Workers, community leaders and religious activists are holding rallies, prayer vigils and other actions in more than 40 cities around the country today as part of a National Day of Action to Stop Wage Theft.

Wage theft is a national epidemic, which robs millions of workers of billions of dollars they’ve worked for but never seen, says Kim Bobo, executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ) and author of the book Wage Theft in America.

During a Capitol Hill press conference this morning, Bobo said:

Too many workers can’t buy a Thanksgiving turkey because employers have stolen their wages. Wage theft is not a small, isolated situation. It’s a national epidemic.

Wage theft affects workers like Cleve Williams, who worked for a city contractor in Cincinnati. Williams told the press conference he was fired after he organized his fellow workers to fight for a living wage. The city’s law required the comapny, which holds a city contract, to pay a minimum wage. But Williams says it took three years to get the wages raised to the legal level.

Bobo cited a study by the National Employment Law Project, which shows how widespread wage theft has become. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 4,387 workers in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City, a group of respected academics estimates that 68 percent of the workers surveyed are routinely denied proper overtime pay and often are paid less than minimum wage. The average low-wage worker lost more than $2,600 in annual income due to the violations, 15 percent of their annual earnings. Click here to read the report, “Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers.”

AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker, speaking to the press conference by phone, said the nation’s economy suffers when millions of workers are denied their just pay. Unions are the first line of defense against wage theft, she added. With a union contract, workers don’t have to worry about not getting paid for overtime or not getting a decent, living wage and other benefits.

Wage theft is not only an economic issue, but a moral one, says Thomas Shellabarger, of the Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

As we pause this Thanksgiving to remember all that we are thankful for, we also remember the workers across the nation whose wages are stolen and struggle to put a meal on their holiday table. We must put an end to this national scandal of wage theft.

*This article originally appeared in AFL-CIO blog on November 19, 2009. Reprinted with permission from the author.

**For more information on unpaid wages visit our Workplace Fairness resource page.

About the Author: James Parks had his first encounter with unions at Gannett’s newspaper in Cincinnati when his colleagues in the newsroom tried to organize a unit of The Newspaper Guild. He saw firsthand how companies pull out all the stops to prevent workers from forming a union. He is a journalist by trade, and worked for newspapers in five different states before joining the AFL-CIO staff in 1990. He has also been a seminary student, drug counselor, community organizer, event planner, adjunct college professor and county bureaucrat. His proudest career moment, though, was when he served, along with other union members and staff, as an official observer for South Africa’s first multiracial elections. Author photo by Joe Kekeris

Yesterday, the House Education and Labor committee took a look at sick leave policies and their contribution to the spread of the H1N1 virus (swine flu). Public health experts have been voicing concerns that H1N1 is going to be transmitted by ill employees attending work, so Rep. George Miller (D-CA) has crafted a bill that would give employees five paid sick days if their employer sends them home due to H1N1.

Earlier this month, the Chamber of Commerce downplayed the extent to which lack of guaranteed paid sick leave could spread disease, saying that “the problem is not nearly as great as some people say.” And now the rest of the big business community is piling on:

Testifying on behalf of the National Association of Manufacturers Tuesday, A. Bruce Clarke, who runs his own 1,000-member business lobby in North Carolina, told Miller’s committee that most businesses already have comparable or more generous paid leave programs, so why bother? “While some employers may not have taken specific action in response to the H1N1 outbreak, these employers are clearly the exception to the widespread practices taking place today,” Clarke said in his prepared testimony.

And its not only business downplaying the extent of the problem. Rep. John Kline (R-MN), the ranking member on the Ed. and Labor committee, also tried to claim that the “vast majority” of workers have paid sick leave:

“With so many workers already having access to a variety of sick leave options, we need to look very carefully at proposals to add a new layer of federal leave mandates,” the 2nd District Republican said in a prepared statement during a House Education and Labor Committee hearing…According to Kline, the vast majority of workers in the United States already have access to paid sick leave.

Actually, nearly half of private sector workers have no paid sick leave. This includes 78 percent of hotel workers and 85 percent of food service workers, even though they are among the most likely to come in contact with other individuals. 68 percent of workers not eligible for paid sick days say that they have gone to work with a contagious illness.

