When industry giants offer to write their own regulatory rules, we all lose. Just look at any industry, from manufacturing to fossil fuel extraction.

The same thing should go for Silicon Valley. But tech giants like Amazon, Facebook, and Google want to regulate themselves, and they’ve pitched Congress on a “grand bargain”1 that will destroy existing protections and leave us with much weaker rules. Tell Congress Not to listen: Don’t allow tech companies to regulate themselves when it comes to our privacy.

Amazon, Facebook, and Google have teamed up to push Congress to write their own rules when it comes to privacy law. In the process, they’ll step over any state-level legislation designed to protect to consumers’ data online — like California’s new, groundbreaking privacy law.2

Silicon Valley isn’t shy about this: they clearly value “innovation” over people’s privacy. In the past, Facebook and Google have been sued multiple times for violating existing privacy regulations.3 If tech companies are allowed to write their own industry regulations, there will be nothing to hold them accountable when – not if – they invade our privacy.

Thanks for taking action,

Tihi and the team at Demand Progress

Sources:
1. The Verge, “Democrats aren’t buying a proposal for big tech to write its own privacy rules,”  January 14, 2018

2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

Even though Congress passed the Equal Pay Act more than 50 years ago, women on average still only make 80 cents for every dollar a man makes. It’s 2019, and it’s long past time for this to change.
Every worker in America deserves to be paid based on their work, not their gender. That’s why I’m introducing the Paycheck Fairness Act in the Senate this week to change and improve equal pay laws and continue the important work of closing the gender wage gap.

I’m fighting for legislation to finally make equal pay for equal work a reality, but I need your help to make it happen. Add your name now to support the Paycheck Fairness Act.

The gender wage gap is hurting all of us — women, our families, our communities, and our economy. Combined, working women are losing out on $900 billion a year that could be used to buy groceries, pay for child care, support local businesses, and build retirement savings.

Ten years ago this week, I watched as President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Act, a good step forward in the fight to ensure women are paid fairly. We’ve made great strides in the last decade, but our fight isn’t finished until we fully close the wage gap and ensure every woman and man in this country is paid according to the quality of their work, and not their gender.
Sign your name now to join our fight for equal pay for equal work.
Thank you for your support,
Patty

pattymurray.com

A school nurse and vice principal at Binghamton East Middle School stripped searched four Black girls because they were acting “giddy” at lunch and school authorities suspected they were using drugs. Normal behavior for 12 year olds was used to justify strip searching four young Black girls in front of adults and traumatizing them. Three of the girls were forced to strip down to their underwear, while a fourth girl refused a search and was served with an in-school suspension instead.

We know that racist and sexist assumptions about Black girls lead to the perception that they are less innocent than white girls. These warped views play directly into the criminalization and rampant sexual abuse of Black girls; perpetrators aren’t worried about suffering serious consequences because societal messages tell them Black girls are without protection. These assumptions play directly into the fact that Black girls are six times more likely to be suspended from school than their white counterparts and lead to long term negative effects for their emotional and educational development. From the over-policing of Black girls hair, to strip searching them for exhibiting normal pre-teen behavior, the criminalization of Black girls must stop.

colorofchange.org
Here is the Petition:
Dear Dr. Tonia Thompson,

The events that took place at East Middle School on January 15, 2019 are unconscionable and cannot be allowed to go without just for the four girls who were embarrassed and traumatized. Strip searching four 12 year old Black girls because they were “giddy” during their lunch hour plays directly into harmful racist and sexist stereotypes that are pervasive about Black girls and results in their being suspended from school at six times the rate of their white counterparts. As the superintendent of Binghamton City School District, it is up to you to make this right.

Demand the Binghamton City School District End the Criminalization of Black Girl

At Color Of Change, we’re making the following demands of the Binghamton City School District:

• Fire the nurse, assistant principal, and principal of the school and any other personnel who oversaw the strip searches
• End all school strip searches district-wide
• Pay for culturally competent counseling for the four students involved
• Require all district employees to undergo ongoing cultural competency training

Target: Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Seattle Association, Washington Retail Association, Washington Hospitality Association, and other area business groups 

workingwa.org

Employers in the region have a key role to play to help us all ride out the Seattle Squeeze. Public agencies and some large companies have encouraged telecommuting, altered work schedules, and other similar steps — but not everyone works in an office.

