Love as Resistance

By Rosann Mariappuram

“Love is an action, never simply a feeling.”

– bell hooks

When I describe Legal Voice’s work I often talk about fighting sexism, dismantling systems of oppression, and building power through the strategic use of law and advocacy. I use language that reflects the pro-active, take-the-offensive approach that I love about Legal Voice’s work. But another powerful way to describe our work is through love. Legal Voice’s work is rooted in love for those we serve and the love we receive from our community of donors, supporters, and allies.

Black feminist scholar bell hooks* constantly centers the radical power of love in her writings. Her essay “Love as a Practice of Freedom” calls for all of us to shape our political vision through an ethic of love. She explains that when we view oppression only through our personal experiences we develop blind-spots; that we seek to end the kinds of hate that directly harm us out of self-interest and self-protection. But blind-spots allow us to maintain the status quo and to be complicit in dominant cultures like racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia. An ethic of love takes the opposite approach. Love requires us to expand our point of view and see how systems of oppression are interdependent. Love forces us to stop only looking out for our own needs. Love makes us fight for collective freedom.

hooks also points out that an ethic of love is necessary to address the anguish and pain that dominant culture causes. Love allows us to heal both personally and politically. The number of attacks by the federal government in 2018 on sexual assault survivors, trans and gender-nonconforming people, and immigrants affirms this need for an ethic of love. The communities Legal Voice serves are under attack and only through love can we heal and move forward.

Gratitude is one of my favorite ways to put love into action. So as we wrap up 2018 I send my thanks to each and every person in the Legal Voice community. Our work and this movement wouldn’t be possible without you!

*bell hooks is a celebrated feminist scholar, artist, and writer. She has published over three dozen books including cultural criticisms, personal memoirs, poetry collections, and children's books. Her writings cover gender, race, class, spirituality, teaching, and the role of media. Visit the bell hooks Institute to learn more about her work and life.

Rosann Mariappuram is a 2018–19 If/When/How Reproductive Justice Fellow for Surge and Legal Voice.

Community Spotlight: ROC-Seattle

Q&A with ROC-Seattle's Elena Perez

and Legal Voice's Sarah MacDonald

The restaurant industry is riddled with inequities: Few other industries have such widely accepted low wages; workers often rely heavily on tips to make a living, which perpetuates racism, sexism, and sexual harassment; and exploitative workplace policies are all too common, especially for immigrant and refugee communities who are disproportionately represented in the industry.

Today is National Food Service Workers Day—a day when we don't just show appreciation for the folks who prepare, cook, and serve our meals, but when we also shine a light on the daily challenges they face in the workplace.

I asked Elena Perez of ROC-Seattle a few questions about the organization's current work at the intersection of low-wage work; racial, gender, and immigrant justice; and workplace sexual violence. Read on to learn more!

•••

Who is ROC United?

Founded initially after September 11th, 2001 as a worker relief center for affected restaurant workers and their families, the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC United) has grown into a national organization with restaurant worker members in chapters in New York, California, Boston, Chicago, Michigan, New Orleans, Pennsylvania, Seattle, and Washington, DC. Across the country, we have activated 130,000 restaurant workers, employers, and consumers to improve wages and working conditions in the restaurant industry.

Raising the wage and labor standards in the restaurant industry is a matter of economic, social, gender, and racial justice. ROC United is committed to work with workers, employers, consumers, workers’ rights advocates, and legislators to eliminate unjust labor practices dating back to the slavery era, professionalize the industry, and bring dignity to the work and lives of hardworking men and women in some of the lowest paid occupations in the country.

What is one of the most pressing issues facing restaurant workers in Washington State?

ROC-Seattle’s primary goal is to give support to low-wage restaurant workers in the daily challenges that they face in the industry. Overall, across this work, we recognize the need to collectively build power and voice for restaurant workers in our region. The issues we are centering on currently are: defending and expanding on "One Fair Wage" in Washington; building lines of defense and support for immigrants and refugees in the industry who are increasingly targeted in today's political climate; and confronting racial and gender inequities in the industry that underlie disparities in wages, treatment, and opportunities for advancement for women and people of color.

Washington State is one of eight states with a legislated One Fair Wage policy and one of seven states where this policy has been fully implemented. One Fair Wage refers to a policy that guarantees all workers, including those in tipped occupations, the full minimum wage with tips on top. As local jurisdictions pursue minimum wages higher than the state's, the greatest challenge is to ensure that tipped workers are not carved out from local legislation, and that labor rules issued by the state are explicit and unambiguous in protecting the equal wage regime at all local levels.

Wage theft is also a continuing challenge in the restaurant industry as are practices that mislead customers in believing service charges go to servers when they legally belong to the business owners. Until the industry pays restaurant workers a living wage, tips are necessary to complement the minimum wage. Restaurant workers are professionals in every sense, yet not recognized as such with corresponding compensation.


What organizing strategies is ROC-Seattle currently working on to address these issues?

