative church. He is still anti-LGBT, and he is still against women’s rights to choice. He still says “The light of the world and the hope of the world is Jesus Christ.”

This time, he may just be getting higher approvals in the Europe by saying America is no Christian country, and probably from the Democrats for not supporting Israeli occupation. But as long as the Church continues on its path of reformisms of various kinds, what we shall see possibly will be certain change of stance depending on circumstances –for example, what should be Christianity’s role in a fight between Jews and Muslims?—which may be merely opportunistic from a critical lens, but never a whole hearted radical rebirth –for example, how about supporting LGBT communities, caring for pro-choice, and getting rid of the One-God-As-Hope theory?

Technorati Tag: church conservative boyd

President Bush emphatically declares that the world needs western democracy to ensure freedom and peace. And to that end, he curses Hezbollah, and Kofi Anon, and supports a gruesome war against women and children of Beirut.

Ceasefire in the Middle East is not required, declares Israel with due support from Bush. As a man supposed to represent the world's superpower, when he rejects the idea of peace, how many countries exactly come forward to lend him support by saying NO to ceasefire?

And the countries that say YES to peace are…

Indeed, this is the largest opposition that any country has ever faced in the world history during a war time crisis. So much for the rule by the majority..oops..democracy!

Technorati Tags: bush politics lebanon

More than 150 housing ads posted on Craigslist have been found to be discriminatory. Although this has led to a lawsuit, it has also raised two important issues:

1. Since Fair Housing Act passed 40 years ago has worked effectively to prevent discriminations in traditional media, internet companies are not subject to assessment yet. Hence this is a loophole that will need further examinations.

2. Second, and more importantly, such lawsuits often undermine the individual rights to free speech which are constitutionally protected. We have seen how in the name of preventing online pornography dissemination, quite a few draconic legislations were proposed in the past. And with their potential for abuse of free speech, none of the legislations saw the light of the day. Hence when Craigslist officials question some of the allegations as involving constitutionally protected free speech and the right to free association, then they could withstand the trial with success as well.

In either case, the Chicago lawsuit might reopen the new media debate of free speech. With the liberally progressive Craigslist forum being targeted this time, its more than what meets the eye. And in all possibility, since there is no editorial control over Craigslist content, the instances of vandalism might have been intentionally orchestrated by motivated rabble rousers.

craigslist, free speech, law

With the current legal and administrative rethinkings in matters of abortion rights, equal credit, pregnancy leave, anti-discrimination laws in education and employment, Martha Burk writes about how women in America are systematically forced to take two steps forward and one step back in many areas that were so secure a generation ago.

The full story here:

Summer isn’t over yet, but the heat on women is already at full blast. Catalyst, one of the top research organizations on the status of women in corporate America, reports this week that females are losing ground in the top echelons of the Fortune 500. Growth in female-held positions has fallen dramatically in the past three years. The National Women’s Law Center tells us that female degrees in math and computer science are way down. In what looks like a “back to the ‘50s move,” Governor Jennifer Granholm of Michigan signed a bill last week allowing the return of single-sex schools in her state. All abortions were outlawed in South Dakota this spring, setting up a challenge to Roe v. Wade that has a good chance of succeeding in a Roberts Court.

Continue reading "Women's Progress Curve" »

By Jack Tuckner, Esq.

Here's a guy who's so thoroughly gripless, so constitutionally indisposed to thinking--poisoned as he is by his native incapacity and incompetence, that he reverts to reflexive, boundary-less, childish actions such as massaging the shoulders of a female head of state in an unconscious bid to distract himself from his thoroughgoing inability to process the vital and important matters at hand. Is this job over his head?

Let me answer the question this way--If George W. Bush--the leader of the "free" world-- worked in the local hardware store and you walked in for the first time with your mate to purchase some light bulbs from him and he bantered about the weather while you paid him at the register, you'd leave the store and naturally quip, “he's a nice enough guy, but dumb as a rock.” So much for the virtues of our current democracy.
Bob Herbert’s Op-Ed piece in today’s NY Times is worth pondering:

“In two years and a few months Americans will vote again for president. I hope the long list of tragic failures by Bush & Co. prompts people to take that election more seriously than some in the past. If you were about to be lifted onto an operating table, you’d be more interested in the competence of the surgeon than in his or her personality.”

The full text is available here:

Continue reading "Gripless leader. Reflexive actor." »

One of the harshest homophobes in position of power, James E. West is no more.

