Women's Rights Employment Law Blog

In one of the most volatile articles to have come out in recent times to deconstruct the Bush regime, Rolling Stone makes Halloween look scary for real.

"The 109th Congress is so bad that it makes you wonder if democracy is a failed experiment," says Jonathan Turley, a noted constitutional scholar and the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington Law School. "I think that if the Framers went to Capitol Hill today, it would shake their confidence in the system they created. Congress has become an exercise of raw power with no principles -- and in that environment corruption has flourished. The Republicans in Congress decided from the outset that their future would be inextricably tied to George Bush and his policies. It has become this sad session of members sitting down and drinking Kool-Aid delivered by Karl Rove. Congress became a mere extension of the White House."

The inimitable Matt Taibbi in the comprehensive dissection of the five factors and ten congressmen attacks the system as one of fault, not just the so-called leaders. He says: “The end result is a Congress that has hijacked the national treasury, frantically ceded power to the executive, and sold off the federal government in a private auction. It all happened before our very eyes.”

Taibbi goes on:

“One could go on and on about the scandals and failures of the past six years; to document them all would take . . . well, it would take more than ninety-three fucking days, that's for sure. But you can boil the whole sordid mess down to a few basic concepts. Sloth. Greed. Abuse of power. Hatred of democracy. Government as a cheap backroom deal, finished in time for thirty-six holes of the world's best golf. And brains too stupid to be ashamed of any of it. If we have learned nothing else in the Bush years, it's that this Congress cannot be reformed. The only way to change it is to get rid of it.

Fortunately, we still get that chance once in a while.”

Not sure if all of us share that optimism, even after fundamentally questioning the democracy as a failed experiment. But what the heck, a try to change the Congress is at least the first sane step towards something radical.

Bush administration has given green signal to new proposals for proliferation in single sex public education in the US. In fact over the years, the number of public schools exclusively for boys or girls has risen from 3 in 1995 to 241 today.

This is not just quite predictable on part of the conservative lobbies, but at the same rate defies the existing laws that were brought to force following years of struggles against sexist power structure.
The National Association of State Boards of Education says that historically, restricting enrollment in a public school program according to sex has been seen as a possible violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any educational program receiving federal funds. Though Title IX does not specifically disallow a district from offering single-sex schools, it does require that districts provide comparable facilities, courses, and services to boys and girls.

The NASBE site has described the arguments against single-sex schools, to distinguish the incidental factors affecting performance:

* Most studies of single-sex schools have been undertaken either in private schools or overseas. Student characteristics vary considerably between private and public schools and between American students and those of other countries; consequently, policymakers cannot assume that the positive outcomes associated with single-sex education documented by research would be replicated among diverse public school populations.

* Data suggest that parents and students who choose single-sex schools are more motivated and achievement-oriented than average. Therefore, the higher achievement documented in single-sex schools may be due to the nature of the students and families rather than the nature of the schools.

* Most single-sex schools have other attributes that correlate with higher academic achievement, such as a smaller student body, stronger emphasis on academics and higher level of commitment to the school's mission. Consequently, the positive outcomes attributed to single-sex schools could be due to institutional factors other than the single-sex student body.

Finally, some opponents to single-sex education believe that efforts to implement a few single-sex schools will subtract resources and energy from the more important goal of improving public schools overall. They are also concerned that tampering with Title IX regulations could undermine decades of work in bringing equality to boys' and girls' programs. Others contend that separating boys and girls can lead to more, rather than less, sex bias. They also point to research showing that when certain groups (such as low-achieving or at-risk boys) are targeted for enrollment in single-sex schools, these schools can be labeled as being for "bad kids," thereby reinforcing stereotypes.

Caryl Rivers and Rosalind C. Barnett in LA Times opine:

“We need to ensure that any single-sex classrooms set up in public schools under the proposed Bush administration regulations will not be based on unscientific ideas about boys and girls.
We know that children learn in many different ways, but segregating them by sex will serve most of our children poorly.”

State of New York better pay attention: In a welcomed decision, the State Supreme Court in New Jersey said today that same-sex couples are entitled to “the same rights and benefits enjoyed by opposite-sex couples under the civil marriage statutes.” However, whether that status would be called marriage, or something else, “is a matter left to the democratic process,” according to the court ruling.