We are proud that Washington is one of the eight states in our nation with One Fair Wage, and are thankful for our State's leadership in defending the civil rights of immigrants and refugees, and other targeted communities. But there is still work to do to make economic, social, racial and gender justice real for workers throughout the restaurant industry. Two prime areas of organizing are:

1. Defending workers' rights under One Fair Wage. We are currently advocating with the WA Department of Labor & Industries (L&I) to make sure tip theft protections apply equally to ALL workers in ALL cities in Washington. In partnership with Legal Voice, we are urging L&I to revise their Legal Guidance on Tips & Service Charges to make it clear that every single tipped worker in Washington has the right to tips and service charges in addition to their hourly minimum wage. One Fair Wage in WA is being undermined by L&I's lack of clarity about workers' rights to full tips and service charges when they earn higher minimum wages under local ordinances in cities like Seatac, Seattle and Tacoma. Tips and service charges should never be used by owners to meet their local minimum wage obligations! During L&I's public comment period, we organized over 150 individuals from across the State to call for equal protections for tipped workers, and we continue to organize with our members to ensure L&I fully implements and enforces WA's tip theft protections.


2. Due to a combination of policy, industry, and cultural trends, the very visible and diverse restaurant workforce has been a prominent target of harassment and hate crimes. For immigrants working in the industry, they are often isolated both physically and socially, with many speaking limited English and segregated into back-of-house jobs. There are real and perceived vulnerabilities that are preyed upon by unethical employers leading to rampant wage theft, harassment, and lack of compliance with labor laws, with workers afraid to respond because of fear of retaliation. In response, ROC-Seattle is conducting extensive community-based outreach in English and Spanish to educate restaurant industry workers on their legal rights on the job and offering free legal support to address their daily challenges at work. We currently offer Know Your Rights/Conozca sus Derechos trainings for workers and restaurant employers around Labor Standards and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) Activity, and offer additional trainings through ROC's Sanctuary Restuarants movement including Sexual Harassment 101 and LGBTQ Worker Rights.

In both campaigns, we are building power with a strong base of worker members in ROC-Seattle advocating for fair wages, and safe, healthy and equitable working conditions.


As in so many other service jobs, women and people of color are overly represented in low-wage restaurant work. Why do you think this is?

I'll start with some numbers:

• Half of Americans, at some point in their lives, work in the restaurant industry. 
• Women comprise 66% of all tipped workers. 
• Women in tipped restaurant occupations earn 80% of their male counterparts’ wages; female servers in America experience a poverty rate that is three times that of their male counterparts. 
• Restaurant workers of color earn 56% less income on average compared to equally qualified white workers. 

Our "Behind the Kitchen Door" research found a $5 per hour wage gap between white men and women of color in Seattle's full service industry jobs. One of the underlying causes for this is that restaurant workers of color access living wage fine dining occupations only 73% of the time, compared to equally qualified white workers.

All these national statistics point to an issue of a great gender and racial occupational disparity that has its roots in a long history of institutionalized racism, leading to economic inequality that persist in our society from generation to generation. ROC has been working for years to address these issues through RAISE, its high road employer program; CHOW, a worker training program which opens the door to professions in fine dining for women and people of color; and advocacy for racial, gender, immigrant, and economic justice. In Seattle and the Bay, ROC is confronting racial and gender occupational segregation in the industry through our Racial Equity Project where we partner with restaurant employers who seek to advance racial equity in their establishments; create career ladders for workers through CHOW training; and seek broad policy solutions to address race and gender-based occupational segregation in the industry.


As we’ve learned through the #MeToo movement, workplace sexual violence is widespread in low-wage jobs and is often fueled by a power imbalance between a worker and their employer, supervisor, or even their customer. What kinds of power dynamics are present when restaurant workers are on the job?

While 7% of American women work in the restaurant industry, more than 14% of all sexual harassment claims to the EEOC come from the restaurant industry—disproportionately more than from any other industry. Recent studies report that more than 90% of restaurant workers in the District of Columbia and more than 80% in New York report experiencing sexual harassment at work. Workers in states like Washington, who do not have a lower tipped minimum wage, experience sexual harassment at half the rate of those working in states where they must depend on customers’ tips for the bulk of their income. But sexual harassment is still a significant issue in the industry even in the One Fair Wage states and affects workers long after they leave the industry.

Because the experiences of sexual harassment are so extreme, overt, and widespread in the restaurant industry, women tend to marginalize their experiences of inappropriate workplace behavior later in their careers as they feel those experiences are “never as bad” as what they have had to put up with as young servers. When workers depend on customers to pay a significant portion of their compensation through tips, they are forced to tolerate inappropriate behavior. And it is not just customers who decide their tips, but also managers who control shift and table assignments, and even co-workers who impact the perceived value of service indirectly and therefore might have power over the server (e.g. server’s tips may depend on the quality or speed of the work of kitchen and support staff).


How can people in the Legal Voice community support restaurant workers and ROC Seattle’s mission?

Join us! Whether you are a current or former industry worker, a restaurant owner or manager, or an "eater" who loves to advance social justice while dining out, we have a home for you. Stay current on our campaigns through our national website and our local Facebook page. If you have ideas for collaboration or want to volunteer for ROC-Seattle, please contact me, Elena Perez, at elena@rocunited.org.


