Election aftermath: The road ahead

Election aftermath: The road ahead

photo-1445365813209-5ab6d8f397cbWhen I was in law school, a white male student ran for a position in our student body government. In his campaign statement, he said that if elected, he would eliminate funding for the school’s minority organizations and use the money to “blow lines” off the taut stomachs of Southeast Asian boys. At a town hall meeting, this man still did not seem apologetic and told us to lighten up, that it had just been a joke. Many minority students, including yours truly, were outraged. When people ask why I became a civil rights lawyer and involved in progressive causes, I cite that incident as one of several defining moments. Because it was heartbreaking that someone in San Francisco these days would still think that racist jokes were acceptable, and that some people didn’t think it was a big deal.

The election results brought new heartbreak. Whatever theories emerge about the outcome, one thing remains clear – there is still so much to be done to protect our civil rights. If you think we are safe from racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia in this country, think again. If you think that the laws we have in place offer enough protection to prevent unfair treatment, think again. If you think that there are too many complaints about discrimination and harassment, think again.

Our state’s public policy is clear:

“It is hereby declared as the public policy of this state that it is necessary to protect and safeguard the right and opportunity of all persons to seek, obtain, and hold employment without discrimination or abridgment on account of race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, sexual orientation, or military and veteran status.

It is recognized that the practice of denying employment opportunity and discriminating in the terms of employment for these reasons foments domestic strife and unrest, deprives the state of the fullest utilization of its capacities for development and advancement, and substantially and adversely affects the interests of employees, employers, and the public in general.”

Discrimination in any form adversely affects us all. It’s not a joke, and it’s definitely a big deal. People who come to my office are not litigious by nature – they have suffered real harm and mistreatment in the workplace simply because of who they are. Because their skin is not white. Because they are women. Because they were not born in this country and speak imperfect English. Because of who they pray to. Because they are perceived as too old or too disabled to work. Because they love their same-sex partner. Because of these and other immutable qualities that are supposed to be embraced and protected under our laws and under human decency.

If you think we’ve progressed to be more inclusive, look harder at what this nation has revealed about itself. And look harder at the work that needs to be done. Now more than ever, we need to continue seeking justice, fair treatment, and equal opportunities for all.

About Lisa Mak

Lisa Mak is an associate attorney in the Consumer & Employee Rights Group at Minami Tamaki LLP in San Francisco. She is passionate about representing employees and consumers on an individual and class basis to protect their rights. Her practice includes cases involving employment discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination, labor violations, and severance negotiations. Ms. Mak is the Co-Chair of the CELA Diversity Committee, Co-Chair of the Asian American Bar Association’s Community Services Committee, and an active volunteer at the Asian Law Caucus Workers’ Rights Clinic. Ms. Mak is a graduate of UC Hastings School of Law and UC San Diego. She is fluent in Cantonese and conversant in French.

A turning point in paid family leave: California measure has broad political and medical support

A turning point in paid family leave: California measure has broad political and medical support
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Charles Anderson, a new father who was denied parental leave by his employer, and his baby girl.

By Jenna Gerry

With unprecedented bi-partisan support, a bill that would expand parental leave to 2.7 million more of California’s working families is on Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk. Introduced by Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara), SB 654, the New Parent Leave Act, would extend six weeks of job-protected bonding leave to California workers at companies with at least 20 employees within 75 miles of the employee’s worksite.

This bill addresses one of the biggest barriers workers face when trying to take Paid Family Leave — knowing that their job may not be there when they get back. This bill is remarkable not only for what it will provide to millions of California workers but for the justified bi-partisan support it received on the Assembly floor.

Here in California, the state Chamber of Commerce has consistently put every bill expanding the right to take job-protected parental leave on its infamous “Job Killer” list. In the past, a bill’s placement there has ensured that no Republican legislator would support it, and it has often meant that few to no moderate Democrats would either. Indeed, it can be the kiss of death for progressive legislation, even in our Democratic-controlled Legislature. So, as SB 654, prominent on the “Job Killer” list, headed to the Assembly floor in August, Jackson and the bill’s sponsors were not sure if we had the 41 votes we needed. But something miraculous happened.