The complete decision of NJ court can be accessed by clicking here.

(Last summer, NY Court of Appeals had rejected the possibility of gay marriage while advocating traditional views regarding desirability of marriage as a necessary union between a man and a woman.)

Is quitting the job an option that women at workplace exercise or is the workplace becoming systematically hostile along with its abetting environment to such an extent that women are left with no option?

A new report “’Opt Out' or Pushed Out? How the Press Covers Work/Family Conflict -- The Untold Story of Why Women Leave the Workplace" offers an incisive look at the factors in the workplace that “push women out”.

Researchers at the Center for WorkLife Law have analyzed 119 news articles published in major U.S. newspapers and regional papers between January 1, 1980 and March 10, 2006 to present a comprehensive account of myths and realities surrounding workplace/workforce mismatch, macroeconomic deskilling, inflexible workplace, discrimination and lack of supports for working families.

According to the lead author of the study, Prof Joan C. Williams: “Too often, the press sends the message that work/family conflict is about professional women who ‘opt out.’ Our analysis shows that many women do not ‘opt out’—they are pushed out by workplace inflexibility, lack of child care, and job discrimination.”

The detailed report is available online now.

Taking a stab at Mark Foley scandal, Ellen Bravo of University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee throws light on why the Congress still hasn’t got in when it comes to sexual harassment.

It's 15 years since the Clarence Thomas hearings, and congressional leaders still don't get the sexual harassment issue.

Look at the Mark Foley scandal.

Hastert and company are not alone in their bungling.

# Suzanne Swift joined the armed forces, only to experience sexual harassment from three superior officers in Iraq. Swift reported an incident to an Equal Opportunity officer; nothing happened. The second was a squad leader, who Swift said "singled me out as the person he would have sex with during deployment." Only 19, she "first fell for it," then broke it off. She suffered multiple forms of retaliation. After she reported the third officer, some action was taken, but she was accused of sleeping with the man, told to read the policy on honesty and attend training on preventing harassment. Once on leave, Swift found herself unable to return to Iraq. She faces court martial.

# An aide to a big city mayor called the personnel office to ask how to file a sexual harassment complaint against him. The personnel officer told her a form would be mailed -- then promptly called the mayor's chief of staff, who alerted the entire staff. The aide claimed the mayor assaulted her nine times over five years. The mayor held a press conference to apologize for a "consensual affair," claiming it wasn't harassment because the two were "equals." Besides, his supporters maintained, she was a smart woman who knew the law. Why hadn't she come forward earlier?

# Two women engineers at a well-respected company put up with nudie posters and crude talk as the only females among 50 males. Then one of the women was ordered to accompany her boss on a long car ride to another state, something outside her job description. The manager engaged in a steady stream of sexual talk, including frequent requests to stop for wine and a hot tub. When the employee complained to the head of HR, she was told, "What happens off company property is outside our purview."

In each case, what's lacking is an understanding of power. Whether for sexual gratification or the more common purpose of humiliation and degradation, sexual harassment is an abuse of power. The imbalance makes it harder for those targeted to take action or to make it stop.

More:

A councilman who is now facing sexual harassment compliant says, “I cant help it if I have a sense of humor.” And what is his type of joke like?

He offered his services to rape and abuse people at the Center for Abuse and Rape Emergencies.
Sun and Weekly Herald reports that Kay Tvaroch, executive director for CARE, which provides various services to survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence and other violent crimes, said this isn't the first time she's heard someone make that joke.

However, despite the serious public misconduct such as this, Tom Poole, the councilman has decided to run for reelection with even more adamance. Time people found out the sickness in it all.

Jennifer Loviglio offers a personal account of sexual harassment and how workplaces today almost normalize the crime as a chore.

Excerpts:

I grew up knowing this: it's my body and no one has the right to say or do anything that makes me feel uncomfortable. My mother tried to build a protective wall around me by hammering in this message repeatedly.

By the time I was 14 and started waitressing, I'd heard it a zillion times: "It's your body and no one has a ...."

"Well duh, Ma," I'd interrupt. "It's my body. Like, whose else would it be?"