As a former Mayor and a Senate Majority leader in Washington Legislature, the conservative Republican leader had etched out some nightmares for America. West was a fervent supporter of anti-gay bills that proposed to ban gays and lesbians from working in schools and day cares. He even proposed to make a law that would ban all sexual activity among persons under the age of 18.

As a Roy Cohn of modern times, most ironically West was recalled from his office over an internet gay sex scandal last year. Using the chat ID “Right-BiGuy”, he used to offer internships to young (high school graduating) gay men.

Not just his homophobic reactions to suppress freedom for LGBT communities, but also his own admission of private online relationships with young gay men worked against his reputation as a public official while he was living. After his death, one would have expected continuance of scathing criticisms of his legacy. But we find many interesting tributes paid to him in his death, including but not limited to the following:

Chris Vance, a political consultant and former Republican Party chairman, said, “Jim West was a great and well-respected member of the Legislature for 20 years.”

Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, a Spokane Democrat said, “He was a powerful political force here and in the state for decades.”

Dino Rossi, a former Republican Senate budget chairman, said West was a gifted politician who gave his colleagues room to get their jobs done. “He didn't micromanage things. When I was trying to balance the deficit, he showed up in my office, I think, once and that was because I asked him to come over.”

Sen. Margarita Prentice, a Democrat from Renton, quoted West as a good friend. “I just think he was one of the finest political minds. You had to be tough in order to get past him,” she said.

West’s successor in Spokane, Mayor Dennis Hession said “Jim West did some wonderful things for the city of Spokane and the state and that's how he should be remembered.”

Although there is nothing wrong in paying glowing tributes even to man who erred grievously in life, what rather alarming here is the comfort level politicians across party lines have shared while praising one of the most powerful homophobic in the United States.

Equally insightful would be to know why the country turned hostile towards West not so much when he was intolerant towards LGBT community, as when later on, he admitted his own alternative sexual orientation. Astrid Rachelle Fiano, Esq. says such hypocrisy would not exist in the first place, only if “people minded their own business, didn't equate sexual preference with morality; and/or the government enacted stronger protections to make homophobia as socially unacceptable as blatant racism.”

"The Teen Endangerment Act" is finally passed. Otherwise known as “The Child Custody Protection Act”, this anti-human rights Act was approved by the Senate tonight with a 65-34 vote. So the law of the land now says it’s a federal crime for anyone other than a parent or legal guardian to take a minor across state lines to have an abortion.

This drastic far-rightwing development took place following the review of pending Feinstein and Boxer Amendments. Anti-choice senators defeated an amendment offered by Sens. Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg, both Democrats from New Jersey, that would have funded programs to prevent teen pregnancy and help parents talk to their kids about tough topics like sex.

The letter sent by National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) to members of the US Senate yesterday was meant to apprise the Senators about the Act. In turn, it managed to pass the myths for facts:

“About 80 percent of the public favors requiring notification of or consent by a parent before an abortion can be performed on a minor daughter.”

It never mentioned in the letter the number of interviewees and their demographic specificities.

Prevention or Punishment?
Owing to its ideological genealogy, the Act is punitive in nature, not preventive. Firstly it assumes a normal family for every teen, when it enforces a clause of compulsory parental involvement. Secondly it also assumes that teenagers will obediently disclose their dilemmas to legal or natural parents under all circumstances, or face undesirable consequences.

What the rightwing Senators Frist and Ensign and their collaborators do not seem to get is that teens are vulnerable in cases of pregnancy, not necessarily assertive, also because of the dominant patriarchal structure that has moralistic impositions related to abortion.

The moral police in the garb of Senators also preach refraining from sex until girls are married. Quite a few tragic assumptions ( that all girls are destined to marry) were made by Sen. Tom Coburn when he opined, “Abstinence is the best way to prevent teenage pregnancy."

What’s in store?
In sync with promoting self-centered individualism, the Act introduced by the ultra-conservatives, seeks to further isolate teens into forming their cocoon self, where all they have to look for, apart from television sets, would be their parents. Most teen pregnancies take place not due to lack of parental interventions, but because of existing parental neglects. To assume that already defenseless children would then go confide in their neglecting parents is grossly unjust.

Secondly and as a graver consequence, the Act will punish those who most genuinely want to help a teenager simply because the person is not “authorized” as a parent. So watch out, this Act indeed says grandmothers will go to jail if they are more trusted by girls. And this Act may also be entirely overlooking the stark reality afflicting thousands of girls who are victims of domestic child sexual abuse, often in the hands of their parents.

