Tag Archives: Barack Obama

1/2014 a repost

The New Jersey Legislature passed an important pregnancy discrimination bill(s2995/a4486)by an overwhelming majority earlier this year. Governor Christie signed the bill into law. According to Dina Baskst,Co-Founder and Co-President of A Better Balance,”This is a great day for the women of New jersey-this path breaking law will allow women the ability to stay healthy and on the job while pregnant,ensuring economic security and fairness for them and their families.”

A huge thanks goes out to our New Jersey supporters, who called and e-mailed Governor Christie to encourage him to sign the bill. You made this happen!

The law will protect New Jersey women who are pregnant and need a simple accommodation in order to stay healthy and on the job. Unfortunately, despite the fact that pregnancy discrimination has been illegal in the United States for over thirty-five years, women are still forced off the job when they need a simple adjustment at work, such as temporary relief from heavy lifting, extra bathroom or water breaks, or time off to recover from childbirth. The law will put an end to this practice in New Jersey. A Better Balance was instrumental in getting the law passed, including testifying at both a Senate and Assembly hearing on the law and crafting bill language.

The law goes into effect immediately, so if you or someone you know has any problems at work while pregnant, please call our advice and counseling legal hotline at 212-430-5982.

This bill, which passed with vast bipartisan support, represents the latest victory in a growing movement for stronger pregnancy discrimination protections. Philadelphia and Wisconsin recently introduced pregnancy discrimination legislation and later this month, a similar law in New York City will go into effect. Finally, the federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act currently has 117 cosponsors in the House of Representatives and 20 cosponsors in the Senate.

Thank you for all your support,

Sherry, Dina, Phoebe, Jared, Elizabeth, Liz, Risha, & Rachel

P.S. Watch this video of NYC Mayor de Blasio at last week’s New York City Paid Sick Days press conference, where he thanks A Better Balance for our leadership (at the two minute mark).

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Turn up the heat on McDonald’s

11/24/2014 Nativegrl77

Let’s take to Twitter and tell McDonald’s there’s no excuse to continue buying palm oil that pollutes our atmosphere and drives forest destruction.

Turn Up the Heat on McDonald’s

Add your voice to publicly call out McDonald’s and tell them that—for the sake of our atmosphere, tropical forests, and endangered species—the time to act on deforestation-free palm oil is now.

Share our graphic today!

ACTION ALERT
Tell McDonald’s: It’s Time to Go Deforestation-Free!

Today, on National Fast Food Day, we need your help to turn up the heat on McDonald’s. Let’s take to Twitter to publicly call McDonald’s out.

As our report Donuts, Deodorant, Deforestation: Scoring America’s Top Brands on Their Palm Oil Commitments documented, a new standard for responsible palm oil—one that protects tropical forests and our climate—has emerged. As tropical forests are cleared to make way for plantations for palm oil production, carbon is released into the atmosphere, driving global warming and shrinking habitats for endangered species. Tropical deforestation currently accounts for about 10 percent of the world’s heat-trapping emissions.

More than 28,000 UCS supporters like you told six of America’s top brands that there’s no excuse to continue buying palm oil that pollutes our atmosphere and drives forest destruction.

And five out of six listened! Thanks to your letters, Dunkin’ Brands (owner of Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins), Colgate-Palmolive, Procter & Gamble, General Mills, and PepsiCo released or strengthened their palm oil policies. Everyone, that is, except McDonald’s.

McDonald’s continues to use palm oil that could be wreaking havoc on our environment. As the largest fast food company in the world, McDonald’s should set the bar high and make a firm commitment to use only deforestation-free palm oil. Instead, they continue to stall.

Join our mass mobilization by tweeting our graphic telling McDonald’s that—for the sake of our atmosphere, tropical forests, and endangered species—the time to act is now. If you’re not on Twitter, you can still get involved.

Together, we are holding corporations accountable and transforming the palm oil industry.

Sincerely,

Miriam Swaffer
Outreach Coordinator
Tropical Forest & Climate Initiative
Union of Concerned Scientists

P.S. McDonald’s isn’t the only fast food laggard who continues to use palm oil that could be wreaking havoc on our environment. Join nearly 50,000 UCS supporters in telling the largest global fast food chains—including McDonald’s, Burger King, Yum! Brands, Wendy’s, Subway, CKE Restaurants (Hardee’s, Carl’s Jr., La Salsa, and Green Burrito), Starbucks, Dairy Queen, and Domino’s—that for the sake of our atmosphere, tropical forests, and endangered species, now is the time to adopt strong deforestation-free and peat-free palm oil policies!