After hearing her fellow Republicans voice staunch opposition, Assemblymember Melissa Melendez (R-Murrieta) stood up to speak in support of SB 654. She described her own experience of deciding to leave the military when she became a mother — in part because she would have received only six weeks off after giving birth. She could not imagine having to leave her child that fast. Melendez called on her colleagues to consider that we guarantee the job of any member of the military reserves if they are called to active duty. And she asked whether “the birth of a child is less important than service to one’s country.” She also challenged past rhetoric from both sides of the aisle justifying votes against parental leave measures.

When the final vote came down, nine Republicans joined 45 Democrats in favor of SB 654. We hope this was a turning point, and our state and nation can now transcend partisan politics to understand, finally, that family leave affects us all. As Melendez put it, “Republicans and Democrats agree that family is important, that children are important. And, if you believe that, you have to put your money where your mouth is.”

California’s health community is also speaking out for SB 654. More than 120 California health care professionals and 16 health care organizations — including the American Academy of Pediatrics’ California chapter — delivered a letter to Governor Brown this week urging him to sign it. “This is about clear empirical evidence,” said one signatory, Dr. Paul Chung of UCLA, “showing that the health and well-being of parents and their children — the present and future of our state’s economic productivity — are improved by job-protected paid parental leave.”

In addition to my organization, Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center, several groups that advocate for policies to support the viability of working families cosponsored and helped promote SB654: the California Employment Lawyers Association, Equal Rights Advocates, and the California Work and Family Coalition (which counts these groups and many more among its members).

Now it is time for Governor Brown to make parental leave a reality for millions more California workers, especially because they’re already funding six weeks of it through payroll deductions. But parental leave is about more than the bottom line; it is about ensuring the wellbeing of California families and the state as a whole.

Jenna Gerry is an attorney at Legal Aid Society – Employment Law Center (LAS-ELC), where she advises workers struggling with family and medical crises and participates in legislative advocacy to expand family-friendly workplace policies.  LAS-ELC is a co-sponsor of SB 654, along with the California Employment Lawyers Association, the Work and Family Coalition, and Equal Rights Advocates.  

 

About Our Guest Bloggers

Our guest bloggers include members of CELA and other employee advocates. Email us if you are interested in guest blogging.

We’ve Finally Reached 2016 African American Women’s Equal Pay Day

We've Finally Reached 2016 African American Women’s Equal Pay Day

Harriet Tubman portrait

Today we commemorate “African American Women’s Equal Pay Day,” the day in the year when African American women’s wages finally catch up to what men earned last year.  It is important to note that African American Women’s Equal Pay Day comes nearly four months after “Women’s Equal Pay Day,” which included wages of women of all races, and was marked on April 12th of this year.  The four-month lag signifies the nearly 20-cent wider wage gap African American women face when compared to women of all races.  So, while the average wage gap for all women in the United States is 79 cents for every dollar a man makes, African American women’s wages are at just 60.5 cents on the dollar.  African American lesbian couples, who doubly experience the high wage gap (plus discrimination based on sexual orientation), have triple the poverty rate of white lesbian couples.

Eliminating the racial gender wage gap would provide concrete economic benefits to African American women.  To give a concrete example, women could buy nearly three years of food for their families or pay rent for nearly two years with those additional wages.  Given that so many African American women and their families are struggling to make ends meet, receiving equal pay would make a life-changing difference.

Last year, California passed one of the strongest equal pay laws in the country, the California Fair Pay Act of 2015, which strengthened protection for workers who discuss or ask about their wages and the wages of others.  It also protects women who challenge gender based pay differences in jobs that are “substantially similar” to theirs.  For example, a female housekeeper who is being paid less than a male janitor could remedy the pay difference since the jobs are so similar and wage inequality would likely be unjustified.  The California Labor Commissioner is charged with enforcing the California Fair Pay Act.

This year, California State Senator Hall has introduced SB 1063, the Wage Equality Act of 2016, which would add race and ethnicity to California’s strong Fair Pay Act.  Under SB 1063, California employers would be prohibited from paying workers less for substantially similar work based on race or ethnicity.  An African American woman thus might have a claim that she is being paid less based not only on sex, but on race as well.  With SB 1063, she would be able to more effectively address racial wage inequality.