“Aerodynamics have proven that the bumblebee cannot fly. The body is too heavy and the wings are too weak. But the bumblebee doesn’t know that, and it goes right on flying, miraculously.” --Mary Kay Ash

Mary Kay, who always wore a diamond lapel pin shaped like a bumblebee, created the first corporate culture for women in America when her company got listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1976.

Exactly 40 years have passed by, and it appears that either the American corporate houses are wary of bumblebee miracles, or are threatened by them. Either way, as “In the Lead” column of Wall Street Journal reported today, the male corporate bastion would let women employees work only at positions that do not threaten their status quo.

Columnist Carol Hymowitz writes that although women hold more than half of all management and professional jobs, the vast majority are concentrated in entry-level and middle positions. Last year, women held 16.4% of Fortune 500 corporate officer jobs, up just 0.7% from 2002.

Going by the rate of progress over the past decade (which has been on an average, one-half of one percentage point per year), it would take 70 more years of corporate struggles for women to attain parity with men (that is, for women to have just 50% of Fortune 500 board seats)!

And going by the current growth rate, will women of color ever reach any parity whatsoever? Apparently not! As further victimized at the corporate alter, women of color hold only 3.4% of officer jobs (as compared to 16.4% overall).

Currently, one in every nine Fortune 500 companies has no women on its board! And for those women who are on board, they are systematically excluded from key leadership, agenda-setting and decision-making opportunities, since they are astoundingly underrepresented as chairs of most powerful board committees, including audit, compensation, and governance.

Such systematic exclusion of women from decisive positions has become essential for the male supremacy to reign over its industrial complexes. As a result, at the topmost position, women have represented less than 2 percent of the Fortune 1,000 CEOs and just 1.4 percent of the Fortune 500 CEOs.

‘Came a long way, baby?’

Some proponents of workforce diversity are quick to point out that the growth of women will be gradual. Factors attributed to this optimism include widening corporate opportunities, scope for higher education, Civil Rights legislations etc. But this assumption of eventual progress is clearly based on a flawed historical understanding of women at the workplace. Most often we are led to believe that the women ‘have come a long way’ (remember Virginia Slims cigarette ads?), from being homemakers to being CEOs. And hence the facilitating passage must be the ideal one.

Now that we are grimly reminded that women occupy less than 2% of the CEOs positions, let us visit the workplace landscape to understand if they are indeed making progress, and if so, of what type.

In 1950, there were 18.4 million working women in the US. This has grown to an amazing 70 million now. Now this is some real growth here. According to Business and Professional Women’s Foundation, women represent 47% of the total labor force of America! Among women workers, 61% are African-American women, 60% white women, 58% Asian women, and 56% Latina women.

Whereas on one hand there is such an overwhelmingly high participation of women in the US workforce, comprising half of the entire labor, on the other hand, less than 2% of women actually own any major corporate house, and less than 20% even work as corporate officers.

If statistical analysis alone could help, then wars would not be taking place in modern times. It is imperative to go beyond the numerical analysis that’s done periodically by several profit and non profit agencies, and focus on ways to radically change the scenario. With sustained increase of this rate (which has been consistently been the case since decades now), there is no way an equity can be achieved. In fact, as seen from the disparity among women workers and women owners, the gender gap is not one of quantity, but of qualitative power.

It is about trenchant lack of women’s empowerment in the era of corporate globalization. The way is to radically change the structure from the top, starting from the “Fortunes”. And no amount of waiting for a noble legislation or of depending on just gestures from old guards of capitalism will do. Systematic oppression requires systematic upheavals.

A black employee has been racially discriminated against at a historically black school, according to a new federal lawsuit.

A federal lawsuit against Delaware State University alleges that a white state legislator promoted a white employee over a qualified black employee. DSU , which ironically is a historically black school (HBUC) has denied the charges and forwarded that the reassignment was not a promotion, but a merit-based selection.

In this case, the white employee was recommended for promotion despite having been disciplined on several occasions. The legislator Richard C Cathcart is running for re-election in the state House representing 9th District. Rory Lewis, who has filed this lawsuit, had been favored by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in November when this complaint was first initiated.

The school didn't advertise a facilities shop leader position when it opened in 2004 and then overlooked Lewis, who had the necessary qualifications, because he is black, the lawsuit claims.