Photo courtesy of ROC-Seattle

Power Over Profit: Why We Should All Care About the Trump Administration's Response to Breastfeeding

By Jacqueline Schafer

American culture typically portrays breastfeeding as nurturing, gentle, natural—but rarely as a form of power. But recently, while watching The Handmaid's Tale, I started to think of nursing in terms of the powerful independence that it represents from corporate America.

For those unfamiliar with the popular TV series loosely based on Margaret Atwood's classic novel: facing a fertility crisis, the dystopian nation of Gilead enslaves a group of women who have successfully given birth before, forcing them to bear children for Gilead's military leadership. As cruel and patently evil as Gilead's male leaders are, they apparently deeply respect the role of breastfeeding in early childhood development and allow the Handmaids to breastfeed their infants for a period of time before separating them from their children. The regime’s respect for breastfeeding results in several key plot points that give the brutally oppressed Handmaids a rare source of leverage.

As extreme as the show is, it reminded me that when a government promotes breastfeeding, it necessarily recognizes the latent power of women* to provide nourishment for their children. The Trump Administration actually recognized this power when it sought to prevent the introduction of an updated resolution from the World Health Organization (WHO) this spring. The resolution stated the scientifically uncontroversial concepts that governments should promote breastfeeding—because of research demonstrating that it results in the best outcomes for children, particularly in developing countries and low income communities where children are at risk if formula money runs low—and should limit advertising about unhealthy food products, such as infant formula with added sugar.

The Atlantic does a good job of explaining the harmful international impact of advertisements that promote infant formula over breastfeeding, and why infant formula companies aggressively lobby the American government to maximize profits. It is stunning that infant formula companies are so deeply threatened by the power of women to feed their own children that they sought to manipulate the WHO’s official voice on the subject.

Why does WHO recognition matter at the local and national level? Official recognition of the benefits of breastfeeding by the WHO has significant societal implications for women's economic security and power. One point to consider is that when state legislators and Congressmembers draft legislation, they look to international norms and the most current research as justification for their bills. If the most prominent health care organization in the world is silent about the need to promote breastfeeding, it becomes easier for legislators to ignore the scientific consensus and pass health care legislation that lacks express protections or benefits for nursing parents. And by not supporting laws and interventions that make it easier for people to breastfeed, that necessarily creates demand for formula—which is coincidentally manufactured by corporations that often donate to specific politicians’ campaigns.

These efforts to deny the promotion of breastfeeding as an international norm may not seem as pressing in light of the other threats to women's health by the Trump Administration, but if I've learned anything from The Handmaid’s Tale it is that words matter. Omitting conclusive research from international dialogue can reduce societal and workplace support for breastfeeding, thereby limiting the ability of women to choose that journey. In honor of World Breastfeeding Week, women should recognize their power to nourish the next generation and continue to fight back against those who would try to diminish that power for profit.

*I use the term “women” here, but I recognize that not all people who breastfeed/chestfeed are women, and that not all people who give birth can or choose to breastfeed/chestfeed.


Jacqueline Schafer is an advocate for the safety and success of children, families, and the communities where they live. She is pro bono cooperating counsel for Legal Voice, a world traveler, and in-house counsel for a national child welfare nonprofit.

Can Title IX Protect Me from Sexual Harassment at My Internship?

By Olivia Ortiz

Summer is upon us, and students across the country are exchanging their classrooms for internships. Internships are valuable learning experiences that allow students to apply their educations to real world professions.

But these experiences are highly susceptible to sexual harassment. Unpaid interns are particularly vulnerable as courts have ruled and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission policy dictates that, with some exceptions, unpaid interns do not have the protections afforded by the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits workplace discrimination. However, unpaid student interns who are participating in their internship for academic credit do have a form of recourse by virtue of Title IX.

Title IX is a 46 year-old civil rights law protecting students against gender discrimination in “educational programs.” Both the Third and Sixth Circuit U.S. Courts of Appeals have ruled that internships taken for academic credit qualify as “educational programs” under Title IX. Although internship sites themselves may not qualify as “educational institutions,” they can house “educational programs” for which federally funded educational institutions are responsible. This means that schools are responsible for responding to sexual harassment against students in the sites of their for-credit internships.

In one case, Varlesi v. Wayne State University, a Master of Social Work student experienced pregnancy discrimination at her site for a required fieldwork component. When she reported the discrimination to her school, the school official dismissed her complaint. The student’s fieldwork supervisor at the site proceeded to retaliate against her by assigning a failing grade, leaving the student unable to graduate. This example highlights the unique way that harassment can impact students in internships for credit; their academic progress depends on their supervisor and the successful completion of the internship.

Students in internships for credit should be aware that they have protections under Title IX. If a student experiences sexual harassment during their internship for credit, they have the option of seeking help through their school in complaint proceedings. As in any other educational program, schools are obligated to address complaints of sexual harassment and violence in internships for credit.

