The Sixth Annual Battered Mother's Custody Conference Dates Are Set

BMCC-VI: SAVE THE DATES!

JANUARY 9th - 11th, 2009
at the HOLIDAY INN HOTEL AND CONFERENCE CENTER
Wolf Road, Albany, New York

• Michigan NOW Supports Worker Protection Bills

  Michigan NOW supports the following bills that were approved by the House Labor Committee on November 6, 2007 and awaiting action by the Michigan House of Representatives.  Michigan NOW Members are urged to contact their House members in support of the bills:

  • HB 4532 which would prohibit discrimination against an employee on the basis of legal conduct occurring during nonworking hours and not on the employer’s premises.  We regard this as extending First Amendment protections of free speech and assembly to private sector employees, a long-needed protection.  We have direct experience with employers discriminating against women’s rights activists.  Lifestyle discrimination is also a problem where an applicant or employee may choose legal, off-duty hobbies, political activity, or personal conduct that is not favored by the employer.  These victims need a remedy in law. 

   

  • HB 4887, which would prohibit the use of credit history in the hiring process except where it is a bona fide occupational requirement of a particular job or occupation.  Our experience is that employers sometimes routinely do a credit check because the information is available rather than because credit history information is job-related and consistent with business necessity.  This is an acute problem for displaced homemakers who may have no credit history at all. 
  • HB 4926, which would prohibit employment discrimination based on an individual's body type, degree of physical fitness, or other physical characteristic.  Although the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act prohibits sex, height and weight discrimination and the Michigan Persons With Disabilities Civil Rights Act prohibits disability discrimination, appearance discrimination is still practiced by employers in our experience.  It is a form of employment discrimination that particularly affects women.  The phrase “Front Office Appearance” or FOA is a common term used by employers in judging whether clerical applicants are suitable for their decorative value to predominantly male executives or for public contact positions.  Employers are sometimes screening applicants on what they perceive as eventual medical health care cost liability from visible physical characteristics. 

   

  • HB 4927, which would prohibit employment discrimination because of a known or believed illness or health condition of a member of an employee's family.  Although the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits family association disability discrimination, it is our experience that employment structures are still designed for male heads of households with a non-working wife to care for children, disabled, and frail elderly.  Accordingly, caretaker discrimination associated with the health care status of family members hits women harder than men at the workplace.  Every time a woman of child-bearing age is interviewed for a job in Michigan, the potential employer is wondering what her birth control and child care arrangements are and if a woman has disabled children or eldercare responsibilities.  Men of child bearing age or with living parents bear no such burden because the assumption is that he will not be primarily responsible for the care of children, parents, or disabled family members.  Many men would choose to participate more in child care, disabled, and eldercare responsibilities if there were not such a stigma attached to it, and loss of pay and career opportunities.  Having a legal remedy for these situations would help prevent employers from using information about family member’s illnesses to discriminate against applicants or employees.

  In its endorsement letter to the House Labor Committee, Michigan NOW thanked members of the Committee and the bills’ sponsors and supporters for bringing to light some work place dilemmas and designing a remedy for them that particularly affect working women.  Passing these bills would make Michigan a more attractive place to work than other states without such protection without burdening employers with undue cost.  These are common-sense employee protections.

• Mary Pollock
  Legislative Vice-President

CONTACT: Renee Beeker President, pres@michnow.org

INTERNATIONAL COMPLAINT AGAINST THE UNITED STATES FILED ON BEHALF OF ABUSED MOTHERS, CHILDREN

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