My first week waitressing, I got the warning. It's the same warning the congressional pages got about Representative Mark Foley, the same warning people all over the country give newcomers every day: "Look out for so-and-so. He's a creep."

I can't remember my first creep's name. I can't remember his name for the same reason that the warning is so ubiquitous: because no one does anything about sexual harassment. There have been so many creeps since my first creep that their names all blur together. So many leering co-workers, groping college custodians, obnoxious dates, and hinting bosses. It's hard to keep track.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. At the restaurant, I avoided... let's call him "Mark." He was the cook, so I had to be friendly. As long as I stayed away from the walk-in freezer in the basement, I was safe. I saw the other waitresses race up the stairs carrying bins of lettuce or tuna, swearing and grabbing napkins to wipe Mark's smelly kiss goo off.

They were older than me, and they put up with it. But I knew it was wrong. Like a 4-year-old acting out an imaginary battle with the bad guys, I decided that if Mark pinned and groped me, his ass would be out of a job and in court.

Be gentle: I was only 14 years old. What did I know?

More here.

A derogatory comment by a Michigan county Animal Control Director has violated the sexual harassment policy and director Keith Huff could face disciplinary action by the end of the week.
Gaylord Herald Times has this as the top story today.

The Otsego County's sexual harassment policy, which was recently updated, states "any employee or department manager who violates this policy is subject to discipline up to and including discharge." The policy lists "Making derogatory comments, insults, suggestive remarks or jokes based on a person's sex," as an example of such harassment. Although not as a consequence of the finding, Huff is planning retirement soon.

Workers’ share of the economy has fallen in 4 of the Group of 7 industrialized nations. And that’s not even half of the untold saga of capitalism. All the industrialized countries put together, the average wages and benefits’ share of GDP in the industrialized countries between 2000 and 2005 shows a decline percentage of -14.5!

Whereas Britain and France muster up together with just 1 point increase, the rest of all major capitalist countries have a -15.5 change in percentage points.

What does this entail? Of course the corporate media may not yet declare it as the beginning of end of the global monopolists, but trends suggests workers’ discontent is so high amidst the prevailing contradictions that things to take shape may be equally unpredictable.

Academic cluelessness:
A New York Times report runs an extensive story about the reasons why such a change might have come about, and has reached about nowhere. Of course, the economists from Princeton and MIT are quoted as having failed to understand the decline even as the steady fall in workers share has characterized market economy since as many as four decades now!

The report claims that factors such as immigration, job exports, and arrival of new technologies have caused the mismatch. And that’s what the economists are thinking, according to the report, to be “eating into the workers’ share of the pie”.

Failed observations:
Amidst the disbeliefs and shocks at the apparent decline in workers’ share, attacking the symptoms rather than the cause seems to be a fatalistic observation. Trade unions have lost all their bargaining power today as opposed to during 1929, when workers enjoyed almost half of the economic pie: That’s true. Also true are the apprehensions around new technologies, immigration and job exports. But the main question that the acclaimed economists of the industrialized countries seem to be deliberately evading is centered around their own fallacious alignment with an economic system that is supposed to produce exactly what it is producing today. In fact, modern capitalism thrives on curbing workers’ rights (and hence they even buy off the labor unions), on encouraging cheap labor imports to the country (which is why immigrants work at inhuman wages to do the kinds of jobs they are called for), and through establishing sweatshops in underdeveloped countries so that the companies back in the industrialized countries can maximize their profits (which is basically the canon of capitalism) by any means.

To discount the question of economic imperialism as an advanced stage of modern capitalism is a deliberate omission in the zeal to advocate “free market” philosophy that only works towards disempowering workers world over as seen from recent experiences of American hegemony in Latin America (through monstrous anti-farmers measures by NAFTA), in Africa (through the IMF domination in forcing the resource-rich continent to remain poverty-stricken for centuries), and in Asia (through free-trade of cheap imports and sweatshops).

The Group of 7 countries have been notorious in their own domestic front in terms of treatment of workers, which is why they extend the trait of global capital to reinforce the “cheap call centers” in India and “cheap imports” from China. It is not enough to condemn the third world countries for the economic mess in the industrialized world. In fact, the case demands for quite the contrary standpoint.