Furthermore, schools should take preventative measures to ensure that both students and for-credit internship sites are aware of their rights and responsibilities under Title IX. Arizona State University, for instance, created a fact sheet detailing these responsibilities for employers who host their students. Sending a Title IX fact sheet to students and employers affirms the institution’s commitment to Title IX, equips students with powerful knowledge, and apprises the host site of its responsibilities in offering this learning opportunity.

Learning opportunities should be immersive and educational, and internships for credit are no different. Sexual harassment in any learning environment is counterproductive to these ends, and sexual harassment poses unique challenges in internships. By embracing Title IX and educating both employers and students, institutions will encourage their students to thrive for many summers to come.

For more information on your rights as a student in Washington State, check out students.legalvoice.org.

Olivia Ortiz is a leader of Legal Voice’s Campus Sexual Assault Work Group. She is an incoming JD student at the University of Washington School of Law and tweets at @ortizoliviaa

Act Now: We Must Stop Separating Immigrant Families

By Sarah Smith and Sara Ainsworth

This week, Legal Voice and our allies learned that 206 people who came to the United States seeking asylum had been transferred from Texas and were now detained at the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac. Most are from Cuba, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, and say they fled threats of rape, gang violence, and political persecution in their home countries. The SeaTac FDC is not to be confused with the immigration-focused detention center, Northwest Detention Center, in Tacoma. To the contrary, The SeaTac FDC is generally used only for those serving criminal sentences or awaiting trial on federal charges; this is not the only federal prison being used for such purposes. These detainees presented themselves to border agents in order to seek asylum, only to find themselves thrown head-first into a criminal proceeding they did not ask for.

Among these detainees are 174 women, many of whom had their children taken away from them at the border. Of the 170 or so women detained, more than half reported that they had been separated from their children. The ages of the children, range from 12 months to 16 years old. These children were forcibly separated from their parents, sometimes under false pretenses that the children are being taken for questioning or a bath. Most of these children are not held in Washington State, and are instead held in unknown locations under the supervision of the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the Department of Health and Human Services. These women have expressed fear of returning to their home countries and came here to find safety for themselves and their children; now, they have no idea if or when they will see their children again.

The Trump Administration recently implemented these policies as a way to deter families from trying to reach the United States. The Trump Administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy of prosecuting everyone who crosses the border without permission, even those who do so to request asylum, specifically targets women and children who most in need of protection. Instead of processing their asylum claims as immigration law requires them, border agents arrested these migrants and charged them unlawful entry, a misdemeanor offense, for crossing the border without permission. Many of the detainees pled guilty to the charge, believing that a guilty plea was their best chance at being reunited with their children. Instead, they were sentenced to time served, the lightest punishment possible, and transferred to ICE custody and now face deportation if their asylum claims are not successful.

  

Meanwhile, the Trump Administration further rolled back asylum protections for women on Monday when AG Jeff Sessions announced that victims of domestic abuse and gang violence likely do not qualify for protection under US asylum law. Under asylum law, a person who has a reasonable fear of persecution in their home country based on their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion that the home country’s government cannot or will not prevent has a claim for asylum. Until Monday, that included women in “domestic relationships” from some Central American countries who had been victims of intimate partner violence and could not leave the abusive relationship. Characterizing such harms as “private,” the Trump Administration has turned its back on its obligations under US and international humanitarian law. This new approach does nothing to protect Americans, and it certainly does not help victims of domestic abuse and gang violence.

Contrary to what "someone" is saying on Twitter, there is no law requiring immigrant families to be separated at the border. The decision to charge everyone crossing the board with illegal entry and the decision to put asylum seekers into criminal and deportation proceedings are 100% discretionary choices on the part of the Trump Administration. These choices harm women not only in the United States, but they also hurt women right here in Washington. We must not stand idly by while the rights of women and children are trampled in this way.

Here's how you can take action:

• You can sign petitions - find them at Families Belong Together. Follow Families Belong Together for more actions.
   
• There are several rallies and events scheduled for today and beyond. Look here for one near you.
   
• Donate your time or money to the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project (NWIRP). If you are a lawyer in Washington State who speaks Spanish or Cantonese, NWRIP needs you. They are connecting the people detained here in Washington with lawyers to learn about their cases. And if you don’t speak those languages, but could volunteer to take on an asylum case, let NWIRP know as well.
   
• If you are in Washington, you can support Northwest Detention Center Resistance. Find out about their events on their Facebook page.
   
• Contact your Senators to tell them you support the Keep Families Together Act, which Senator Diane Feinstein and 31 colleagues introduced on June 8th.

**UPDATE** Here are more actions you can take:

• Participate in the daily vigils at Seattle ICE office. The vigil/rally is concentrated from 8–10 a.m. but participants are welcome all day long. Occurs daily from now until July 6th.


• Attend the RAICES (Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education & Legal Services) webinar on June 21. Learn more and register here.


• Make a donation to the RAICES Family Reunification and Bond Fund.


• Participate in the national day of action on June 30. If you are in Seattle, please join Legal Voice and our allies at the 11:00 a.m. rally at the SeaTac Detention Center.


• More ideas from Vu Le of Nonprofit AF here.

Please act now. We can't give up.