*This post originally appeared in The Wonk Room on November 18, 2009. Reprinted with permission from the author.

**For more information on H1N1 and swine flu visit this Workplace Fairness resource page.

About the Author: Pat Garofalo is the Economics Researcher/Blogger for WonkRoom.org at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. His writing has also appeared in The Nation, The Guardian, the Washington Examiner, and at New Deal 2.0.

Last night, the Senate unveiled their health care bill. You can read the full bill here [pdf], or the summery documents here.

On the whole, the Senate bill looks very much like the House health care bill. It ends insurance company abuses like denying care for those with pre-existing conditions and it sets benefit standards to make sure the coverage people receive – both on their own and through their employer – actually covers the care they need. It gives people the choice of a public health insurance option like the one in the HELP bill, though states would be able to opt-out of the public option if they passed a law saying so. And it sets up a health insurance “Exchange” that would provide tax credits (subsidies) to make health care affordable, as well as helping business afford health care for their employees.

On the budgetary front, the Senate bill would cost $849 billion over 10 years, and reduce the deficit by $127 billion over the same period. You can read the CBO’s projections on the bill here [pdf].

Of course, there are major differences. Igor Volsky at the Wonk Room has a handy comparison chart:

	Senate Bill ($849 billion/10 years)	House Bill ($894 billion/10 years)
Individual Mandate	Yes, penalty of $750 by 2016 for those don’t purchase coverage. ($95 penalty in first year)	Yes, penalty of 2.5% of income for those who remain uninsured
Employer Mandate	Free rider provision. Employers would have to pay whichever is lower: $3,000 per every employee who receives a subsidy in the Exchange, or $750 for every employee (not just the subsidized worker).	Yes, employers who don’t’ offer coverage would pay a fee equal to 8% of their payroll
Medicaid Expansion	Up to 133% FPL. 100% federal funding for the first 3 years, then revert to Senate Finance language.	Up to 150% FPL
Subsidies	Between 133 – 400% FPL on sliding scale; spend 2%-9.8% of income on premiums	Between 133 – 400% FPL on sliding scale; spend 2%-12% of income on premiums
Public Option	National public plan, states can opt-out by 2014. Co-ops are also available.	Yes, HHS secretary negotiates rates
Financing	Excise tax on policies above $8,500 (individuals) and $23,000 (families), increases the payroll tax by .5% (increases to 1.95%) on individuals who earn more than $200,000 and families earning more than $250,000 a year, tax on insurers, pharmaceuticals, and medicare devices; Medicare savings	5.4% surtax on individuals earning > $500,000, couples earning more than $1 million; Medicare savings

The New York Times also has a great comparison.

Overall, the fact that Majority Leader Harry Reid did the right thing and listened to the American people by including things like a public health insurance option and a tax credit level that goes a long way towards making health care affordable means that this bill deserves a debate and a fair, majority up-or-down vote.

Republicans and the insurance companies will try to block this bill any way they can, even going so far as to recommend the Senate not even talk about this bill, let alone vote on it. These tactics only preserve the status quo. The American people deserve health care reform – reform that delivers affordable coverage, a choice of a public health insurance option, and fair financing – and this bill deserves a fair vote by the full Senate so it can meet the House bill in conference.

*This post originally appeared in Health Care for America Now on November 19, 2009. Reprinted with permission from the author.

About the Author: Jason Rosenbaum is a writer and musician currently residing in Washington D.C. He is interested in the intersection of politics and culture, media consolidation issues, and making sense out of our foreign policy disasters. He currently works for Health Care for America Now and he is also the webmaster for The Seminal.

Last month I told you how to buy union-made treats for Halloween. But now Christmas is coming, and that means even more shopping — and for a wide range of stuff beyond just chocolates.

With the rise of globalization and outsourcing, the shopper’s dilemma is especially acute when buying clothes. You don’t want your holiday shopping dollars enriching an absentee CEO who takes advantage of the North Pole’s weak labor regulations to force his workers to churn out product night and day year-round. (His apologists will tell you he’s “jolly.” But there’s nothing jolly about a repetitive stress injury.)

What’s a conscientious consumer to do?

