Wednesday, April 5, 2017

President Trump, Reinstate Workplace Protections for Women


President Trump
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington D.C.  20500
5 April 2017 

Dear President Trump: 

On March 27 you signed an executive order which didn’t make much of a splash in the news, but should have.  That executive order revoked the 2014 Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Order.  That order ensured that companies with federal contracts had to comply with 14 existing labor and civil rights laws.   

President Obama signed that order after a 2010 Government Accountability Office investigation showed that companies with rampant violations of these laws were being awarded millions of dollars worth of federal contracts.  In part the order includes a ban on forced arbitration clauses that permit companies to force female employees to sign away their constitutional right to a day in court and also their right to discuss what happened with the press. You have now eliminated that protection. 

Sir, I have two daughters.  One of them is in college now and will be joining the workplace in three years.  Have you honestly just changed the law to make her less safe?  Are you protecting companies at the expense of my daughters’ safety?  Have you really just signed an order that allows companies to pay women less than men to do the same job?  How can you justify such an action, Mr. President?  Such an action is enabling inequity and injustice.  Such an action is unworthy of anyone occupying the office of president.  Sir, your job is to protect the American people.  All of them.  Making it easier for women to be sexually assaulted in the workplace is despicable. 

You have two daughters.  Do the right thing.  Reinstate the protections for women and people protected by civil rights laws.   

Regards, 

Bill Boerman-Cornell

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