A Great Day for Pregnant Workers in Massachusetts


   A Better Balance
Yesterday, after many years of advocacy, the Massachusetts Senate passed the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA)! 
The bill will make it illegal for most Massachusetts employers to deny reasonable accommodations to pregnant workers. Now it is one step closer to heading to the Governor’s desk, where he is expected to sign it. Massachusetts will become the 23rd state to grant explicit protections for pregnant workers in need of accommodations.
Under the PWFA, if a pregnant worker requests, for example, a few more breaks at work, or time off to recover from childbirth, or a temporary transfer to a less strenuous position, employers must grant such an accommodation unless it would be extremely difficult or expensive for them to do so. The legislation also makes clear that employers must provide a private space, other than a bathroom, to employees who are nursing and need to express breast milk at work. Women cannot be pushed out of their jobs or forced to risk their health.
This is a crucial, and hard fought, step forward for Massachusetts workers. A Better Balance has been working with advocates on this bill since 2014. We assisted in drafting the legislation, conducted legal research, authored a Letter to the Editor in the Boston Globe, co-authored a fact sheet, submitted testimony in support, negotiated with the business community, assisted with story collection and other communications support, and worked closely with local advocates and lawmakers every step of the way. For example, we had many conversations with the Massachusetts business lobby, AIM, to address some of their concerns about prior versions of the legislation. AIM now supports the legislation, demonstrating the widespread enthusiasm around this issue.
As MotherWoman, the coalition leading the PWFA effort in Massachusetts recently said, “Through a great collaborative effort among legislative sponsors, Rep. Dave Rogers, Rep. Ellen Story and Sen. Joan Lovely, our dedicated legal advocates at A Better Balance, and the team at AIM — who were so generous with their time and their attention to detail — we have a better proposal…It’s an important support for moms, children and families, and it makes good sense for both employers and employees.”
Congratulations to all those who worked on this campaign! Working families in Massachusetts have great reason to celebrate today! Please join us in spreading the good news.

on this day 7/3 1930 – The U.S. Congress created the U.S. Veterans Administration. 


1608 – The city of Quebec was founded by Samuel de Champlain.

1775 – U.S. Gen. George Washington took command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, MA.

1790 – In Paris, the marquis of Condorcet proposed granting civil rights to women.

1844 – Ambassador Caleb Cushing successfully negotiated a commercial treaty with China that opened five Chinese ports to U.S. merchants and protected the rights of American citizens in China.

1863 – The U.S. Civil War Battle of Gettysburg, PA, ended after three days. It was a major victory for the North as Confederate troops retreated.

1871 – The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad Company introduced the first narrow-gauge locomotive. It was called the “Montezuma.”

1880 – “Science” began publication. Thomas Edison had provided the principle funding.

1890 – IDaho became the 43rd state to join the United States of America. 

1898 – During the Spanish American War, a fleet of Spanish ships in Cuba’s Santiago Harbor attempted to run a blockade of U.S. naval forces. Nearly all of the Spanish ships were destroyed in the battle that followed.

1903 – The first cable across the Pacific Ocean was spliced between Honolulu, Midway, Guam and Manila.

1912 – Rube Marquard of the New York Giants set a baseball pitching record when earned his 19th consecutive win.

1922 – “Fruit Garden and Home” magazine was introduced. It was later renamed “Better Homes and Gardens.”

1924 – Clarence Birdseye founded the General Seafood Corp.

1930 – The U.S. Congress created the U.S. Veterans Administration. 

1934 – U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) made its first payment to Lydia Losiger. 

1937 – Del Mar race track opened in Del Mar, CA.

1939 – Chic Young’s comic strip character, “Blondie” was first heard on CBS radio.

1940 – Bud Abbott and Lou Costello debuted on NBC radio.

1944 – The U.S. First Army opened a general offensive to break out of the hedgerow area of Normandy, France.

1944 – During World War II, Soviet forces recaptured Minsk.

1945 – U.S. troops landed at Balikpapan and take Sepinggan airfield on Borneo in the Pacific.

1945 – The first civilian passenger car built since February 1942 was driven off the assembly line at the Ford Motor Company plant in Detroit, MI. Production had been diverted due to World War II.

i dispute the info above with the info below…could be more info out there as well

1915- The first Patterson-Greenfield car debuted in 1915 and was sold for $850. With a four-cylinder Continental engine, the car was comparable to the contemporary Ford Model T. The Patterson-Greenfield car may, in fact, have been more sophisticated than Ford’s car, but C.R. Patterson & Sons never matched Ford’s manufacturing capability

1950 – U.S. carrier-based planes attacked airfields in the Pyongyang-Chinnampo area of North Korea in the first air-strike of the Korean War.

1954 – Food rationing ended in Great Britain almost nine years after the end of World War II.

1962 – Jackie Robinson became the first African American to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. 