Never fear! The International Labor Rights Forum and SweatFree Communities have stepped into the breach with the latest edition of their Shop With a Conscience Consumer Guide, which lists tons of places you can buy sweatshop-free clothing for everyone on your list. And their 2010 Sweatshop Hall of Shame is a handy list of retail outlets that don’t deserve your business until the way they treat the men and women who make their products moves from “naughty” to “nice”.

They’ve even got these materials available as PDF brochures (Consumer Guide, Hall of Shame), suitable for printing out and taking with you to the mall. Heck, you could even print out some extra copies and hand them out to other shoppers while you’re there, you know?

So this year, don’t give lumps of coal to the men and women who make the gifts you give — shop sweatshop-free!

*This post originally appeared in Change to Win on November 17, 2009. Reprinted with permission from the author.

About the Author Jason Lefkowitz: is the Online Campaigns Organizer for Change to Win, a partnership of seven unions and six million workers united together to restore the American Dream for everybody. He built his first Web site in 1995 and has been building online communities professionally since 1998. To read more of his work, visit the Change to Win blog, CtW Connect, at http://www.changetowin.org/connect.

Hyatt’s efforts to woo fired housekeepers has been mostly unsuccessful, with only six taking up the hotelier’s offer of employment with the company that replaced them.

Hyatt says the new jobs will extend their pay through 2010 and healthcare through May 2010. But workers aren’t buying the company’s efforts to assuage the public relations disaster they set off when they fired the 98 housekeepers in August. Luz Aquino, who worked at the Hyatt Harborside told Reuters: “Hyatt, I think, is playing games because they think we’re stupid.”

Protesters rally outside Bostons Hyatt Regency hotel in October. Photo by Elizabeth Washburn

A Boston news station reported yesterday that a worker said the hotel had not kept its promise to continue health coverage through March after her son was denied care during a hospital visit. Hyatt said this was just a clerical error and the problem was fixed. But the report also said Emerson College yanked its holiday party from the Hyatt to protest the company’s treatment of workers.

We documented here how the firing has sent ripples within the state and across the nation. On November 12, UNITE HERE kicked off a series of North American solidarity demonstrations in Toronto that was attended by hundreds in an effort to bring attention to the workers’ plight.

Hyatt’s explanation for the firings was that it needed to remain profitable in a down economy. But that’s a hard argument to swallow when Hyatt Hotels Corporation announced it raised $127.3 million at the closing of its initial public offering last week.

Some Money Reversing Flow to U.S. from Mexico

As we reported on ITT Working, the down economy hasn’t sent workers back to Mexico en masse despite the special challenges it poses to migrant workers. Predictably, hard times have led to unemployment for some and the inability to send money home, but anecdotal evidence shows that some money is even reversing course. The New York Times yesterday reported some families are scraping together funds to send to their unemployed relatives in the U.S.

This post originally appeared in Working In These Times on November 17, 2009. Reprinted with permission from the author.

About the Author: Emily Udell is a writer for Angie’s List Magazine in Indianapolis. In 2009, she finished a stint drinking bourbon and covering breaking news for The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky. Her eclectic media career also includes time at the Associated Press, Punk Planet (R.I.P.), The Daily Southtown in southwest Chicago, and Radio Prague in the Czech Republic. She co-hosted and co-produced In These Times’ radio show “Fire on the Prairie” from 2003 to 2006.

Sex Discrimination Against Men Violates Title VII

Sex Discrimination Against Men Violates Title VII

It’s not often that you see cases involving discrimination against men, but in the last few weeks the EEOC has reported two noteworthy settlements.

The Sex Discrimination Case Against Lawry’s

In early November, the EEOC announced a $1,025,000 settlement of a class action lawsuit against Lawry’s Restaurants Inc., which operates steak houses in Las Vegas, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Beverly Hills and Corona del Mar, California. 

In the lawsuit, the EEOC charged Lawry’s with maintaining a longstanding company wide policy of hiring only women for server positions.

The policy, which has been in place since 1938, is in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits discrimination because of sex.

Lawry’s claimed that the policy was based on long standing tradition. The EEOC found that the policy adversely affected a class of men on the basis of sex.