Certain cities already are specifically addressing wage inequality by sex, race and ethnicity.  For example, in San Francisco, city contractors will have to disclose data on what they pay their workers, broken down by both sex and race, to the City.  California state contractors may also be required to submit similar pay data reports under another bill that should reach the governor’s desk for approval.  And the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission intends to revise its Employer Information Report (EEO-1) data collection to include salary information based on ethnicity, race, and sex.

Our current laws against sex and race discrimination have proven inadequate to end race- and sex-based unequal pay since the pay gap remains depressingly large more than fifty years after passage of federal civil rights laws in these areas. Pay disclosure rules are an important step towards closing the pay gap for women and women of color in particular. They force employers to self-audit and identify unjustified pay disparities.  In the event they do not correct the disparities, disclosure enable government agencies to conduct targeted enforcement of equal pay laws.

It will reportedly be more than a decade before the first African American woman (Harriet Tubman) graces the face of U.S. currency.  With these new laws there is hope that before the Tubmans arrive, African American women will already be receiving the full value of those $20 bills and not just 60 percent.

The Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center together with the California Women’s Law Center and Equal Rights Advocates make up the California Fair Pay Collaborative dedicated to engaging and informing Californians about fair pay issues.

 

 

 

About Elizabeth Kristen

Elizabeth Kristen is the Director of the Gender Equity & LGBT Rights Program and a senior staff attorney at Legal Aid at Work.  Ms. Kristen began her public interest career as a Skadden Fellow at Legal Aid.  Ms. Kristen graduated from University of California at Berkeley School of Law in 2001 and served as a law clerk to the Honorable James R. Browning on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.  In 2012-13, she served as a Harvard law School Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow.  She has been a lecturer at Berkeley Law School since 2008. Legal Aid at Work together with the California Women’s Law Center and Equal Rights Advocates make up the California Fair Pay Collaborative dedicated to engaging and informing Californians about fair pay issues.

Silencing the survivors: How the Brock Turner case reflects the failures of our justice system

Silencing the survivors: How the Brock Turner case reflects the failures of our justice system

Woman1By Lisa Mak

Like many others, I was outraged by the outcome of Brock Turner’s case for his rape of an unconscious, intoxicated woman behind a dumpster.  This woman was brave enough to go through the process of a 16-month criminal case.  She wrote an extremely powerful and heartbreaking statement that she read in court when addressing how Turner’s assault has forever changed her life.  Prosecutors had sought a six-year prison sentence for Turner’s crime.  Yet Judge Aaron Persky only imposed six months of prison with probation, stating that a longer sentence “would have a severe impact” on Turner and that Turner “will not be a danger to others.”

Unfortunately, this painfully skewed result, the biased way the case was portrayed, and the outrageous statements from Turner’s family and friends defending his actions, are all too familiar features of a system that often does not treat rape and assault for what they are – violent, heinous crimes that violate basic human dignity.  The events and reactions in the Turner case remind me of cases I’ve litigated where employees were sexually harassed, assaulted, or raped in the workplace.

It seems like the same story every time.

The victim is blamed and doubted.  Questions may be asked about whether she was somehow responsible for what happened.  Were you drunk at the company party?  Why did you enter his hotel room to talk about work?  Have you ever sent a risqué email at work?  Did you date that co-worker? Why can’t you remember all the details?  Are you sure the relationship wasn’t consensual?  Investigations into workplace sexual harassment complaints may not happen, or when they do, they may be conducted in a way that is slanted against the victim.  Given the difficulty of coming forward, it is unsurprising that many sexual harassment cases go unreported.

The perpetrator is protected.  He is given the benefit of the doubt.  He may receive little to no discipline for his misconduct.  The victim is advised that everyone is “moving on” from the situation.  To add insult to injury, often employees who complain about sexual harassment will be fired in retaliation.  For example, in her lawsuit against Tinder in 2014, co-founder Whitney Wolfe alleged that she was forced out of the company after her complaints of discrimination and harassment.

There is often a mistaken focus on the impact on the perpetrator’s career and reputation, as opposed to the physical and psychological impact on the victim.  When former Dean of Berkeley Law School Sujit Choudhry was accused of sexually harassing his executive assistant, university officials were allegedly reluctant to terminate him for fear of ruining his career.  He was never in fact terminated, and resigned after a lawsuit was filed against him earlier this year.