Will the economic analysts ever shun their comfortable alignment with the monopolists and think outside the box, at least now? If not, the time for atonement may be on the way, considering that workers have historically not held up for too long, or far too much.

(Following is the map of workers’ share, courtesy NYT)

The giant has fallen. The world’s largest retailer Wal-Mart has been ordered to pay at least $78m in compensation to workers for having forced its employees to work during breaks.

The class action was brought by about 187,000 staff who worked for Wal-Mart between March 1997 and May 2006.

Dolores Hummel, the former employee who headed the case, also used to work at Sam's Club, a branch of Wal-Mart owned wholesaler for 10 years. She had alleged that she regularly had to work during breaks and after closing time because of work demands. Ms Hummel estimated she worked between eight and 12 hours unpaid each month. In the lawsuit, she said: "One of Wal-Mart's undisclosed secrets for its profitability is its creation and implementation of a system that encourages off-the-clock work for its hourly employees."

A lawyer for the plaintiffs said he would seek an extra $62m in damages because the jury had found that Wal-Mart acted in bad faith.

Wal-Mart’s pretension as a law-abiding and considerate retailer for employees and consumers has been exposed thread-bare with this decision, although even in the past (December), a California court had ruled Wal-Mart must pay $172m in compensation to 116,000 employees who had been denied meal breaks.

More details on the landmark verdict on the New York Times:

Is it a grim irony of the free market globalization that American employees have to now seek uninsured healthcare in low-cost overseas facilities? Or is it just a smarter individual choice that an employee has as his/her right to make in regards to health?

Could be either way actually, as a recent New York Times article shows, which throws light on the recent trends in a healthcare-world going "flat"--to borrow Friedman's term. But in both, it appears like, the employees are the losers.

Costs and responsibilities:

"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane"-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Healthcare is not just unfree in the United States, the policies around it are actually anti-people in many ways as well. As a result, the system has deprived 42.6 million people in the US from having basic insurance.

The World Health Report (WHO, Geneva, 2000) specifies three main features of a good healthcare system: Good health, responsiveness, and fairness in financing. And in most cases, costs drive the healthcare responsiveness.

As a result, the UN study among 191 countries indicates that the United States has by far the most expensive health care system in the world, based on health expenditures per capita (per person), and on total expenditures as a percentage of gross domestic product. The US spends on an average more than $4,200 per capita on health care which is twice the OECD and way more than the next most expensive country (Switzerland, $2,700).

Likewise, in terms of access, a study entitled "Health Care in the US: Facts and the Choices", has found that the US is the only country in the developed world, except for South Africa, that does not provide health care for all its citizens.

Choices of Free Market:

The hugely exaggerated "free market" is a misnomer. Indeed, markets are meant not to be free, neither as in a free beer, nor as in freedom. Monopoly is a logical consequence of capitalism and healthcare sector can not remain unaffected by this feature.

But what is worse, are the choices that the monopolists provide: "Either you are with us, or you are with our debtors". Not just Nike thrives on its sweatshops, today the big pharma and medical industry aim at the world market for high profit margins as well.

India is surely a low-cost option for many American employees. But whether it is an effective option is still under consideration. Sure, the costs have come down for the American consumers, but owing to foreign money transaction, the costs have gone up quite high on an average, in local currency so much that it has been affecting the people back there. India, for example, used to have a stable and free healthcare system as part of its welfare economy, with all major hospitals in the country arising out of excellent state-funded medical university campuses. With the globalization process, today an average Indian national has nowhere to go, since the privatization of hospitals wooing foreign clients have left almost no option.

Creation of health haves and have-nots:

Even if we ignore the local plights of developing economies, will all Americans go overseas for treatments? The answer is no. In fact, when it comes to "quality of medical response", US ranks as number one in the world. In other words, if an American affords the best insurance package, he/she does not need to even change counties, let alone countries.

In effect, the current healthcare system in the US then, creates the following conditions:

1. A class society within the US among those who have no insurance and those who have.

2. An environment of differing access to healthcare depending on the cost status. Crudely it means, the richer one is, the better service there is. This is only logical since America has the most expensive and least accessible healthcare system.