The parties reached an agreement to settle the case in early November. Under the consent decree Lawry’s agreed to:

• change its practice and actively promote the hiring of men into server positions
  

• provide monetary relief including a class fund of $500,000
  

• pay over $300,000 to initiate an advertising campaign regarding the hiring of food servers
  

• pay $225,000 for training its employees on compliance with Title VII and related laws
  

• take additional steps to insure compliance with Title VII and the decree

In its announcement of the settlement, Olophious E. Perry, who managed the EEOC investigation said:

The EEOC will never condone discrimination in the name of so-called tradition. Every individual deserves a fair chance to obtain a job based on their talent and qualifications, regardless of gender.

It seems to me that there are lots of restaurants out there that still have male only, or female only servers. This case makes it clear that this is one “tradition” that has seen its day.

Cheesecake Factory Settles Case Of Male On Male Sexual Harassment

The EEOC announced this week that Cheesecake Factory, Inc, a nationwide restaurant chain, will  pay $345,000 to settle a sexual harassment suit involving six male employees who were subjected to repeated sexual harassment at the company’s Chandler Mall location outside of Phoenix.

The complaint charged that the restaurant knew about and tolerated repeated sexual assaults against six male employees by a group of kitchen staffers.

The evidence included abuse involving the harassers:

• directly touching the victims’ genitals
  

• making sexually charged remarks
  

• grinding their genitals against them
  

• forcing victims into repeated episodes of simulated rape

According to the EEOC, managers witnessed employees dragging their victims kicking and screaming into the refrigerator. Victims’ complaints were made to virtually every manager in the restaurant but the conduct never stopped. Eventually the police were called and an EEOC charge was filed.

Mary Jo O’Neill, Regional Attorney of the EEOC’s Phoenix office had this to say:

The evidence was clear, and everyone knew about it. Behind the lavish décor that the company boasts on its web site was a horribly dysfunctional workplace where male workers lived in fear.

I would like to think that this situation is unusual, but the EEOC’s Phoenix District Office’s press release points out that it’s currently prosecuting a similar case against Fleming’s Prime Steak House.

What’s with these restaurants?

Lessons To Be Learned

When most of us think about sex discrimination, we think about discrimination against women, and that’s certainly what was contemplated when the “because of sex” language was added to Title VII.

(Interestingly, the addition of “sex” by a southern congressman to Title VII in 1964 was seen by most as a cynical attempt to torpedo the bill which was primarily targeted to address race discrimination)

Likewise, when most of us think about sexual harassment, we think of men as the harassers and women as the victims.

(Not so, said the Supreme Court in the landmark case of Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services,Inc in 1998; for more on this topic, see my article: What’s Going On With Male On Male Sexual Harassment )

These recent EEOC cases draw attention to the fact that men can be victims of gender discrimination as well as outrageous sexual harassment.  Both forms of discrimination are against the law and can lead to serious consequences for all involved.

Images: www.foodgps.com

www.family-vacation-getaways

About the Author: Ellen Simon is recognized as one of the first and foremost employment and civil rights lawyers in the United States. With more than $50* million in verdicts and settlements and over 30 years of experience, Ellen has been listed in Best Lawyers in America and in the National Law Journal as one of the nation’s leading litigators. She has been lauded for her work on landmark cases that established employment law in both state and federal court. Ellen also possesses a wealth of knowledge as a legal analyst discussing high-profile civil cases, employment discrimination and women’s issues. Ms. Simon has been quoted often in local and national news media and is a regular guest on television and radio, including appearances on Court TV. She is the author of the Employee Rights Post, a legal blog devoted to employee and civil rights.

*prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome

In a landmark decision, California’s Supreme Court held that two women who were not involved in a workplace affair had grounds to sue because the women who were having affairs with the boss received preferential treatment.

Prison and party don’t normally go together in my mind. But after reading about the workplace where the harassment took place, California’s Valley State Prison for Women, I’ll have to think again about what goes on behind those guard gates and razor wire.

Let me explain. Two Valley State women employees sued because they claimed that the warden promoted women who he was romantically involved with over women who were not sleeping with him. This is where the case gets interesting. The warden wasn’t having one affair. He wasn’t sleeping with two women at the same time. He managed to maintain THREE concurrent affairs. Actually the CNN description didn’t even stop there; its report said that he had “at least” three affairs.

This guy gives new meaning to the phrase “working around the clock.” I’m a guy and the thought of maintaining three affairs just wears me out. Then again, just being a warden, I thought, would manage to occupy your full attention too.