Photo by Michał Parzuchowski on Unsplash

Put the FUN in Fundraising with a Special Birthday Celebration!

By Sarah MacDonald

Legal Voice is celebrating 40 fabulous years of progress! In celebration of our four decades of taking names and making change, several of our supporters have used their birthdays to raise funds for—and awareness of—our continued efforts for women, families, and LGBTQ folks in the Northwest. Great idea, right?

You, too, can leverage your special day to gain support for Legal Voice or another cause that's close to your heart. Here are a few ways:

1. Hold a house party! Get your closest pals together to celebrate you (because you're awesome) while also supporting your favorite organization. The opportunities are endless! You can host a traditional birthday party but ask for donations instead of gifts. Do you like sports? Have a football-watching party where you raise money based on the score. Or host a "Rad Women of History" costume party and ask for donations at the door. Whatever you choose to do, we're here to help. We can provide stickers, talking points, custom birthday pins... we even have Ruth Bader Ginsburg coloring books! We might even be able to send a few staff or board members out to celebrate with you. Find more tips here, or email me with your ideas!


2. Create a Facebook Fundraiser! If you're on Facebook, you can easily create a Facebook Fundraiser to support Legal Voice. Your friends and family members can give right on the site. Easy peasy! Start the process at facebook.com/fundraisers and click on "Raise Money for a Nonprofit Organization." We can help you make the most out of your fundraiser with custom images for your page, talking points about all the important issues we're working on, and a special thank you video to everyone who supported your fundraiser. Email me for more information!


3. Write a good old fashioned letter! If you are more on the analog side, consider writing a heartfelt appeal to all the wonderful people in your Rolodex. We can provide you with remit envelopes to include with your letter for donation-making ease, and we'll work with you to write a joint thank you note from you and Legal Voice. Gosh, we make a great team!

Thank you for your continued support of Legal Voice! And for being born. We're pretty glad that happened.

Sarah MacDonald is Marketing & Communications Manager for Legal Voice, where she strives daily to keep you in-the-know. Her birthday is in September, when she will definitely be taking her own advice and hosting a Legal Voice fundraiser! (And taking full advantage of the office buttonmaker.)

Photo by Audrey Fretz on Unsplash

Community Spotlight: UNITE HERE Local 8

Q & A with UNITE HERE Local 8's Abby Lawlor

and Legal Voice's Sarah MacDonald

In his brief time with Legal Voice, our Senior Attorney Andrew Kashyap has been building and fostering connections with labor organizations and unions in the Northwest. These critical groups are elevating workers' voices as they demand workplace equity, safety, and living wages.

As Sexual Assault Awareness Month (April) faded into May Day—a day for solidarity and protest around worker and immigrant rights—I asked Abby Lawlor of UNITE HERE Local 8, the Northwest's hospitality union, a few questions about their work at the intersection of low-wage work, immigrant rights, and workplace sexual violence.

• • •

Who is UNITE HERE Local 8?

UNITE HERE Local 8 is a labor union representing over 5,000 workers in the hospitality industries of Oregon & Washington State. Local 8 members work in hotels, restaurants, food service, and airport concessions. They include housekeepers, cooks, bartenders, bellmen, food and beverage servers, bussers, and dishwashers. Local 8’s parent union, UNITE HERE, represents over 270,000 hotel, food service, and gaming workers throughout the US and Canada. Local 8 has a highly diverse membership, comprising workers from many immigrant and refugee communities as well as high percentages of African-American, Latino, and Asian-American workers. The majority of our members are women. Through organizing, Local 8 members aim to transform thousands of traditionally low-wage jobs into good, family sustaining jobs. We fight for living wages, job security, a voice on the job, safety and respect in the workplace, and affordable family health insurance.


What projects or initiatives are you currently working on?

In 2016, UNITE HERE Local 8 worked to pass Seattle Initiative 124 (I-124), which extended critical workplace health and safety protections to all hotel workers in the city, whether or not they have a union. These include panic buttons and other protections from sexual harassment and assault and protections from workplace injury as well as access to affordable family healthcare and job security. We are currently working on the implementation of the initiative—providing input into the administrative rules and spreading the word to hotel workers about their new rights.

I-124 was a huge step forward in terms of the standards for hotel workers in Seattle. In 2018, a number of our union contracts are up at Seattle hotels. Hundreds of our members will be at the table to negotiate new collective bargaining agreements, which will be another opportunity for us to keep making gains for hotel workers. Lastly, we are always supporting non-union workers as they organize their workplaces and become union members. The food service workers at Lewis and Clark College in Portland and at the Facebook offices in Seattle recently joined our union, and we expect more hospitality workers in the region to follow suit this year!

The #MeToo movement created an important platform for survivors of sexual violence to raise their voices and demand change. But it often feels like the broader movement is leaving out the voices of hotel workers, who face incredible rates of workplace sexual harassment and assault. Why do you think this is?

It’s important to note that this movement isn’t new. Women in our union have been fighting back against workplace harassment for over a hundred years, dating back to when it was the Waitresses’ Union Local 174. And Seattle workers were able to pass an initiative legislating workplace sexual harassment protections a year before the accusations against Harvey Weinstein became headline news. But it’s true that low-wage workers haven’t been at the center of the #MeToo spotlight.