Similarly, when Turner’s father pleaded for leniency for his son, he ignorantly argued: “[Turner’s] life will never be the one that he dreamed about and worked so hard to achieve.  That is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life.”  This, compared with the life of the woman Turner raped, who explained: “My independence, natural joy, gentleness, and steady lifestyle I had been enjoying became distorted beyond recognition.  I became closed off, angry, self deprecating, tired, irritable, empty … You bought me a ticket to a planet where I lived by myself.”  Yet Judge Persky remained concerned about the “severe impact” a longer prison sentence would have on Turner, the convicted criminal.

Whether sexual assault happens at work, at school, in a home, or anywhere else, the same infuriating narratives keep surfacing – blaming the victim, doubting the crimes, and protecting the perpetrator.  Language is used to downplay the severity of the attacks.  Turner’s friend, Leslie Rasmussen, submitted an equally outrageous letter of support for him for trial, writing: “[W]here do we draw the line and stop worrying about being politically correct every second of the day and see that rape on campuses isn’t always because people are rapists.”

This isn’t about being politically correct.  This isn’t about alcohol or promiscuity or the tarnished futures of privileged individuals who chose to violate the rights of others.

This is about calling out sexual harassment, assault, and rape for what it is.  This is about respecting women and human beings and common decency.  Cases like Brock Turner, along with the many cases of workplace sexual harassment we see, underscore the need to focus on the consequences caused by the perpetrator and not on rationalizations for the violent conduct.  When survivors of assault and harassment are able to come forward and speak their truth, their courage should always be met with an outcry of support and a fair chance at justice.

About Lisa Mak

Lisa Mak is an associate attorney in the Consumer & Employee Rights Group at Minami Tamaki LLP in San Francisco. She is passionate about representing employees and consumers on an individual and class basis to protect their rights. Her practice includes cases involving employment discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination, labor violations, and severance negotiations. Ms. Mak is the Co-Chair of the CELA Diversity Committee, Co-Chair of the Asian American Bar Association’s Community Services Committee, and an active volunteer at the Asian Law Caucus Workers’ Rights Clinic. Ms. Mak is a graduate of UC Hastings School of Law and UC San Diego. She is fluent in Cantonese and conversant in French.

The legacy of the civil rights movement

The legacy of the civil rights movement

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The struggle for civil rights puts us squarely within a longstanding movement. It is helpful to keep the history of those efforts in mind as we focus on the problems of the moment. Here are the reflections of a woman who has dedicated her life to global human rights – The Legacy of the Civil Rights Movement.

About Marvin Krakow

Marvin Krakow (B.A., Yale, 1970, J.D. Yale, 1974), a founding partner of Alexander Krakow + Glick LLP, focuses on discrimination based on race, age, religion, disability, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, and ethnicity, wrongful termination of employment, civil rights, and class actions. He has won seven, and eight figure results. He helps victims of sexual harassment and rape, and represents whistle blowers. He argued landmark cases before the California Supreme Court, Loder v. City of Glendale and Superior Court v. Department of Health Services (McGinnis).

A Mother’s Day gift of job-security

A Mother’s Day gift of job-security

This Mother’s Day, let’s give moms the gift of job-security for the time they take away from work to bond with their new babies.  Just last month, Governor Brown signed into law a bill that would boost Paid Family Leave benefits for parents who take baby bonding leave, but nearly half of all California workers could still be fired for taking the leave and accessing those benefits.  Under current law, job-protection for baby bonding leave is only available to parents who work for large companies with 50 or more employees, leaving out over forty percent of the workforce in California.

A legislative proposal currently underway in California, Senate Bill 1166, by Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, would help ensure more mothers can go back to their jobs after taking up to 12 weeks of baby bonding leave, by extending job-protection to parents who work for smaller companies.  The reality is, almost half of the workforce is now women and mothers and fathers are sharing in financial and childcare responsibilities.  Without job-protection for new parents, mothers are usually the ones who are forced out of the job market when they would otherwise choose to return after an extended period of leave.