This case also is a great example of the law of “unintended consequences.” This is where we are so focused on what we are doing, that we fail to see its unintended results on the people around us. After reading much of the commentary surrounding this decision, there was a common thread that this case would obviously be overturned by the right coast Supreme Court (isn’t it interesting how the coast of both so completely aligns with their political affiliations?).

Whether the case is overturned or not, it clearly shows the danger of putting all your eggs in the workplace basket. Many of us spend a huge amount of time at work, we make all of our friends at work, we derive most of the meaning for our lives from work and yes, we often date the people at work.

This case points out that our actions, especially dating, can have an impact far beyond us. It’s like when you throw a rock into a calm lake and the wake generated flows in all directions. Relationships not only make work complicated for the people involved, it makes things complicated for everyone that they come into contact with.

What’s so ironic is that so many people seem to think that they are like Casper the Friendly Ghost at work—invisible. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is only one workplace dogma that I believe—no one can keep a secret indefinitely at work. And if you are a boss, well the odds go down even further. Because, whether you like it or not, every person who works for you is always watching everything that you do or say.

So according to the California Supreme Court, if you are a supervisor who dates at work, don’t be surprised if you are suddenly greeted by an orgy of lawsuits.

About the Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.

This morning, President Obama announced he will invite labor leaders, business executives, small business owners, economists and other financial experts to a special White House summit on jobs next month.

Obama says the summit will explore ways to slow the loss of jobs and quicken the pace of job creation at a time when the nation’s jobless rate is at 10.2 percent, its highest point since 1983. As Obama said,

We have an obligation to consider every additional responsible step that we can to encourage and accelerate job creation in this country.

Just this week, the AFL-CIO Executive Council met in Washington, D.C., to outline a national jobs creation strategy that AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will announce Tuesday at a special Economic Policy Institute (EPI) jobs and economy panel and seminar. (Plan now to view the live webcast from 9-11:30 a.m., Tuesday, Nov. 17, at www.aflcio.org/createjobs.)

The summit announcement came as a new report showed there were 502,000 initial claims for unemployment benefits last week. Dire as that is, it’s lower than expected and is the smallest number of first-time claims since January. But, according to Obama:

Even though we’ve slowed the loss of jobs—and today’s report on the continued decline in unemployment claims is a hopeful sign—the economic growth that we’ve seen has not yet led to the job growth that we desperately need.

EPI President Lawrence Mishel calls the announcement of the White House jobs summit “necessary and welcome.”

President Obama is right to say that we should take “every responsible step” to help put Americans back to work. With a double-digit unemployment rate and nearly 16 million Americans looking for work, we should take decisive action as quickly as possible to create jobs. High rates of unemployment damage our economy in ways that can take years, if not generations, to fix, by casting millions of families and children into poverty and making it difficult for our nation to invest for the future. President Obama’s focus on job creation is necessary and welcome.

Currently 15.7 million workers are jobless and when the unemployment and underemployment rates are combined they soar to 17.5 percent—more than 27 million workers.

A date for the summit will be announced soon.

This article originally appeared in AFL-CIO blog on November 12, 2009. Reprinted with permission from the author.

About the Author: Mike Hall is a former West Virginia newspaper reporter, staff writer for the United Mine Workers Journal and managing editor of the Seafarers Log. I came to the AFL- CIO in 1989 and have written for several federation publications, focusing on legislation and politics, especially grassroots mobilization and workplace safety. When my collar was still blue, I carried union cards from the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers, American Flint Glass Workers and Teamsters for jobs in a chemical plant, a mining equipment manufacturing plant and a warehouse. I’ve also worked as roadie for a small-time country-rock band, sold my blood plasma and played an occasional game of poker to help pay the rent. You may have seen me at one of several hundred Grateful Dead shows. I was the one with longhair and the tie-dye. Still have the shirts, lost the hair.

New ADA Regulations Will Bring Necessary Change

I received a call from a reporter from MSNBC a few days ago. She indicated that she wanted to ask me some questions about the new Americans with Disabilities Act regulations recently put out by the EEOC.

The interview caused me to reflect on just how important the amendments to the ADA are –along with the new regulations — and the struggle we have gone through to get here.