It’s impossible to talk about the risks facing hotel workers without also talking about the broader injustices in our economy. Hotel housekeepers face incredible rates of workplace sexual harassment and assault, as well as workplace injury, because they are low-income women of color (in Seattle, a majority of whom are also immigrants and refugees) who work for profit-driven multi-national hotel companies. Reducing their risk of experiencing harassment and assault may start with panic buttons, but it has to also include a safe workload, a living wage, a voice on the job, healthcare access, job security, and real mechanisms for holding their employers accountable.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t feel like the broader #MeToo movement is at a point yet of moving to tackle these larger issues starting with the people who are most impacted and most vulnerable.

That said, I’ve been more encouraged than discouraged at the extent to which the experiences of women working in the service industry have made their way into the discourse around #MeToo. The conversation happening now feels like a significant step forward from the conversations we were having around I-124 in 2016. There’s more focus on how economic inequality and discrimination put women and LGBTQ people of color at greater risk of violence. And there’s been some acknowledgement that building power for workers and unions is an important part of the solution.


Workplace sexual violence is often fueled by a power imbalance between an employer or supervisor and the worker. What kinds of power dynamics are present when hotel workers are on the job? 

There are two key power imbalances at play within hotels, and which interact to amplify the risk of sexual violence for hotel workers. First, hotel workers are at a distinct power disadvantage relative to their employer and any supervisors or managers. Second, they’re also at a power disadvantage relative to hotel guests, who often have some money and some social status and who their employer is eager to keep coming back.

The vast majority of hotel workers in Seattle aren’t covered by a union contract, meaning they are at-will employees, and their employer can fire them at any time for any reason. Workers can also face discipline or retaliation and, without union representation and a real grievance procedure, have little recourse to respond. Due to economic insecurity, insecure immigration status, and other factors, hotel workers (rightly) have a lot of fear in coming forward about workplace sexual violence. And even if they do want to report, there are often language and other barriers they need to overcome in order to do so. When workers are at a power disadvantage—as housekeepers are when they’re alone in a hotel room with a guest—they become targets for harassment and violence. And when workers are afraid or otherwise unable to speak out, the situation becomes even worse.


How can people in the Legal Voice community support hotel workers and UNITE HERE! Local 8’s mission?

First, anyone who travels and stays in hotels should use the Fair Hotels program to make sure that you’re supporting union workplaces and avoiding hotels that are under boycott. You can search for hotels at www.fairhotel.org or by using the Fair Hotel app. Organizations can also sign on to become Fair Hotels partners and pledge to use your group business to support hotels and event facilities where workers have the opportunity for a better life.

Legal Voice supporters can also sign up for our email updates and/or follow UNITE HERE Local 8 on Facebook and Twitter. We’ll keep you updated about the latest ways to support I-124 and how to show up for hotel workers fighting for strong contracts later this year.

The Gender Wage Gap, By the Numbers

By Andrew Kashyap

On Equal Pay Day it’s critical to remember that the pay gap is not equal for all women. The wage gap is wider for women of color, and for other marginalized women including lesbians, transgender women, and women with disabilities.

While White women make 79 cents for every dollar made by their White male counterparts those figures drop to 63 cents for Black women, 57 cents for Native women, and 54 cents for Latinas. While Asian women on the whole make 87 cents for every dollar earned by White Men, that shrouds the fact that subgroups among Asian women experience some of the highest disparities, such as Vietnamese women at 62 cents and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander women at 59 cents of every dollar earned by White men. 

Those wage gaps translate into huge annual earnings losses for women of color. The following figures put that in perspective: 

• $21,698 for Black women
• $24,007 for Native women
• $26,403 for Latinas

This racial wage gap for women of color is grounded in other racial inequities in our society that impact wages. Education is a factor: Black and Latina women have the lowest rates of college degrees among women which results in lower wages. Occupational segregation by gender and race is another critical factor; while women overall are overrepresented in low wage occupations such as service sector and clerical jobs, and men underrepresented in these jobs, women of color are twice as likely as their white female counterparts to be employed in low wage jobs. Eliminating the racial wage gap means dismantling some deeper disparities in our economy and a multi-pronged approach to solutions. 

The bottom line: it is clear that the intersection of race and gender compounds the pay gap further. We must continue to elevate and address this reality—in the same breath that we discuss the overall gap based solely on gender.

Likewise, intersections of sexual orientation and gender identity further reduce women’s wages:

• Lesbian women make less than men, regardless of the men’s sexual orientation. According to the most recent analysis available, women in same-sex couples have a median personal income of $38,000, compared to $47,000 for men in same-sex couples and $48,000 for men in different-sex couples.
• Transgender women make less after they transition. One study found that the average earnings of transgender women workers fall by nearly one-third after transition. 

The wage gap also has a disparate impact on workers with disabilities. Women with disabilities working full time, year round are typically paid just 73 cents for every dollar men without disabilities make and 76 cents of what men with disabilities make.

