UUSC Condemns Repeal of Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Order

By on April 13, 2017

In recent weeks, workplace rules protecting against discrimination targeting LGBTQ communities, as well as wage theft, have been rolled back. Most recently, through the repeal of the “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces” order, these efforts to roll back workplace rights have targeted women’s rights to equal pay and to be free from sexual harassment in the workplace. The “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces” order, which applied to companies with federal contracts, required wage transparency to ensure that women were paid equally, and banned forced arbitration clauses for sexual harassment, which are often used to prevent sexual harassment claims from reaching the courts and entering public record. With characteristic disregard for human rights and what is just, the administration has repealed these protections for women in the workplace just days before Equal Pay Day, which marks the day each year when women’s earnings catch up to what their male counterparts earned the previous year. UUSC stands in opposition to retrogressive policies and actions, such as the repeal of the “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces” order, that move us further from a world which is free from oppression and injustice, where human rights are a reality for all.