When the ADA was written, I remember being at a meeting in Cleveland with a group of employment lawyers which was sponsored by a committee of the American Bar Association. The guest speaker was a lawyer from D.C. and he was there to talk to us about the new legislation and give us a preview.

I remember listening to and reading all of these complex, confusing terms and thinking “this is going to result in tons of litigation and be a big nightmare.” I walked out of the meeting and talked about my deep concern with some friends and colleagues from both sides of the bar.

We all seemed to reach the same conclusion – that this was going to be an ugly litigation mess — and though we saw the handwriting on the wall, there was nothing we could do about it. The ADA was written and this is what it was going to say.

And indeed what our group of experienced employment lawyers predicted that day in 1990 turned out to be true. While the intent of the ADA was certainly noble, the way in which it was written has caused nothing but problems.

What’s more important is that the problems with the ADA have had a terrible negative effect on those individuals who were supposed to be protected by the legislation.

The ADA was intended to protect individuals with disabilities from discrimination. Because of the way in which the Act was written, combined with the way in which it has been interpreted by an exceedingly conservative federal judiciary, most cases got thrown out on summary judgment because the courts determined that the individual plaintiff employee was not disabled.

If he/she was not disabled, then he/she was not protected by the ADA from disability discrimination, and so they lost. Here’s an example of what I mean.

A secretary gets fired for going to chemotherapy. We file a case of disability discrimination. The employer argues that cancer is not a disability as defined by the Act. The judge buys the argument and the case gets thrown out. (based on a true story)

That scenario occurred thousands and thousands of times. Employees with disabilities were getting fired, or not hired in the first place, or passed over for promotions – and the cases were thrown out of court because the employers argued that the person was not disabled so the ADA did not apply.

Those rejected included people with AIDS, people with cancer, people with MS, people with epilepsy, diabetes, with prosthetic devices and the list goes on and on.

As a consequence,  those of us who tried to represent these folks never even got to the stage of the case in which we had a chance to prove discrimination.

As I explained to the MSNBC reporter, in other discrimination lawsuits such as age, race, or gender discrimination cases, we don’t have a fight about whether the client is a woman, or over 40, or black.

We glide past step one, and move on to proof of the next step, that is:

• Was he or she was discriminated against because of age, race or gender?

• Was that person’s age, race, or gender a motivating reason for the discharge, failure to hire, lack of promotion, or any other adverse employment decision?

In disability cases, it was almost impossible to get to step two. Practically no one seemed to meet the criteria for coverage under the ADA. To be covered, the individual must:

• have a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities

• and be able  to perform the essential functions of the job.

The courts decided – at the employers’ urging — that the employee was either not substantially impaired, or that the impairment did not involve a “major life activity.”

Even if the plaintiff got over that hurdle – in other words was disabled enough to meet the criteria, it’s most likely that he or she was booted anyway.

That’s because the employer would then take the position that the individual was so restricted that he or she was not able to meet the essential functions of their job – and most courts went along with the companies’ argument.

In a nutshell, a person either wasn’t disabled enough to meet the definitional terms of the statute– – or was too disabled to perform the “essential functions of the job” even if accommodated. (reasonable accommodation for the disabled is required under the ADA)

The long and short of it is that millions of people with disabilities had no protection from discrimination as a result of this legal mess.

The amendments to the ADA passed last year (Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008) fixed this problem and the regulations issued at the end of September provided most of the necessary clarifications to put real teeth into the fix.

For the first time, the EEOC regulations lists examples of impairments that will consistently meet the definition of a disability. Such impairments include (but are not limited to):

• Blindness
  
• Deafness
  
• Intellectual disabilities
  
• Partially or completely missing limbs
  
• Mobility impairments requiring the use of a wheelchair
  
• Autism
  
• Cancer
  
• Cerebral palsy
  
• Diabetes
  
• Epilepsy
  
• HIV/AIDS
  
• Multiple sclerosis
  
• Muscular dystrophy
  
• Major depression
  
• Bipolar disorder
  
• Post-traumatic stress disorder
  
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder
  
• Schizophrenia

There are new definitions for substantial impairment, major life activity, regarded as disabled, and more  – all of which are intended to overrule the previous restrictive federal court interpretations of the legislation(including the US Supreme Court).