Equal Pay Day is an important day to recognize the continuing struggle against systemic discrimination based on gender, signified by the fact it takes more than four extra months for a woman to earn what a man makes in a year. But it is also a day to recognize the distinctions among different communities of women that result in even higher wage gaps for those living at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities. 

The racial pay gap for women of color is massive, and policies that contribute to it are pervasive. Legal Voice calls for concentrating our focus and efforts on eliminating the pay gap—and other similar barriers to gender justice—on those women who are impacted the most.

Andrew Kashyap is Senior Attorney at Legal Voice, where his work focuses on economic justice.

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

Practicing Doula Work at the Root

By Jordan Alam

The power of the doula profession is, in many ways, a far contrast to its origins. Traditionally, doulas are a part of the birthing person’s family, biological or chosen, and in many cultures they still are. The professional word “doula” is relatively new and not recognized across all communities. When people grow up in intergenerational and communal societies where they have seen their family members and friends give birth, they play the doula role regardless of whether they have formal training or not. Everyone in the community is involved in the child’s life through pregnancy and birth and beyond.

We now live in a society that is starved for this kind of connection. To me, the professionalization of doula care is an amazing resource that also reflects the fact that in the U.S. families and communities are routinely separated by circumstance or intent. It is worth investigating that contradiction. Often the people who need doulas most are unable to access them. This is especially true for black and brown communities, and particularly those with multiple barriers to receiving care.

An important aspect of my doula practice is working in partnership with EmPATH, an organization working to serve incarcerated pregnant people with doula and midwifery care. EmPATH envisions a world that honors the basic human right to support during the childbearing year, which means repairing the relationships that are taken away by the criminal legal system. Prisons and jails separate families through intent. It is intended for those spaces to sever connection as a form of punishment – a price that ultimately harms all community members and not just the individual. While best practices in baby friendly hospitals encourage bonding as critical for newborn development, varying practices in prisons and jails take away the power of the birthing person to keep contact with their child after birth. Families separated by incarceration often do not experience reunification with their children, and when they are reunited there is struggle to support the family because of the barriers to employment and housing faced upon re-entry. The trauma of separation impacts both parent and child at all of these stages.

Though connection with a doula is no substitute for the immense amount of care needed to support current and formerly incarcerated people and their healing, it is a small but impactful way to open the door. We see this work as having a ripple effect reaching far beyond its origin point, as backed up by research showing that maternal and infant health outcomes are vastly improved with access to a doula.

When I personally came across the word “doula,” I felt that it brought together all the skills I had been cultivating both professionally and personally for years – deep listening, advocacy, bringing comfort – all at a moment of deep transformation in someone’s life. I came to doula work through a training, having never seen or attended birth in my life prior to that. While this is not how all people come into birth work, I believe that many of us come to it seeking out this unique connection because we feel its absence from our daily lives. I consider my doula practice to be just as nourishing to me as it is for the people I serve, and sometimes even more so. I know that I have received so much important wisdom through my clients’ resiliency.

As we close World Doula Week, I invite all doulas to think critically about how we must push our profession further. We owe it to one another to return doula work to its roots. By serving those who have been most harmed and isolated by systems of oppression, we are building a richer community for them and ourselves. We are stepping into a pivotal life event that can affect the physical and emotional health outcomes for every family we touch. And our work does not stop in the birth room. Especially for communities of color, accessing care can begin to heal the connections we have lost through colonization and the criminalization of our bodies and lives.

As doulas, we have the honor of witnessing. And our responsibility is to communicate what we see and to leverage the power we have relative to our clients so that they receive the best care possible. Whether this is in direct client service or in generating resources for others to do the work, we all have the opportunity to meaningfully impact the lives of birthing people and their children. It is indeed a unique and radical position to be in.

Jordan Alam is a writer, performer, and birth worker based out of south Seattle. She coordinates the Birth Doula Services program at Open Arms Perinatal Services and runs her own doula practice. She is deeply passionate about empowering marginalized communities through promoting under-heard voices and serving those who have limited access to resources. Find more information about her work at www.jordanalam.com.

Photo by Janko Ferlič on Unsplash

Washington Won't Go Back: State Passes Strong Laws to Expand & Protect Reproductive Health Care Access

In the face of federal hostility to reproductive health care services, Washington State leads the way in passing proactive legislation this session.

By Sarah MacDonald, Legal Voice;

Liz McCaman, National Health Law Program; and
Huma Zarif, Northwest Health Law Advocates

Washington State recently passed a suite of laws that expand and protect access to quality, affordable reproductive health care. These critical victories, many of which came after several years of community advocacy, are part of a larger trend of state legislation aiming to bolster protections for contraceptive coverage, abortion care, and other reproductive rights.

