13 | June | 2017 | Be a Seed for Change

Catching up

Three things to know this week:

Every previous U.S. Labor Department under every previous presidential administration has held that a worker’s immigration status does not affect their right to minimum wage and other labor standards. But workers and advocates are increasingly concerned this practice has changed, creating new barriers to enforcement, and effectively incentivizing wage theft.

Ontario, Canada is raising its provincial minimum wage to $15/hour, lifting pay for 675,000 workers. At the current exchange rate, $15 Canadian is about $11.14/hour in U.S. currency.

Amazon is offering discounted Prime memberships to people who receive any form of government assistance through an EBT card. About half of all U.S. households are currently Prime members.

Two things to ask:

But do they tip the catering staff? A “five-star wedding” runs about $5,000 a guest, according to people who work to organize the weddings of the ultra-rich, but reject the job title of “wedding planner” because they associate it with Jennifer Lopez. New-money clients sometimes hire consultants to provide social media and PR strategy for the weddings, while old money clients like fifth-generation Rockefellers supposedly “will put the au pairs and the nannies and whoever raised them at the head table.”

Anyone have any ideas? Vacation resorts charging up to $1,200 a night say they’re struggling to find staff who can maintain their high standards, and also tend to their horses. Seems like there must be something that could be raised the would make more workers interested in taking a given job, but the notion seems not to have occurred to the stressed-out luxury peddlers.

And one thing that’s worth a closer look:

Surveying the political landscape in Great Britain, anthropologist, political thinker, and early Occupy activist David Graeber asks if people can become bored of being hopeless. Graeber suggests that despite the many defeats of working class politics in the UK, the aftermath of the Great Recession there has provoked a return to utopian thinking. The provocative piece — even more valuable in view of last week’s strong electoral performance by Labour — touches on everything from steampunk to Scottish science fiction, asking if perhaps despair has run its course and we’re on the cusp of historic change.

Read this far?

Consider yourself briefed, boss.

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos won’t say whether her agency is doing anything to curb sexual harassment in schools. Did they think we would just let that slide?

We deserve to know if our schools are safe.

National Women’s Law Center v. United States Department of Education
Here at NWLC, we believe no one should be pushed out of school because they’ve experienced sexual harassment or assault. Yet that’s the heartbreaking reality for too many survivors when their schools ignore their obligations under Title IX, the law that prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded schools. With that in mind, we submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the U.S. Department of Education this past January to learn whether and how the department has been handling investigations of sexual harassment and assault.

They refused to respond. Given Secretary DeVos’ ongoing failure to commit to Title IX enforcement—and Donald “When you’re a star, they let you do it” Trump’s terrible personal record on sexual assault, plus his administration’s poor civil rights record overall—their silence leaves us deeply concerned that this administration is doing nothing on behalf of survivors. That’s why we filed suit today, to compel them to live up to their legal responsibilities and turn over information about their sexual assault cases.

Read more about why we’re suing the U.S. Department of Education.
Share this graphic to spread the word: we deserve to know if they’re taking action to make sure our schools are safe.

Stopping the Attempt to Sneak Through a Dangerous Attack on Our Health Care
Late last week, it became clear that GOP leaders in Congress are moving at lightning speed to finalize their attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and gut the Medicaid program. So far, they’ve been keeping the bill language secret, but if they do what we expect, it would be devastating. Tens of millions of people will lose health care coverage, millions more could end up with insurance that doesn’t cover critical health care needs, like maternity care, and insurance plans could once again charge a survivor of breast cancer more for insurance. We’ve fought hard to get these protections written into law, and we refuse to go back to a time when simply being a woman was treated like a pre-existing condition.

Call your Senators at 202-224-3121 and tell them to reject attempts to repeal the ACA.
Then, tell your Senators to protect Medicaid.

#DisarmHate
Today marks a year since the killing of 49 and wounding of 58 members of the LGBTQ community at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. This coming Saturdaymarks two years since the massacre of nine Black worshippers at the historic Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C. To honor the victims of these attacks and the nearly 300,000 hate crimes that happen in America each year, and to speak up for common sense solutions to our country’s horrific gun violence epidemic, we have joined with Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, and a variety of organizations around the country to observe Disarm Hate Week.

A newly re-introduced bill in Congress would prohibit anyone convicted of a hate crime from purchasing or owning a gun. Read more about the bill in Newsweek.
Speak out: Use the hashtag #DisarmHate to join the conversation about how to end gun violence and hate crimes.
Members of the LGBTQ, Muslim, Latinx communities and allies are coming together to demonstrate unity in remembrance of the Pulse victims. Read why.

Resistance Must-Reads

The Trump administration is trying to cut back on agencies that combat workplace discrimination.
This young woman is showing the power of student voices to end sexual violence.
It’s going to take more than a few highly paid female CEOs to close the gender pay gap.

We the Resistance is our fight to protect our rights and freedoms and to defend the most vulnerable among us through powerful collective action. Every conversation you have with a loved one about the issues important to you, every call you make to Congress, every rally you attend is a part of that resistance. Join us — sign on to the We The Resistance manifesto.