Many other states have already expanded their family leave laws to provide more parents with job-protection when out on leave.  Most recently, New York signed a bill that provided paid family leave benefits with job protection for nearly all workers in the state, regardless of the size of their employer.  In Washington DC, all employees have 16 weeks of job-protected leave.  In Maine, workers at companies with 15 or more employees have 10 weeks of job-protected leave; Massachusetts provides 8 weeks of job-protected leave for workers at companies with 6 or more employees; Minnesota offers 6 weeks of job-protected leave for workers at companies with 21 or employees; and Oregon provides 12 weeks of job-protected leave for workers at companies with 25 or more employees.

Opponents of SB 1166 argue that the proposed measure would “kill jobs” and “unduly burdens and increases costs of small employers.” These fear-based, sky-will-fall arguments have no basis.  In 2004, the National Federation of Independent Business conducted a poll of small businesses that contradicts the “undue burden” narrative.  The average number of requests for leave is only one per year.  Two-thirds of the small businesses did not receive a request for leave at all in the prior three years.  When asked about the principal problem caused by the employee’s absence, the most frequent response was “no real problems.”  A 2012 national survey of employers conducted by the Department of Labor also found that small employers were less likely to report problems with family leave than were large employers and that fewer than 10 percent of employers reported problems with productivity, absenteeism, turnover, profitability, career advancement, or morale because of family leave.

At last month’s bill signing ceremony raising California’s minimum wage, President pro Tem Kevin de León said, “When it comes to taking care of working families, mark my words, California leads the nation…the rest of the country looks toward California for leadership on this issue.”  It’s time for California to make good on its promise to working families – to provide not just higher paid leave benefits, but an assurance that their job will be there when they need it the most.

In addition to signing your Mother’s Day cards today, please sign this petition in support of SB 1166, because no mother in this state should have to choose between caring for a child and keeping a job.

What we can learn from the U.S. women’s soccer team this Equal Pay Day

What we can learn from the U.S. women's soccer team this Equal Pay Day
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U.S. soccer fan and cutout of U.S. national team player, Sydney Leroux, at the Women’s World Cup Final in 2015.

The U.S. Women’s National Soccer team recently became the (familiar) faces of the problem of women being paid less than men for the same work.  Last month, Hope Solo, Carli Lloyd, Becky Sauerbrunn, Alex Morgan, and Megan Rapinoe filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission saying that the U.S. Soccer Foundation pays the women far less than its male players.  While inequalities in the treatment of female athletes are legion—recall the controversy about the women’s team being forced to play on artificial turf, the recent offensive comments about women’s tennis, and ESPN’s failure to include the women’s basketball bracket in its app— there has been less attention focused on pay disparities.  When we talk about female athletes’ pay, the usual excuse for paying women less is that they generate less revenue.  Yet the women’s soccer team generated $20 million more in revenue than the men, but are paid four times less.  The women’s team has been far more successful than the men’s team, including winning three World Cup championships, but still struggle for fair and equal pay.

Unequal pay is a problem for all women, and has real financial consequences.  Indeed, one study found the gender pay gap begins even with the unequal allowance boys and girls are given for household chores.  Melinda Gates recently pointed out the additional burden on women around the world of unpaid additional household work.  The annual cost of the gender pay gap is $9 trillion dollars — dragging down the entire global economy.

On April 12, 2016, we observe Equal Pay Day (now in its twentieth year).   Equal Pay Day symbolizes how many days into the next year women have to work to make what men earned in the prior year.  Unfortunately, we likely will be observing Equal Pay Day until 2059 — the estimated date we can expect to close the gender pay gap.  Equal Pay Day falls at different points in the calendar for women of color who experience a more egregious wage gap than do white women (as compared to all men and/or white men).  The federal Equal Pay Act has been on the books for more than 50 years.  Yet every year, women are deprived of valuable economic and tangible benefits of their hard work.

Pay disparities exist in all sorts of jobs where women and men perform the same work.  For example, female pilots are paid 16 percent less than male pilots and women who are chefs earn 28.1 percent less than male chefs.  In the tech industry, women are experiencing a significant pay gap with women in Silicon Valley earning on average just 49 cents for a man’s dollar.  The cause of the gender pay gap goes beyond factors like education and choice of profession.  As much as 40 percent of the gender pay gap is unexplained by such measurable factors.  When women enter a male dominated profession, pay begins to decrease.