3. Forces those with poor insurance or no insurance to seek healthcare support overseas. That is, it forces people to let go of their rights as American citizens to access the 'best healthcare quality' services.

4. Fosters further divides between the rich and the poor in developing economies like India where privatization of hospitals benefits those who carry in foreign currency of higher exchange value or only those within India who can match such bids.

What it says to the American employees?

All forms of research show that we need to understand why and under what conditions do most employees seek overseas benefits. The solution does not lie merely in preventing the person to travel abroad. Indeed, this could be violating the individual rights of the employee to make such a decision in his/her life's favor. Instead, the root cause needs to be addressed, and that is to say, the healthcare system of the US, akin to a white elephant, needs complete overhaul. It needs to be made universally accessible, almost free, and highly democratized for all citizens of this country for it to be even called a healthcare system. So far, it acts merely as a "healthfare" system.

Time has come to ask the slightly different question: Its not what people can do for their own healthcare, its what the healthcare system must be made to do for the people.

The New York Times article follows:

Union Disrupts Plan to Send Ailing Workers to India for Cheaper Medical Care

Continue reading "Why do employees opt for overseas care? " »

A four part series published by New York Times is examining how American religious organizations benefit from an increasingly accommodating government.
The second part published today is related to employee rights vis-à-vis religious employers--another scandal for our age..
A must-read.

Where Faith Abides, Employees Have Few Rights
By DIANA B. HENRIQUES
Published: October 9, 2006

J. Jeffrey Heck, a lawyer in Mansfield, Ohio, usually sits on management’s side of the table. “The only employee cases I take are those that poke my buttons,” he said. “And this one really did.”

His client was a middle-aged novice training to become a nun in a Roman Catholic religious order in Toledo. She said she had been dismissed by the order after she became seriously ill — including a diagnosis of breast cancer.

In her complaint, the novice, Mary Rosati, said she had visited her doctor with her immediate supervisor and the mother superior. After the doctor explained her treatment options for breast cancer, the complaint continued, the mother superior announced: “We will have to let her go. I don’t think we can take care of her.”

Some months later Ms. Rosati was told that the mother superior and the order’s governing council had decided to dismiss her after concluding that “she was not called to our way of life,” according to the complaint. Along with her occupation and her home, she lost her health insurance, Mr. Heck said. Ms. Rosati, who still lacks health insurance but whose cancer is in remission, said she preferred not to discuss her experience because of her continuing love for the church.

In court filings, lawyers for the diocese denied her account of these events. If Ms. Rosati had worked for a business or almost any secular employer, she might have prevailed under the protections of the Americans With Disabilities Act. Instead, her complaint was dismissed in December 2002 by Judge James G. Carr of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, who decided that the order’s decision to dismiss her “was an ecclesiastical decision” that was “beyond the reach of the court” because “the First Amendment requires churches to be free from government interference in matters of church governance and administration.”

Legislators and regulators are not the only people in government who have drafted special rules for religious organizations. Judges, too, have carved out or preserved safe havens that shield religious employers of all faiths from most employee lawsuits, from laws protecting pensions and providing unemployment benefits, and from laws that give employees the right to form unions to negotiate with their employers.

Some of these exemptions are rooted in long traditions, while others have grown from court decisions over the last 15 years. Together, they are expanding the ability of religious organizations — especially religious schools — to manage their affairs with less interference from the government and their own employees.

Continue reading "Faith rules over rights" »

An excellent piece by Vicki Lutz shatters some myths around domestic violence.

She debunks three widespread myths. One, in terms of domestic violence not being a big problem in the US. She says DV is just not a big problem, it is an American epidemic. Indeed, family violence is the leading cause of injuries to women ages 15-44, more common than automobile accidents, muggings and cancer combined in this country.

Secondly, she says that the proposed solution regarding batterer just needing to learn how to control their tempers is itself based on a myth. She opines instead that, domestic violence is a pattern of abuse where the abuser's goal is to obtain or maintain power and control over a partner, love interest or family member by means of emotional, psychological, physical, sexual or economic abusive behavior.