We call on the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown Seattle Association, the retail lobby, and the restaurant lobby to join us in urging employers to do what it takes to offer some relief to the hundreds of thousands of people in our region who work in food service, retail, warehouses, caregiving, delivery, and other fields that require that a worker show up at a particular workplace in order to do their jobs.

What employers can do:

• PROVIDE AT LEAST TWO WEEKS’ NOTICE OF WORK SCHEDULES. Employees will need extra time to plan their lives, accommodate caregiving needs, and adjust their commutes given the level of congestion and increased travel-time expected.
• SET A MINIMUM SHIFT LENGTH OF AT LEAST FOUR HOURS.
  Extended commute times will make short shifts particularly hard for employees, and fewer shift changes means less trips in the region.
• DO NOT RELY ON ON-CALL SHIFTS. Expecting employees to be prepared to come to work without notice and arrive within a short time of being called in will be practically impossible during this period.
• ACCOMMODATE WORKERS WHO NEED TO MODIFY THEIR AVAILABILITY. Employers should go the extra mile to adjust employees’ schedules to accommodate transportation challenges, and plan more shift overlap to account for added unpredictability in travel times.
• ESTABLISH EMPLOYEE-TO-EMPLOYEE SHIFT SWAPPING SYSTEMS. Employees should be allowed to trade shifts with co-workers (including those who work at different locations) so they can provide additional flexibility to each other.
• WAIVE DISCIPLINE FOR EMPLOYEES WHO ARRIVE LATE TO WORK DUE TO TRANSPORTATION. Employees should not be penalized for our region’s transportation squeeze, including through the application of “points” in occurrence-based discipline systems, algorithmic management systems, and similar practices.
• CONTRIBUTE TO EMPLOYEES’ TRANSPORTATION COSTS. Policies which make transit free to employees can greatly increase ridership, reducing traffic impacts for everyone.

• AUDIT FOR COMPLIANCE WITH SEATTLE’S SECURE SCHEDULING ORDINANCE. Large food, coffee, and retail chains doing business within the city limits of Seattle are already obligated by law to provide advance notice, pay for on-call shifts, accommodate transportation-related scheduling needs, and more.

What gig economy companies can do:

• ADJUST PAY ALGORITHMS TO GIVE MORE WEIGHT TO TIME SPENT ON A JOB. Short-distance trips may take far longer to complete than usual, so pay rates should reflect time spent on the job rather than distance traveled.
• PROVIDE WORKERS THE ESTIMATED TIME INVOLVED IN A GIVEN JOB. Workers will need this information before choosing to accept or reject a job so they can avoid longer trips if they have family obligations or otherwise require flexibility.
• DON’T PENALIZE WORKERS FOR DECLINING JOBS THAT DON’T WORK FOR THEM. Nobody should risk their livelihood because they choose not to take jobs requiring long trips during a period of maximum traffic constraint.
• WAIVE APPLICATION OF CUSTOMER STAR RATINGS TO WORKERS’ EVALUATIONS. Some customers will express frustration with extended travel and delivery times through in-app ratings. Workers do not have control over these conditions, so these ratings should not be applied to decisions on discipline, terminate, or other evaluations.
• ENSURE ACCESS TO COMPANY REPRESENTATIVES WHEN ASSISTANCE IS NEEDED. Workers should have a place to go to resolve the situation if there is a transportation-related problem with completing a job.

About 60 million workers are covered by forced arbitration agreements which restrict their access to the courts and instead require labor rights claims to go to arbitration — but few people really know what arbitration looks like…  this eye-opening piece in Bloomberg .

The subject of the case may be a former Wall Street hotshot trying to collect on a $1 million bonus, but the details are nonetheless startling, and undoubtedly worth a closer look (as is the lovely illustration). Most memorable perhaps is the arbitrator who denied that he had fallen asleep but did allow that “it’s a challenge for any arbitrator to have to keep paying close attention” because “sometimes the witness is very repetitive.” But the kicker is the straightforwardness with which a corporate lawyer explains the benefits of this system: there are usually more employees than managers on juries, and “every employee hates their boss,” which affects their outlook on legal claims.