During the reassignment, on one hand there was Rory Lewis, who was nominated for “Facilities Employee of the Year” award and had no disciplinary record; and on the other, was his co-worker Charles Dougherty who in the same position as Lewis, had received written reprimands for missed time at work and insubordination. He was also suspended for misuse of a company vehicle. And yet, after his suspension ended, Dougherty was promoted and given a 7 percent raise, the suit claims. Dougherty, who no longer works at DSU, admitted that work environment at DSU was racially charged.

By Jack Tuckner, Esq.



"Step on it twice, make four times what you pay, divide the labor costs and still come away with enough to play."
--Gangsta Rapper Shyne on inner city crack dealing

A Wall Street Journal story by David Armstrong entitled “Financial Ties to Industry Cloud Major Depression Study” is an over the-top expose, otherwise little known or cared about, regarding the endemic corruption pervading our country's mainstream medical establishment, or the medico-pharmaceutical complex, if you will.

Our country's most eminent leading physicians--Harvard-educated, board-sitting, regularly published doctors who tour, speak and get paid mad money to shill for the drug companies. No better than two-bit hookers selling themselves for a throw. This particular scandal involves the crème de la crème of docs recommending that women maintain their use of psychotropic meds while pregnant, lest they begin to feel a tad bummed out again--this recommendation comes notwithstanding the substantial concerns raised by independents regarding the obvious risks to the fetus. Why??

Because Pfizer and Merck, et al are paying for the research, paying for the speeches and generally buying these nickel-bag cretins so that they will sell their colleagues, as well as the duped end user, on the safety and efficacy of ingesting certain synthetic chemicals--a.k.a. drugs--that these mega-billion dollar companies have significant vested interests in promoting. Hello? Disingenuity at its finest--raw greed--unabashed criminality. And of course, apart from this latest Journal revelation--which is really old news--corporate Media is too threatened by the thought of speaking truth to these omnipotent entities to even make a peep.

And of course, none of these top docs reveal this financial connection--it's deemed unimportant--while they fence drugs to pharmacies and their colleagues. Pure corruption--capitalism at it's morally-compromised worst, money for nothing and your chicks for free. While we continue to lock up 1 vial crack sellers for up to 25 years under the draconian Rockefeller drug laws, we let these "legal" drug pushers off scot-free and super wealthy--with nary a thought--or negative comparison--or any accountability. We reward all colluders with extreme abundance. At least the one-vial crack buyer knows what she is buying and why--there's truth in advertising there--the product sells itself--the same cannot be said of the women fooled into continuing to anesthetize themselves during pregnancy at the not so gentle prodding of our most trusted experts.

So, like the women who gave birth to mutated children and then died horrible deaths from uterine cancer from the mispromoted use of DES in the 50's, we have a scandal of far greater proportion unfolding here--and this is of course, just the tip of the iceberg.

Eleven nonprofit groups have been given around $725,000 in grants by the Department of Justice to carry out public education programs for workers and employers about immigration-related job discrimination.

Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices (OSC) of the Civil Rights Division has awarded the grants, which range from $45,000 to $85,000. Recipients will assist discrimination victims; conduct seminars for workers, employers and immigration service providers; distribute educational materials in various languages; and place advertisements in local communities through both mainstream and ethnic media.

The OSC grant recipients are:

Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs - Washington, D.C. -- will educate thousands of agricultural workers and employers through a network of 340 member agencies' rural offices throughout the lower 48 states and Puerto Rico.

Catholic Charities of Dallas -- Dallas, Texas -- will serve workers and employers in Texas, Arkansas, New Mexico and Oklahoma.

Catholic Charities of the Diocese Arlington, Hogar Hispano -- Arlington, Va. - will serve immigrant workers and employers in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C.

Centro Legal de la Raza -- Oakland, Calif. - will reach Latino workers and employers throughout the five-county San Francisco Bay area.

Civil Society -- St. Paul, Minn. -- will serve workers and employers in the Twin Cities' Asian, African and Hispanic communities.

Colorado Legal Services -- Denver, Colo. -- will educate service providers and newly-arrived Asian and Muslim immigrants in the Denver area as well as rural migrant and seasonal farm workers throughout the state.

Employers' Association of New Jersey -- Livingston, N.J. -- will advise thousands of employers on the anti-discrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA) -- Los Angeles, Calif. -- will serve Latino and Asian immigrants and refugee workers and employers in the greater Los Angeles area.