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It’s On Us: A Week of Action

11/21/2014 Nativegrl77

The White House

Since its launch in September, the It’s On Us campaign has rapidly expanded to reach hundreds of thousands of students on college campuses across the country. It’s On Us is a cultural movement aimed at fundamentally shifting the way we think about sexual assault. In addition to a celebrity PSA with almost 4 million views, the campaign has generated more than 100,000 pledge signatures from people committing to be a part of the solution.

On Monday, It’s On Us launched its first Week of Action to engage thousands of students in the conversation about how to end campus sexual assault. Partner organizations and hundreds of school leaders joined together to hold over 200 events in 38 states across the country.

Here’s what we’ve been up to:

The week kicked off with the release of a new PSA encouraging bystander intervention. Snapchat sent a special PSA to more than 250,000 student users via the app, and offered special It’s On Us picture filters to help spread awareness. Xbox also featured the PSA on the game console’s dashboard, and SB Nation not only released two original PSAs with athlete spokespeople, but also created custom content for each of their individual partner sites.

Student leaders across hundreds of college campuses held events ranging from pledge drives at athletic events to panel discussions with college administrators and experts in the field. At the University of Texas at Dallas, the student government, sororities and fraternities, and other student stakeholders came together to launch their Week of Action. The It’s On Us logo and branding were incorporated into their homecoming festivities, and student leaders were featured in “We Are UT Dallas,” a one-minute video highlighting UT Dallas’s participation in the campaign.

On Monday, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign hosted an “It’s On The Quad” pledge drive and photo booth. Throughout the week, they will distribute 500 It’s On Us t-shirts to students who take the pledge.

More than 50 colleges and universities have also created their own PSAs, including MIT, University of Arizona, Ohio State University, and even the staff and faculty at the U.S. Naval Academy.

Throughout the Week of Action, thousands of young people have stepped up and turned their pledge into action — and there will be more opportunities to engage with the It’s On Us campaign beyond this week. Over the coming months, we will work with our partners on college campuses and in communities to continue to engage students across the country.

It’s on us to realize we all have a role to play in preventing sexual assault, and we must challenge each other to do everything we can to make our college campuses safer.

Kyle Lierman
Office of Public Engagement
The White House

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Oye Como Va

11/21/2014 Nativegrl77

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Paid Sick Time Ballot Initiatives Win Big in Tuesday’s Election

11/20/2014 Nativegrl77

A Better Balance the work and family legal center.

Paid Sick Time Ballot Initiatives Win Big in Tuesday’s Election

On Tuesday, paid sick time was on the ballot in 4 elections, and we won all of them! Massachusetts is now the 3rd state to guarantee paid sick time statewide, which is wonderful news for the nearly 1 million workers in the state who currently lack paid sick time. Two cities in NJ, Montclair and Trenton, passed paid sick time laws, bringing the total number of cities in NJ with such laws to 8 (all passed in the last year!). And in California, voters in Oakland passed an expansive paid sick time ballot measure. We’re especially thrilled with the huge margins of support for each ballot initiative: approximately 60% of the vote in Massachusetts, 85% in Montclair, 75% in Trenton, and 81% in Oakland.

A Better Balance has provided legal research, bill drafting, and other technical support to all of these campaigns and can’t wait to build on the incredible momentum from these wins. But we couldn’t do it without such incredible supporters and campaign partners! For background and to learn more about these 4 paid sick time ballot initiatives, check out our recent blog post.

The Pregnancy Penalty: How Motherhood Drives Inequality & Poverty in New York City

In Case You Missed It

October was also an exciting and busy month for ABB’s efforts on behalf of pregnant workers. The New York Times’ Rachel Swarns featured our client, Angelica Valencia, in “The Working Life Column,” which garnered over 800 reader comments and an offer from Angelica’s employer to reinstate her. Our latest report—The Pregnancy Penalty: How Motherhood Drives Inequality and Poverty in New York City—was featured, along with ABB Co-President Dina Bakst and ABB Community Advocate Award recipient, Armanda Legros, on the Melissa Harris-Perry Show on MSNBC. And our new website resource for pregnant and parenting workers was highlighted in the New York Times and Washington Post. We’re thrilled to see the media focusing on this issue and expect the coverage to continue next month as the Supreme Court hears arguments in the case of Peggy Young v. UPS. Stay tuned!