1974 – The Threshold Test Ban Treaty was signed, prohibiting underground nuclear weapons tests with yields greater than 150 kilotons. 

1981 – The Associated Press ran its first story about two rare illnesses afflicting homosexual men. One of the diseases was later named AIDS.

1986 – U.S. President Reagan presided over a ceremony in New York Harbor that saw the relighting of the renovated Statue of Liberty.

1991 – U.S. President George H.W. Bush formally inaugurated the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota.

New law protects Seattle employees from erratic work schedules


by KOMO Staff

SEATTLE – A new law designed to protect Seattle’s restaurant and retail employees went into effect Saturday.

The Secure Scheduling Law is designed to help hourly workers with erratic work schedules. The new law impacts more than 1000 businesses, including REI and Nordstrom.

 

The law mandates that employers post work schedules at least 14 days in advance.

It also decrees that employees have at least 10 hours off in-between shifts and give scheduling preference to employees with child and healthcare needs, as well as those who have educational requests.

For many retail employees, this is a big deal.

“I know my fiance is looking forward to it,” Parker Seanan, a local resident, said. “If she has to work a late shift and then early the next morning, she gets time-and-a-half, which is awesome.”

For other companies, such as Ivars, a Seattle-based seafood chain, the new law doesn’t change much.

Ivars President Bob Donegan says the company has always scheduled people with lots of time. He also says the restaurant’s hours of operation allow for lots of time off between shifts.

The ordinance only affects businesses with more than 500 employees, which some people say isn’t fair, pointing out that it ignores employees at smaller stores and restaurants.

for the video and or more information: komonews.com

WA state 2yr budget highlights … $43.7 bil budget averts govt shutdown


New tax revenue

  • $1.6 billion from an increase in the state property tax earmarked for education.

• $431.8 million from expansion of online sales-tax collections.

• $15.6 million from eliminating tax breaks on bottled water and extracted fuels.

New spending

• $1.8 billion added to public schools.

• $618 million for state-worker pay raises.

• $102 million to improve Washington’s troubled mental-health system.

• $75 million added to higher education.

• $25 million to expand early-childhood education.

• $6.3 million to create a new state Department of Children, Youth and Families.

• $4.6 million to fund a clean-air program that caps carbon emissions from a handful of businesses.

• $3.2 million to the Department of Corrections to hire records staffers and beef up its IT systems in the wake of a long-running mistaken release of prisoners.

resource: seattletimes.com

A look at 2017 ~~~ Sage, Working Washington


We are Working Washington

This weekend marks the halfway point through the year and even though we’ve still got a good six months ahead of us, I’m proud to say Working Washington has gotten enough done that we need to break out the bullet points.

So far in 2017, with your support:

  • We kicked off the New Year by celebrating minimum wage increases in Seattle and across the state — and since then we’ve seen record-low unemployment, and job growth in all 39 counties.
  • We helped stop anti-minimum wage fast food CEO Andy Puzder from getting appointed to be the U.S. Secretary of Labor.
  • We organized, spoke out, and took action to make paid family leave one of the key issues in state politics this year, setting the stage for a potential breakthrough.
  • We exposed the misleading practice of minimum wage surcharges.
  • We updated our groundbreaking What’s my Wage app to help workers navigate the various minimum wage rates across the state.
  • We re-launched the BossFeed Briefing, our weekly roundup of key news on workers rights & inequality.
  • We helped lead a powerful protest in Yakima in defense of affordable healthcare.
  • We launched a project to train workers to address health & safety issues on the job.
  • We co-hosted a forum for Seattle mayoral candidates to make sure worker voices are part of the public debate.
  • We grew our movement by more than 15,000 people.
  • And just a couple days from now on July 1st, secure scheduling takes effect for thousands of Seattle food, coffee, and retail workers.

All that — and we’re only halfway through the year!

Click here to contribute $25 or whatever you can afford so we can build on that success and continue to break ground in the second half of the year. 

CONTRIBUTE

I feel good about what we’ve accomplished so far together. It’s almost enough that we could maybe get away with just sitting tight and phoning it in for the rest of the year.

But that’s not how Working Washington rolls. In the months ahead we are going to keep on getting it done and we’re going to make that list of bullet points grow even longer.

Here’s a sneak peek: We want to build a voice for workers in state politics with our first-ever statewide candidate endorsements. We want to roll out innovative new approaches to organizing workers in key industries. We want to build new partnerships across the state to address issues like housing, transportation, and immigration that affect workers’ lives when they’re not on the clock. And so much more.…

And yeah, that’s a lot to get done, but we’re already halfway there — and with your support we’ll make it. (I swear.)

You read our emails. (The good ones at least. 🙂 ) You take action when it’s needed. You support our work in all kinds of ways, and you’ve helped make all this happen. Now can you take the next step to build our movement by making a contribution today?

If you’ve saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately:

Thanks for everything you do,
Sage, Working Washington

 

P.S. Woah, woah, living on a prayer.