Legal Assistance Foundation of Central Massachusetts -- Worcester, Mass. -- will educate workers, service providers and leaders among the Latino, Southeast Asian and African communities in central Massachusetts.

National Immigration Law Center (NILC) -- Los Angeles, Calif. -- will carry out a national program to educate immigration service providers and pro bono attorneys through regional seminars in California's Central Valley and in the post- Katrina Gulf Coast region.

YMCA of Greater New York -- New York, N.Y. -- will provide education to employers, service providers and immigrant workers from Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and South Asia.

War is the greatest threat to the working class people everywhere. The ongoing war on Iraqi people naturally has ugly repercussions on the American working class. And just like any other, this war has hurt women workers the most.

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) which is supposed to address issues of employment injustice in the US is burdened with responsibilities it cannot fulfill in time owing to financial crunch. Systematic reduction in budget for the lead enforcement agency in the area of workplace discrimination has grown to be matter of considerable concern.

EEOC currently has far too many unfilled positions. The agency has employed 20 percent fewer staff members over the past five years because of a hiring freeze. The White House has cut next year’s proposed budget by $4 million from $23 million this year. As an instance, the EEOC call center in Lawrence, Kansas which was funded with $4.9m recently because of its poor performance is handling only 20 percent of the calls from victim workers.

As a result, EEOC has 33,562 cases filed last year as backlog in job discrimination cases alone. Only in 2005, there have been additional 22,278 retaliation complaints from workers lodged with the EEOC. Just on the ground of job discrimination (without including race, age, gender, disability or sexual orientation complaints etc), there is a chance that EEOC will need to deal with nearly 48000 discrimination cases this year.

Statistically speaking, more than 24,000 callers a month speak with EEOC-trained Customer Service Representatives (CSRs). Through its Frequently Asked Questions posted on the EEOC's web page and an Interactive Voice Response telephone system available 24 hours a day, another 15,000 customers a month are making enquiries.

Understaffed and under-resourced, and with all the significant workloads the agency has, the current result of operations sheet shows a negative balance of $24 million.

What does it entail?
Unfortunately we live in times where nukes are considered more worthy than human lives. As a result, the fact that thousands of people are being systematically discriminated against, and their human rights are abused right here in the famed workplaces across the US, is simply lost on the ruling nexus that assumes it as a secondary priority in relation to its greater need to invade foreign lands to ‘teach’ different religions some cruel lessons.

Civil Rights Act of 1964 being signed. July 2, 1964

EEOC was not founded on impulsive decisions of some war mongering politicians attacking Vietnam. Nor was it based on sudden realization of some good men of this country’s political elites. EEOC was a necessary consequence of years of struggles waged by millions of discriminated people of the US who took to streets defying the legal orders and challenged the powerful to stop awhile and reflect critically. It was implemented during the time of turbulent sixties and it became part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

On June 11, 1963, President John F Kennedy spoke as the conscience of a guilt-ridden country as he became the first president to favor the Civil Rights Act and work towards implementing it:

“We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the scriptures and it is as clear as the American Constitution. The heart of the question is whether all Americans are afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated . . . [O]ne hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet free from the bonds of injustice. And this nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all of its citizens are free.
Now the time has come for this nation to fulfill its promise. The events of Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased the cries for equality that no city or state or legislative body can prudently ignore them. We face, therefore, a moral crisis as a country and as a people. It cannot be met with repressive police action. It cannot be left to increased demonstrations on the streets. It cannot be quieted by token moves or talk. It is a time to act in Congress, in your state and local legislative body and, above all, in all of our daily lives. Next week I will ask the Congress of the United States to act, to make a commitment it has not fully made in this century to the proposition that race has no place in American life or law.”

EEOC did not travel the difficult roads to confront institutionalized injustice for almost four decades now, as a part and parcel of the US administration. Quite the contrary, it was instituted essentially to oppose any administrative lapses in curbing discrimination at workplaces. What could be worse than assuming that the directions of EEOC then would depend on a bunch of war-mongering capitalists who preach widespread human rights violence throughout the globe, without blinking an eye towards the monumental domestic issues of human rights abuse at workplaces right inside the country?

Or even the fact that, despite all glorious trumpets heralding the “victory” in the cold war, harassments of workers in the US workplace have only been on the rise over the years, as the country has seen less of citizens’ welfare, and more of private business freedoms.