This year, a stronger equal pay law went into effect in California.  The law should ensure that women who perform substantially similar work to men receive the same pay.  For example, one caller to the Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center explained that the job of cleaning up fire- or water-damaged homes is sometimes gender-segregated with women receiving less pay. Given that the work is so similar, it is likely that under the California Fair Pay Act, women cleaners should be paid the same as men.  However, one big problem is that women often do not know how much men in similar jobs are being paid.  The new California law enhances protections for workers who talk about their pay (or ask about the pay of others).  Once a California worker does know about a pay disparity, it will be up to the employer to prove it was based on a factor other than sex and that it explains the entire wage difference.

Ending the gender pay gap calls for action on many fronts.  The Equal Pay Today Campaign (of which LAS-ELC is a member) has called for five specific changes — ending job segregation, stopping wage theft, eliminating retaliation for discussing wages, stopping pay disparities as a result of parenting and caregiving responsibilities, and changing the disparities in pay in promotions for women performing the same job as men.  Another recently proposed piece of legislation in California (CELA-sponsored) would prohibit employers from using a new employee’s prior salary to base salary decisions in order to begin to break the cycle of persistent pay discrimination for women.

As we observe Equal Pay Day and anticipate the U.S. women’s soccer team’s appearance at the summer Olympics in Brazil this summer, we hope to recognize the amazing contributions made by women throughout the world that finally deserve equal recognition through ending the gender pay gap – because it’s 2016!

About Elizabeth Kristen

Elizabeth Kristen is the Director of the Gender Equity & LGBT Rights Program and a senior staff attorney at Legal Aid at Work.  Ms. Kristen began her public interest career as a Skadden Fellow at Legal Aid.  Ms. Kristen graduated from University of California at Berkeley School of Law in 2001 and served as a law clerk to the Honorable James R. Browning on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.  In 2012-13, she served as a Harvard law School Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow.  She has been a lecturer at Berkeley Law School since 2008. Legal Aid at Work together with the California Women’s Law Center and Equal Rights Advocates make up the California Fair Pay Collaborative dedicated to engaging and informing Californians about fair pay issues.

State Bar President and California Bar Associations Call on President and Senate to Heed the Constitution and Fill SCOTUS Vacancy

State Bar President and California Bar Associations Call on President and Senate to Heed the Constitution and Fill SCOTUS Vacancy

 

Today, bar associations from across the state of California sent a letter to President Barack Obama and Senate leaders urging them to heed their constitutional duty to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. The bar associations, representing more than 30,000 lawyers throughout the state, called on the president to quickly nominate a qualified candidate to the Supreme Court, and for the Senate to consider that nominee without delay. The effort, spearheaded by the California Employment Lawyers Association, brings together the Los Angeles County Bar Association, the Alameda County Bar Association, the Lake County Bar Association, the Yolo County Bar Association and more than a dozen other statewide and local bar associations.  California State Bar President David Pasternak also signed on to the letter in his individual capacity.

Within hours of Justice Antonin Scalia’s death, Senate Republican leaders stated that they would refuse to even consider the president’s nominee. Nearly a month later, Senate Republican leaders have held firm to the position that they will refuse to hold hearings or a floor vote for any nominee put forward by this president. With few exceptions, Senate Republicans support this position.

“The implications of this course of action would be significant, subjecting people in different regions of the country to different legal standards on matters of constitutional importance and leaving open the specter of an unresolved constitutional crisis,” the letter warns.

“[T]he framers placed in the hands of the executive and legislative branches of our government a duty to ensure that the third pillar of our democracy, our courts, would be protected from entanglement in partisan politics,” the letter explains.  “While careful evaluation and reasoned debate regarding the qualifications of the nominee are central to the Senate’s role to advise and consent, it would undermine the rule of law and risk nullifying the Supreme Court’s power to serve its constitutional role as arbiter of disputes, were the confirmation process to be delayed until a new president is inaugurated.”

Bar associations representing the two most populous cities in the United States have now called on the Senate to consider a nominee to the Supreme Court without delay. The letter, sent today, comes on the heels of similar calls by the New York State and New York City Bars respectfully requesting the Senate to reconsider its refusal to consider a nominee put forward by the president.  Constitutional law scholars at universities around the country have also weighed in via a joint statement, pointing out that the Constitution “has no exception for election years.”