Finally, it’s a myth that drinking or drug abuse causes domestic violence. Indeed she cites Alcoholics Anonymous saying that a batterer who completes the 90-day program will "graduate" as a sober batterer eventually.

Violence against women by their live-in spouses or partners is a widespread phenomenon, both in the developed and developing world, as well as in rural and urban areas, the most comprehensive and scientific international study on the topic has confirmed.

A New York Times article also mentions the following:
The rate of abuse by partners is estimated to be around 20 percent to 25 percent in the European Union, smaller studies have found, although the problem is reported to the police in only a tiny fraction of cases.

In the United States, national surveys by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found that about 25 percent of women said that they had been physically or sexually assaulted by a spouse, partner or date.

Edwardsburg hosting Oct. 3 domestic violence vigil

Alternatives to Family Violence Honors 28 Years!

Women's shelter sponsoring 5K-10K run and Domestic Violence Speak-Out

Victims of domestic violence remembered

Work vs. domestic violence honored

Domestic violence court a success ‘by any yardstick’

Event to raise awareness of domestic violence

Shining a light on domestic violence

Domestic violence stings Mesa

Area raises awareness of domestic violence

SILENT WITNESS: Event kicks off Domestic Violence Awareness Month

Greenwood authorities investigate another domestic violence killing

Time to judge the system in domestic violence

13th Annual Domestic Violence Remembrance Vigil

Breaking a cycle of violence

Upcoming events for domestic violence month:

7 p.m. Tuesday, Moravian College: Beginning Over Foundation will hold a public presentation along with a silent witness display, which features life-size silhouettes to represent women killed by domestic violence.

12 to 2 p.m. Oct. 14, St. Paul United Methodist Church, Hellertown: Patching Hearts, a free program for children of parents affected by domestic violence. To register call Siusanne Nichols at Turning Point of the Lehigh Valley at 610-797-0530, Ext. 221.

6:30 p.m. Oct. 19, Muhlenberg College: Turning Point of the Lehigh Valley will hold a candlelight vigil.

5 to 9 p.m. Oct. 26, T.C. Salon in Bethlehem: Girls Night Out, which will benefit Beginning Over Foundation and Turning Point of the Lehigh Valley. For tickets or information call chairwoman Donna Bartos at 610-438-8533.

A National Labor Relations Board ruling may prevent more than 8 million workers from becoming union members.

The ruling clearly exempts the supervisors from memberships, and so it has brought into its scope all those workers who oversee another employee and are held accountable if that subordinate performs poorly. The majority also has ruled that workers could be deemed supervisors if they were assigned supervisory duties just 10 percent to 15 percent of their total work time.

Steven Greenhouse of New York Times today has treated the story at length:

Board Redefines Rules for Union Exemption In a decision condemned by unions but praised by business, the National Labor Relations Board issued a ruling yesterday that will exempt registered nurses — and many other workers — from union membership if they have certain kinds of supervisory duties.

Some labor experts predicted that the ruling could affect more than eight million workers who might also be deemed supervisors, including teachers who oversee aides. The board’s 3-to-2 decision involved nurses overseeing shifts at a Michigan hospital.

Continue reading "Union exemption to affect 8 million" »

A compelling commentary by Margaret Wertheim dealing with the widespread bias against women in science and engineering as published in New York Times today:

Numbers Are Male, Said Pythagoras, and the Idea Persists

When I was a physics major in the late 1970’s, my very few fellow female students and I had high hopes that women would soon stand equal with men in science. But progress has proved slower than many of us imagined. A report last month by the National Academy of Sciences documents widespread bias against women in science and engineering and recommends a sweeping overhaul of our institutions.

While there may indeed be subtle biological differences contributing to the scarcity of women in the top ranks of science, interviews make clear that many female scientists continue to experience both overt and covert discrimination.

The academy’s report is welcome, yet there is reason to believe that when it comes to the mathematically intensive sciences like physics and astronomy, it is not just bureaucracies that stand in the way.

Female physicists, astronomers and mathematicians are up against more than 2,000 years of convention that has long portrayed these fields as inherently male. Though women are no longer barred from university laboratories and scientific societies, the idea that they are innately less suited to mathematical science is deeply ingrained in our cultural genes.

Continue reading "Bias begins with the numbers" »