In most times, the critical question never asks for a simplified solution in the propagandist rhetoric of “less government”. Whereas less of a rule by a draconic bunch of liars is desirable, the more pressing need at this juncture is to demand more “social responsibility” from the rulers, than absolve them of their duty by shifting focus to conservative utopia of “more corporate governance” holding any key.

Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) in a recent press release mentioned its top 10 workplace issues after surveying 1200 HR professionals. None of them covered either discrimination or retaliation issues in the workplace! Now that's a major concern if the human resource specialists do not think much of workplace harassment. Often times, deliberate omissions prove to be costly.

Without much ado, the SHRM issues are:

1. Rising health care costs
2. Increased use of outsourcing/offshoring of jobs to other countries
3. Threat of increased health care/medical costs on the economic competitiveness of the United States
4. Increased demand for work/life balance
5. Retirement of large numbers of baby boomers around the same time
6. New attitudes toward aging and retirement as baby boomers reach retirement age
7. Rise in the number of individuals and families without health insurance
8. Increase in identity theft
9. Work intensification as employers try to increase productivity with fewer employees
10. Vulnerability of technology to attack or disaster

With due apologies to Bryan Adams, the Summer of ’69 was the summer of Stonewall. New York City became a beacon for social justice in the otherwise hostile world when for the first time, the gays—ever oppressed as non-masculine—organized their confrontation against the American police and legal order—ever privileged as the symbol of masculinity.

In more ways than one, Stonewall rebellion is the single most valiant act of resistance of the oppressed against the oppressors in the recent history. And the many marginalized resistors of New York City stood at the helm of this progressive activism.

However, this path of defying the towering institutions of Big Apple has been strewn with many struggles. The latest one unfolded today at the court. Even as almost four decades have passed, the Summer of ’06 has exhibited how backward, how oppressive, and how conservative our law and order system still continues to be. How adamantly ignorant, and how repulsively inconsiderate the human judgments are till date proving to be.

With its legal verdict against gay marriage, New York State could not finally secure a position as the second enlightened state in the US (the only one is Massachusetts). One hoped, sincerely hoped, the city famous for peoples’ movements against the existing unjust orders, would have also acknowledged this one struggle by the people marginalized because of their sexual orientation. But that was not to be. Rather, the city, post-Stonewall, has now reverted back to conservatism of a shameful order and perhaps now has been turned into a beacon for social injustice—to declare gay marriage as illegal everywhere!

A Mockery of Justice:
Judge Robert S Smith on behalf of majority view rationalized Thursday:

“Until a few decades ago, it was an accepted truth for almost everyone who ever lived, in any society in which marriage existed, that there could be marriages only between participants of different sex. A court should not lightly conclude that everyone who held this belief was irrational, ignorant or bigoted.”

While opining these callous statements, Judge Smith has not brought in the slightly alternative and hugely profound perspectives that until a few decades ago, it was also an accepted truth for almost everyone who ever lived in any society in which human beings existed, that we had only a few elite white privileged men ruling over the majority in most inhumane manner imaginable, and it used to be considered that they were the ones to decide the definition of civilization and the barbaric. Not very long ago, everyone assumed that it was perfectly judicious to enslave people of color as it was considered that people who were not white, and people who were not men, were indeed not full humans.

Despite all trumpets that ‘Greek democracy’ exemplified, for centuries until only a few decades back, it was well taken for granted by everyone who ever lived that only a small number of ‘free men’ were qualified to conduct elections and define democracy in the world. Till then it was considered only so normal that people needed to be segregated to study in different schools basing on their skin color so that only some elite white men ended up owning all three branches of governance and left the manual works for the slaves.

So Judge Smith’s brilliant exposition to justify decision against gay marriage lacks this small authenticity of history fact-sheet.

Mockery is the norm?
On an even closer perusal, it will be well noted that Judge Smith was actually correct in his assumptions, only that the present era needed to be integrated in the historical perspective that he has taken. The fact is, its not “until a few decaded ago”, but even today under this current legal structure, we have widespread unjust social practices. White men are still being paid dozen times higher than Latina women for the same work. Poor workers are being retaliated against by their employers for bringing up harassment charges. And gay people are still being denied their basic human rights. Immigrants are being called ‘illegal aliens’ in the ‘modern’ country founded solely by immigrants. Poverty, homelessness, lack of access to basic healthcare are formidably overbearing upon the American society in 2006 Common Era.