The letter signed by the California bar associations does not mince words. “We ask that you carry out your constitutionally prescribed roles with full fealty to the oaths you have taken so that our Supreme Court is returned to its full membership,” the signers write.

About Jean Hyams

Jean K. Hyams is a founding partner of Levy Vinick Burrell Hyams LLP, a Bay Area boutique law firm focused on representing employees in employment disputes. She left a career as a manager in high-tech companies to pursue her dream of becoming a civil rights lawyer. She has been named by Northern California Super Lawyers as one of the Top 50 Women Lawyers in Northern California for the past five years and her firm has been rated one of the Best Law Firms (Tier 1 – Employment Law) by U.S. News and World Report. After almost a quarter-century in practice, she now also serves as a court-appointed and private mediator of employment disputes. Jean is Co-Chair of the CELA VOICE.

Why California needs stronger parental leave policies

Why California needs stronger parental leave policies

By Menaka Fernando

At first glance, a cultural shift appears to be occurring in the country when it comes to parental leave. In the past year, companies like Facebook, Microsoft, Accenture and Netflix have instituted generous paid parental leave policies that give parents the ability to take time off from work to bond with a new child. However, while paid parental leave may be becoming more accessible to high-wage earning professionals, it remains impossibly out of reach for many workers who risk losing their job if they take any time off after having a new child.  It’s worth noting that Netflix’s parental leave policy glaringly excluded low-wage workers from its benefits.

Last week, Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) unveiled a new legislative proposal that would dramatically improve access to parental leave for all California workers by addressing one of its biggest barriers — job protection.

The reality is the patchwork of existing protections for workers who need to take parental leave are woefully inadequate. The California Family Rights Act and the federal Family and Medical Leave Act provide 12 weeks of unpaid leave and job protection, but these laws only cover employees who work for larger companies with 50 or more employees. This leaves over 40% of California’s workforce ineligible for job-protected leave because their employer is too small.

Because nearly half of the workforce is not covered by our family leave laws, employers can punish workers for taking time off to care for a new child.  As a workers’ rights advocate, I often hear stories of employees – particularly low-wage earners – whose careers are slow-tracked, whose hours are restricted, or who are simply fired for taking or even requesting family leave.

Even more troubling is that workers without job protection are unable to take advantage of the state’s Paid Family Leave (PFL) program, which provides partial wage replacement benefits for those who take family leave. Studies have shown that low-wage workers who qualify for these benefits often cannot use them even though they pay into the program.  A 2011 Center for Economic and Policy Research study of the PFL program showed that the ability to use parental leave is far greater for salaried employees (mainly managers and professionals) and high earners (those earning over $20 per hour plus employer health insurance) than for those in hourly and low-quality jobs.

In the same study, 37% of respondents expressed concern that if they took PFL, their employer would be unhappy, their opportunities for advancement would be affected, or they might simply be fired. At a time when financial security and healthcare coverage are so important, the risk of losing one’s job to take leave to care for a new child is simply a risk that many new parents cannot afford to take.

Senator Jackson’s bill would alleviate that risk by extending parental leave rights for new parents (including domestic partners and adoptive or foster parents) who work for employers with 5 or more employees.

The need for expanded and equitable access to parental leave in the state cannot be understated.  The benefits of parental leave on the health and welfare of the economy and our state’s working families have been well-documented.  Research shows that paid family leave, particularly when there is job protection, increased new mothers’ wage growth and future employment rates.  Fathers who take parental leave are more engaged with their newborns, promoting greater gender equity at home and at work. In addition, evidence strongly suggests that children enjoy many short- and long-term benefits from parental leave including better health and  higher high school graduation rates.

While it is encouraging that good corporate policy is pushing the conversation on parental leave forward, it’s time for the Legislature to act. The protections of Senator Jackson’s bill will help ensure the physical, psychological, and economic health of all of California’s working families, and not just Silicon Valley executives.

Menaka Fernando is an associate attorney at Outten & Golden LLP, where she represents individual employees in litigation and negotiation, and a member of the California Employment Lawyers Association.

About Our Guest Bloggers

Our guest bloggers include members of CELA and other employee advocates. Email us if you are interested in guest blogging.