States like Washington are acting now as a defense against the federal government’s repeated attempts to restrict access to health care. Despite the importance of comprehensive family planning services for women’s health outcomes and economic security, the Trump administration has chipped away at the accessibility and quality of reproductive health care services in the following ways:

• Sabotage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA): The Department of Health and Human Services has
• Undermined the ACA’s birth control provision by issuing two Interim Final Rules that create a wildly broad exemption for all kinds of employers, non- and for-profit, to cite religious and "moral" reasons for refusing to provide contraceptive coverage; and 
• Proposed to effectively dismantle requirements regarding Essential Health Benefits, which require health insurance plans to include women’s preventive services and maternity care;
• Promotion of Discrimination Under the Guise of Conscience by creating a new office and releasing a proposed rule to normalize and institutionalize providers’ and health care entities’ refusal to meet the standard of care regarding FDA-approved contraceptive methods.

Because of these federal actions, many states are working to ensure and expand access to reproductive health care. This latest wave of contraceptive coverage protections began in California in 2014, with legislation sponsored by the National Health Law Program (NHeLP) and Essential Access Health. In the wake of that bill, NHeLP created a Model Contraceptive Equity Act that has since been used to introduce similar legislation nationwide. These bills fill in gaps left by federal guidance and prevent insurers from using medical management techniques, like prior authorization or cost-sharing, to erect access barriers.

Washington State became the tenth state to adopt a version of the Model Act when its legislature passed the Reproductive Parity Act (Senate Bill 6219) earlier this month. The bill requires health plans to cover all FDA-approved contraceptive methods free of cost-sharing requirements and over-the-counter contraceptives without a prescription. The bill goes further and requires health plans that cover maternity care services to also cover abortion services, making Washington State a bulwark against the tide of states that have prohibited both private and public insurers from including abortion coverage in their health plans.

Further, the Evergreen State seized the opportunity to go beyond contraceptive coverage to enact laws protecting other necessary reproductive health services. House Bill 1523 creates a strong defense against federal attacks by requiring health insurance plans to cover, without cost-sharing, all preventive services covered by the ACA as of December 2016. In addition to contraception, covered services include HIV and STI testing, screening for breast and cervical cancer, breastfeeding supplies and supports, and domestic violence screening. Advances were also made through House Bill 2016 to ensure incarcerated people who are pregnant or who have recently given birth can access midwifery or doula services.

However, more work remains to be done. DACA recipients, undocumented women, and other immigrants under the federally mandated five-year bar face gaps in coverage that create unique barriers to accessing care. Similarly, transgender people need specific provisions to ensure they have coverage for gender-affirming services. The groundwork for addressing these issues was set this legislative session with the introduction of Senate Bill 6105.

Washington State advocates like Legal Voice and Northwest Health Law Advocates, with support from NHeLP, are committed to pushing for broader, more inclusive laws and policies that meet the needs of all of Washington’s communities.


Sarah MacDonald is Marketing & Communications Manager for Legal Voice, a progressive feminist organization using the power of the law to make positive change for women and girls in the Northwest. More at legalvoice.org.

Liz McCaman is a Staff Attorney at the National Health Law Program, focused on state reproductive health policy.

Huma Zarif is a Staff Attorney at Northwest Health Law Advocates (NoHLA), an organization working to achieve a health care system in which all Washington residents receive quality, affordable health care. More at nohla.org.

Photo by Simone van der Koelen on Unsplash

New protections for LGBTQ parents in Washington!

By David Ward

For decades, Legal Voice has worked to ensure that our law recognizes families in all forms—including families formed by LGBTQ couples. We’re happy to report that yesterday, Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed into law Senate Bill 6037, which greatly improves the Washington law about how people are legally recognized as parents!  The new law takes effect on January 1, 2019.

Here are some of the key provisions of this update to the Uniform Parentage Act:

• It allows people who are presumed to be a child’s parent under Washington law (including married same-sex couples who have children) or who are intended parents through the use of assisted reproduction to sign what is called a “voluntary acknowledgement of parentage.” Under federal law, we believe every state in the country should be required to recognize a voluntary acknowledgement of parentage as proof that a person is a child’s legal parent. This provides a way for LGBTQ parents to help protect their rights in every state in the country, without having to go to court. However, parents are still advised to consult with family law lawyers experienced in LGBTQ rights in order to decide what steps to take to ensure that their parental rights are protected.
   
• It establishes clearer and simpler rules for courts to issue judgments that recognize a person as a legal parent of a child. Some LGBTQ parents in Washington have sought such “parentage judgments” in order to obtain a court order that recognizes them as a legal parent of a child.  This bill should make that process clearer for parents who may wish to pursue this option.
   
• It creates a regulated system that allows compensated surrogacy in Washington State, while protecting the health, well-being, and autonomy of women acting as surrogates. Legal Voice worked with the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Jamie Pedersen, to ensure that the bill provides strong protections for women acting as surrogates—protections that will help balance the power between intended parents and surrogates, ensuring that such arrangements are entered into knowingly, with care, and subject to legal oversight.
   
• It preserves the protections we gained last year that provide a way for people who become pregnant as a result of rape to prevent the rapist from being recognized as a parent of the child.

In the coming months, Legal Voice’s Self Help Committee will work to develop materials that explain the changes made by this law and what they mean for you.

David Ward is Senior Attorney at Legal Voice, where his work focuses on gender violence, family law, and LGBT rights.