The judgment against gay marriage in New York is a blot in the history which will be invariably questioned generations later and all of us will be held responsible for such irresponsible and apathetic sensitivity. Law is at times based on conventions, but if going by Judge Smith’s summarizations, law is solely based on conventions, then we do not need a court of justice to demarcate the norms. We only have to look at the utterly racist, sexist, homophobic society of today for solution. When the courts of justices are approached, it is done in want of judgments that are absent amidst conformism, not to seek vindication of unjust conformities that have been present “at all ages” or being practiced by “all human beings that ever lived.”

In what could be blatantly misinformed opinions, the court has passed verdicts to uphold traditional monogamous heterosexist marriages, in the following manner:

“It (the legislature) could find that an important function of marriage is to create more stability and permanence in the relationships that cause children to be born. It thus could choose to offer an inducement - in the form of marriage and its attendant benefits - to opposite-sex couples who make a solemn, long-term commitment to each other. “

Some of us could be highly amused by the naivety of these thoughts, springing as they are, from prepositions that are invalid. The judgment that decries the gay marriage citing scientific evidence (“Despite the advances of science, it remains true that the vast majority of children are born as a result of a sexual relationship between a man and a woman”) is itself unscientific insofar as the fact remains that the world has not seen so far many cases where “child benefits from having before his or her eyes, every day, living models of what both a man and a woman are like.” The point is not whether children without parents have done progress (which the judge dismisses as exception), but the fact is the “living models of men and women” are actually thousands or million times more outside the family than inside it. The judgment is unsound; basing as it is on unscientific claims.

What lies beneath?
If we shift from the amusement, one can note that the more serious side to this exercise lies in the systematic perpetuation of historical injustices by the oppressive class.

Sociologist and critical political theorist Frederick Engels while challenging the status quo of monogamous marriage had said (in “Origin of the Family Private property and the State”, p 218):
“What will most definitely disappear from monogamy…is all the characteristics stamped on it in consequence of its having arisen out of property relationships. These are, first, the predominance of the man, and secondly, the indissolubility of marriage..”

Engels way back in 1880 said,

“Marriage based on sex love is by its very nature monogamy. We have seen how right Bachofen was when he regarded the advance from group marriage to individual marriage chiefly as the work of the women; only the advance from pairing marriage to monogamy can be placed to the men’s account, and historically, this consisted essentially in a worsening of the position of women and in facilitating infidelity on the part of the men.” He said in a socialist economy alone, the women would have “regained the right of separation, and when the man and woman cannot get along they would prefer to part. In short, proletarian marriage is monogamian in the etymological sense of the word, but by no means in the historical sense” (ibid p. 209-210).

Alas, the judgment of the US court has acknowledged the aspect of marriage only in the historical sense. Only in the dominant historical interpretation of monogamous heterosexist marriages that prevented a) the women to refuse domestic oppression, and b) people from practicing their different sexual orientations or refusing assigned gender roles. A history that has denied self-expression to majority of people who have either not found solace in the preaching of the Church or in the actions of the elite ruling classes. A history that speaks the dominant narrative of the establishments, not of the peoples’ version of how the establishment thrived on exploitation legacies. A history that has hitherto stood by the side of the unjust conventions of war as a solution, oppression as a ruling tool, and fraud as a valid tactic of gaining powerful positions.

Although the mainstream history would be funded to picture New York City through the lens of its founding ‘fathers’, its mayors, its judges, and the owners of the ‘Statue of Liberty’; the peoples’ history of the city will not forget this day as one of shame, and of systematic sham.

Joe Solmonese has an almost brilliant analysis on GLBT rights exclusively for the CNN.

As president of Human Rights Campaign, the largest organization representing people of alternative sexual orientations, Solmonese rightfully does a scathing criticism of American politicians unprepared to take up GLBT rights as crucial for the country’s progress.

However, the thesis that he has proposed through CNN mainly consists of applauds to the private sector companies of America for being progressive in direction of LGBT welfare.

In reality, this is hardly the case. More than many of us, Solmonese is himself aware of the great disparity of treatments that exists between straight people and GLBT people in this country, and at the same time, the great deal of reliance that the private sector companies and the government have on each other in ensuring mutual progress.

How then the HRC report presents a different picture? A closer critical look at the findings of “The State of the Workplace 2005-2006” belies the CNN headline. Here is a small analysis.