The new ADA amendments along with the regulations plainly state that the ADA is intended to offer broad protection to people with disabilities as well as people who are regarded to be disabled by their employers and who are discriminated because of it.

Instead of litigating the issue of whether someone is disabled,  the central issue of these cases will now be what they should have been all along – whether the employee was discriminated against because of a disability.  That’s what was intended when the Americans With Disabilities Act was passed.

Too bad it took us nineteen years to get here – but as the old adage goes, better late than never.

www.michaellouisyoung.com

www.broward.org

This article originally appeared in Employee Rights Post on November 9, 2009. Reprinted with permission from the author.

About the Author: Ellen Simon is recognized as one of the first and foremost employment and civil rights lawyers in the United States. With more than $50* million in verdicts and settlements and over 30 years of experience, Ellen has been listed in Best Lawyers in America and in the National Law Journal as one of the nation’s leading litigators. She has been lauded for her work on landmark cases that established employment law in both state and federal court. Ellen also possesses a wealth of knowledge as a legal analyst discussing high-profile civil cases, employment discrimination and women’s issues. Ms. Simon has been quoted often in local and national news media and is a regular guest on television and radio, including appearances on Court TV. She is the author of the Employee Rights Post, a legal blog devoted to employee and civil rights.

*prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome

While we take the time this Veterans Day to honor the courage and sacrifice shown by our veterans, we should also rededicate ourselves to making sure vets have a secure and stable life after they finish their service.

The U.S. Labor Department reports the unemployment rate among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans is 11.3 percent, significantly above the overall rate of 10.2 percent for the nation as a whole. Some 185,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are out of work. Many of these unemployed veterans are National Guard or Reserve troops who were called to duty but found when they came home that their old jobs were no longer there for them.

The AFL-CIO Union Veterans Council is calling on Congress to strengthen and enforce the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, which ensures veterans can claim their former jobs when they return from active duty.

In his Veterans Day message, Union Veterans Council Chairman Mark Ayers quotes President Franklin Roosevelt who signed the first GI Bill into law in 1944:

What our servicemen and women want, more than anything else, is the assurance of satisfactory employment upon their return to civil life.

“For today’s veterans, that same desire holds true,” Ayers says.

Click here to read Ayers’ message.

There is good news for vets on this holiday. President Obama signed on Nov. 9 a new executive order that underscores to federal agencies the importance of recruiting and training veterans, to increase the employment of veterans within the executive branch and to help recently hired veterans adjust to civilian life.

The executive order establishes a Veterans Employment Program office within most federal agencies, the White House said. These offices will be responsible for helping veterans identify employment opportunities within federal agencies, providing feedback to veterans about their employment application status, and helping veterans recently employed by agencies adjust to civilian life and a workplace culture often different than military service.

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Veterans Affairs Secretary  will chair a high-level committee to oversee the program. Click here to read the executive order.

The Union Veterans Council also is calling for other federal programs, as well:

• Expanding state and local programs for providing job training and employment counseling services.
• Increasing coverage of the new post-9/11 GI Bill to include payments for apprenticeships and on-the-job training.
• Continuing funding for the nationally recognized AFL-CIO “Helmets to Hardhats” program, which has placed tens of thousands of transitioning veterans into careers in the construction industry.

Ayers sums it up this way:

On this Veterans Day, we have the privilege of honoring these very special American men and women whose sacrifices and service are beyond most people’s comprehension. We owe them a great deal. First and foremost, we owe them our freedom. Secondly, we owe them our gratitude. And finally, we owe them the prospect of a secure and stable life upon the conclusion of their service.

This post originally appeared in AFL-CIO blog on November 10, 2009. Reprinted with permission from the author.

About the Author: James Parks had his first encounter with unions at Gannett’s newspaper in Cincinnati when his colleagues in the newsroom tried to organize a unit of The Newspaper Guild. He saw firsthand how companies pull out all the stops to prevent workers from forming a union. He is a journalist by trade, and worked for newspapers in five different states before joining the AFL-CIO staff in 1990. He has also been a seminary student, drug counselor, community organizer, event planner, adjunct college professor and county bureaucrat. His proudest career moment, though, was when he served, along with other union members and staff, as an official observer for South Africa’s first multiracial elections.