Sexism and civility in today’s legal profession: Why one attorney was sanctioned for his remarks to opposing counsel

Sexism and civility in today's legal profession: Why one attorney was sanctioned for his remarks to opposing counsel

By Eduard Meleshinsky

In a clarion call for civility among attorneys, Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal sanctioned a defense attorney for his tactics in a civil rights case, and excoriated him for “repeatedly and unapologetically flout[ing]” the Northern District of California’s Guidelines for Professional Conduct, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), the court’s prior order, and – in this author’s opinion – offending standards of basic civility most of us learned on the playground, as children. The order is available here.

In connection with a deposition noticed by the mother of a pretrial detainee who committed suicide while in jail, the attorney for the public entity and employee defendants produced documents in a “physically cracked and unusable disc” on the day of the deposition, delayed correcting this abjectly deficient production for over a month after being repeatedly asked to do so by plaintiff’s counsel (only to produce documents defendants’ attorney already knew to be in plaintiffs’ possession), made “extremely long speaking objections” in depositions ordered by the court, and many more violations. Tellingly, defendants’ attorney made “no attempt to defend any of this conduct.”

The unprofessional conduct did not stop at discovery abuse.  Escalating his disgraceful misconduct from unprofessionalism to sexism, defendants’ attorney told one of the plaintiffs’ female attorneys, at a deposition she was taking, “[D]on’t raise your voice at me. It’s not becoming of a woman ….” In briefing his opposition to the sanctions request, defendants’ attorney doubled down on his statement with a sorry-not-sorry apology (“a halfhearted politician’s apology ‘if [he] offended’ Plaintiff’s counsel”).

As Judge Grewal explained in his order, defendants’ attorney’s attack “endorsed the stereotype that women are subject to a different standard of behavior than their fellow attorneys.” The judge further elaborated that such gender-based vitriol “reflects not only on the attorney’s lack of professionalism, but also tarnishes the image of the entire legal profession and disgraces our system of justice.” The Court found that these types of statements – in addition to harming the many female attorneys who regularly endure similar treatment – degrade the legitimacy of the legal system itself.

Gendered attacks “reflect and reinforce the male-dominated attitude of our profession.” This malignant attitude has deep roots in the legal profession. Even the Supreme Court of the United States in Bradwell v. The State (a case that has rightfully taken its place among Plessy and Korematsu as part of the constitutional anti-canon) has perpetuated these gender stereotypes.  In upholding a state law prohibiting women from practicing law on account of their gender, the Court opined:

The paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator. And the rules of civil society must be adapted to the general constitution of things, and cannot be based upon exceptional cases.

A lot of progress has been made since 1872: the 19th Amendment was ratified; Congress enacted the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and amended the same to prohibit pregnancy discrimination; and Sandra Day O’Connor was confirmed as the first of four women so far to serve on the high court. However, despite the important gains made in the fight for gender equality in the workplace and beyond, much has remained the same in the legal profession for female attorneys.

For example, the opportunity for female attorneys to advance to leadership roles in law firms remains stymied, female attorneys are judged more harshly if they lack “interpersonal warmth” and are not recognized for their legal competence to the same degree as their male counterparts for career advancement purposes, and, more generally, the gender pay gap remains ever- present and ever unaddressed. In light of the work that remains to be done in making women’s equality a reality, our profession should, at the very minimum, not tolerate Mad-Men-styled sexist remarks from its members.

Fortunately, Judge Grewal suffers no fools. Because of the defense attorney’s egregious misconduct, the jurist awarded plaintiffs their fees and costs in bringing the motion for sanctions, as well as attorneys’ fees for depositions, including the deposition during which the sexist comment was made. Recognizing that monetary compensation for plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees and legal costs still fell short of a just result, Judge Grewal ordered the “specific and appropriate sanction” of compelling defendants’ attorney to “donate $250 to the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles Foundation … and submit a declaration to the court confirming his compliance with this order.”

One hundred and forty-four years have passed since Bradwell, yet we continue to see conduct in the legal profession that perpetuates harmful gender-based stereotypes.  Too often, that conduct is simply dismissed without any consideration of its broader impact on our progress toward gender equality.  Courts should emulate Judge Paul Grewal, giving discrimination no quarter and enforcing basic civility in the legal profession.

An earlier version of this post appeared on the Bryan Schwartz Law blog under the title “Court Sanctions Defense Attorney for His Sexist Remarks to Opposing Counsel.”

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