CNN Myths:

1. For the first time, more than half of all Fortune 500 companies offer domestic partner health insurance benefits to their employees, according to the Human Rights Campaign Foundation's annual "State of the Workplace" report.

Reality check: This is a statistical misnomer. The article does not say what is meant by “more than half” when it so optimistically heralds the new findings. The fact is only 51% of Fortune 500 companies offer domestic partner health insurance benefits. At least people concerned about GLBT issues could phrase it differently: almost half of all Fortune 500 companies do not offer the benefits? How does it sound in the face of the billionaire firms projecting GLBT a marketable segment all the while depriving employees their basic human rights.

2. 10 times the number of Fortune companies cover gender identity today compared to 2001.

Reality check: 10 times of some number sounds really big. But the article does not say what is the exact number. The answer is after 10 fold increase, its still 81 companies only! What is there to be so jubilant about when only 16% of all fortune 500 companies even care to merely “mention” gender identity in their nondiscrimination policies? This language could also have been worded differently.

3. We have also seen wins in anti-discrimination and benefits policies at the state and local levels. Our survey found that seven states prohibit discrimination in private sector employment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity -- California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico, Rhode Island and Washington, plus the District of Columbia. Ten additional states ban workplace discrimination based exclusively on sexual orientation.

Reality check: Only about 20% of states ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and only 14% consider gender identity worthwhile. This is not much to talk home about either.

What’s important to note here is that there is not much of a difference between the way private sector and public sector treat the issue of GLBT rights so far. Statistics do not overwhelmingly support such a thesis. Secondly, a pat in the back of few private companies help in diverting from the real issue –that huge percentage of such companies do not have a policy. Thirdly there is a critical difference between “having a policy” and “implementing” it. No studies of worth has been conducted to see how many companies indeed have gone ahead and “hired” employees from the GLBT communities.

Political Economy:

A political economic critique of the state of affairs would have surely presented a very different image than what has been portrayed by HRC here. On their own admit, the GLBT consumers in the US are worth $641 billion. When 69% of GLBT people have indicated their shopping decisions would be influenced by companies’ workplace policies supporting equal and fair treatment of their peoples, companies (although reluctantly) must merely be reciprocating a favor.

Finally, while analyzing the healthcare benefits to domestic partners, the biggest point goes amiss. When the big private companies can monopolize on commodity prices, and can collaborate with the state on mutual profits, to what extent have they demanded to support the technical amendments of GLBT rights provisions so far? First, the partners of GLBT people are not federally recognized as spouses yet. Secondly, no federal law is yet in place to ban any employment discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. At such a juncture, how many private companies have actually lobbied for radical measures? Without doing so, any amount of reformisms are just suspect to their intent of mincing profits off the $641 billion marketforce. After all, even the domestic partner health benefits issue is based on inequality. Current federal law taxes contributions to a domestic partner's health insurance premium as part of the employee's income. So if an employee makes $50,000 a year and his/her partner's insurance is worth $300 a month, then the employee will be taxed on $53,600 at the end of the year. A married couple in the same situation would be taxed only on the salary of $50,000.

When the basic precepts do not change, all the jubilation on progress towards "American Dream" are mere rhetorical. Its not some law owing to some intrinsic moral values or few kind hearted legislators or a humane company (not the least, the big profiteers of Fortune 500 gang) that make inroads for radical changes in society. It is through informed vigilant citizenry, that people take up the causes of human progress and bring normalcy to halt, and progress to take over. Till then, basking in half-glories are steps taken backwards.

Reminds us, what Frederick Douglas had so aptly quipped: “Not all movements are progress”.

More cases for retaliation come to fore, following Supreme Court’s decision last month favoring broader scopes for workers to challenge workplace discrimination.

As an only female mechanic worker at Granite Construction Co.’s Salt Lake City repair shop, Dena Joan Richardson says she was paid less than her male counterparts, given the worst tasks with the least responsibility and frequently subjected to sexual harassment by one male co-worker.

After her complaints, she was finally laid off by the company she worked for about 12 years, on insufficient grounds. Finally she has filed a lawsuit in federal court for gender discrimination and illegal retaliation.

“I don't want someone else to go through what I did….I went through hell. Even if I could do the job that another guy under me wasn't smart enough to do, they wouldn't let me do it,” Richardson says.

Incidentally, Granite has been named one of the Top 100 companies to work for by Fortune magazine the past three years!