Immediate Action Needed – Friday July 9
Important civil rights issue in Senate Ways and Means
Please call members of Senate Ways and Means and Senate leadership about Senate 726 – An Employee Protection Act
In recent years, we’ve seen new efforts to eliminate various workplace protections.  One of these techniques is to require employees to sign waivers, as they start a job, promising to put all workplace disagreements to arbitration panels of the employer’s discretion.  Of greatest concern are waivers that have not been previously discussed in the job interviews, ones that are not part of negotiated agreements between employers and employees — that suddenly show up the first day on the job – sandwiched in between the health insurance documents and other office policies.
Many workers would not assume that such waivers could mean giving up their basic job rights, such as the right to make a discrimination claim before the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.
A bill to prevent such prospective waivers from being enforced in relation to claims of discrimination, retaliation, harassment, or violations of public policy, is now pending and is in the Senate Committee on Ways and Means.  JALSA e-mail readers are asked to contact Senate leadership and members of the Ways and Means Committee and ask their own Senators to speak to members of the Committee, indicating the importance of this legislation.
The bill was introduced in the Senate by Senator Tollman.