Tag Archives: politics

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University of Washington Comply with Seattle’s historic $15 wage ordinance:Garrett Shishido Strain


=Tomorrow, local MoveOn members and the University of Washington Academic Workers for a Democratic University are taking part in the national Fight for $15 rally. They’re delivering a petition to the UW president calling on him to comply with Seattle’s historic new ordinance and raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour for all campus workers. Can you make sure they include your name? Click here to sign the petition, then share it with your friends.

Dear Washington MoveOn member,

I’m Garrett Shishido Strain, and I started a petition to the University of Washington administration, which says:

I demand that the University of Washington comply with the $15 per hour Seattle minimum wage ordinance by raising the wages of 12,000 campus workers—including 8,700 student workers—who are paid less than $15 per hour. Sign Garrett’s petition

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On April 1, Seattle took its first step toward a $15 minimum wage by requiring all employers with more than 500 workers to pay at least $11 per hour. Despite being the single largest employer in Seattle, the University of Washington administration has argued that it’s not obligated to pay $15 per hour to campus workers. This means that more than 12,000 campus workers are at risk of not receiving a much-needed wage increase—including more than 8,700 student workers, who have seen UW tuition rise 82% since 2008.1

Academically, UW is ranked among the best universities worldwide. Unfortunately, UW is also home to an ever-growing gap between the highest-paid administrators and the lowest-paid hourly workers. Instead of increasing student fees and tuition, or cutting research funding and campus jobs, UW can and should provide living-wage jobs for all campus workers by redistributing funds from highly paid administrators to the most marginalized workers on campus.

If every other employer in Seattle can pay at least $15 per hour, so can UW.

Click here to add your name to this petition, and then pass it along to your friends.

Thanks!

–Garrett

Source:

1. “Seattle’s $15 wage law might not affect city’s biggest boss: UW,” The Seattle Times, March 25, 2015
http://www.moveon.org/r/?r=304042&id=111593-17809870-4ce3tcx&t=2

This petition was created on MoveOn’s online petition site, where anyone can start their own online petitions. The University of Washington Academic Workers for a Democratic University didn’t pay us to send this email—we never rent or sell the MoveOn.org list.

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Nine in Ten


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Nearly Nine Out of Ten Americans Now Have Health Insurance Thanks to the Affordable Care Act

Some more big health care news is out today that continues to prove that the Affordable Care Act is working. And while some conservatives continue their efforts to dismantle it, others are finally putting people over politics.

Gallup released a survey this morning showing that the uninsured rate among U.S. adults fell to 11.9 percent this quarter, the lowest rate since it started tracking insurance rates in 2008. It is a one percentage point drop from last quarter, and a 6.1 point drop from the middle of 2013, just before the state and federal health exchanges opened for business. That’s a whopping 34 percent drop in uninsured American adults in less than two years.

In addition to this good news, a conservative-leaning state is also taking a huge step in expanding health care for its residents. This weekend in Montana, the Republican-controlled House approved a bill to accept federal funding to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, a Democrat, is expected to sign the bill into law, which would make the state the 29th to expand Medicaid and give health coverage to up to 70,000 more Montanans.

While Montana is taking the right step both morally and economically for its residents, Florida is moving backwards. Talks to expand health care there have hit a roadblock, with GOP Gov. Rick Scott completing a flip-flop-flip from being against Medicaid expansion, to being for it, now back to being against it. Florida would benefit more than almost any other state in the nation from the move, but conservatives continue to play politics.

Speaking of conservative elected officials in Florida, those at the federal level are also ignoring the facts on health care. Sen. Marco Rubio, who is officially announcing his candidacy for president today, has consistently advocated the repeal of the health care law. And while it is expected that the 43-year-old Cuban-American will play up his heritage on the campaign trail, the fact remains that Hispanics are one of the demographics that has benefited the most from the Affordable Care Act, and would benefit from closing the coverage gap as well.

BOTTOM LINE: The Affordable Care Act is a profoundly important public policy and the evidence continues to pile up showing its effectiveness in providing health care to Americans. It’s time that all conservative lawmakers at the state and federal level look at the facts and stop playing politics with their constituents’ well-being.

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GM604 Campaign Update April 13, 2015 – Update on “FDA Grant Accelerated Approval for GM604”


GM604 Campaign Update April 13, 2015

Apr 13, 2015 — In this update: 1) Rally – Washington DC, May 11, 2015 2) Welcome New Campaigners 3) Email/call FDA and Congress – Last Chance? 1) Our grassroots campaign has adopted the moniker… Read more

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A License To Discriminate


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What You Need To Know About Indiana’s New “Religious Freedom” Law

Indiana Governor Mike Pence (R) signed a law last Thursday that further enables discrimination against gay and lesbian people in the state. The so-called “Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” or RFRA, uses the guise of protecting religious liberty to enable private citizens and organizations to deny services to others if they claim that their religious views are “substantially burdened.”

The event has led to an enormous, broad-based backlash, including from a number of companies that are worried the law is bad for business. It also has led to some confused reporting from major news outlets about what the new law actually does.

Here are the four things you need to know about this license to discriminate.

1. Religious freedom is a core American value and a basic right, which is why it is already protected by the Constitution. The Indiana RFRA is an unnecessary law — one that opens a can of worms that would allow corporations and other private entities to justify discrimination against individuals that might otherwise be protected under law. Religious freedom doesn’t give us the right to harm others or force our religious beliefs on those who hold different views.

2. The new law has caused a massive wave of high-profile backlash. More than a dozen high-profile companies with presences in the state have protested the law, including major tech companies, three of the state’s major universities, the NCAA, the Indiana Pacers basketball team, and Eli Lilly and Company, the global drug giant which employs 11,000 in the state. Hillary Clinton expressed her displeasure, and celebrities from pop star Miley Cyrus to actor George Takei took to social media to slam the law.

3. The Indiana RFRA is different — and worse — than the federal RFRA and other state RFRAs. The Washington Post has written that there are other states with laws like Indiana’s, and Gov. Pence has claimed that President Obama, as an Illinois state Senator, voted for “the very same language.” But while at first glance they may appear similar, there is a significant distinction that extends the ramifications of the Indiana law beyond many others. While other RFRAs apply to disputes between a person or entity and a government, Indiana’s includes a clause that applies to disputes between private citizens or entities. What’s more, while the federal, and many state RFRAs, provide protection only if a law in question substantially burdens a person’s religious exercise, the Indiana RFRA only requires that the complainant believe their religious freedom may “likely” be violated to invoke the law’s protection.

4. Even if the Indiana RFRA is clarified, LGBT discrimination will be legal in much of Indiana and most of the U.S. As we have written about before, 29 states lack explicit sexual orientation nondiscrimination protections, and 32 states lack explicit gender identity nondiscrimination protections. That means a gay person can be legally married one day, and then legally fired based on sexual orientation or gender identity the next.

BOTTOM LINE: Rather than expand exemptions for people who don’t want to follow the law, we should be working to protect all people from discrimination and create the inclusive prosperity that helps our economy and our families. Hopefully the politicians in Indiana (and elsewhere) promoting these kinds of laws to discriminate will see that citizens are not behind them, and companies will take their business elsewhere.