The WORD Blog

Promoting Healthy Workplaces
Vita Rabinowitz [Vita.Rabinowitz@cuny.edu]

To:       Greggory w Morris
Cc:       Vita Rabinowitz [Vita.Rabinowitz@cuny.edu]; Annemarie Nicols-Grinenko [Annemarie.Nicols-Grinenko@cuny.edu]

We have known each other for quite some time, and I was delighted in my new position to be reminded of your enduring commitments—to students, to great journalism, and to causes that matter in the workplace.

---

Based on my experiences at Hunter, accurately described over the course of several years in this blog and in other forums, I became a volunteer with New York Healthy Workplace Advocates (http://nyhwa.org). NYHWA is lobbying for a workplace anti-bullying law, which essentially bolsters discrimination laws already on the books but adds an extra layer for non-protected classes.

Protected classes legislation make it illegal for an employer to discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, age, perceived age, national origin, alienage, citizenship status, gender (including sexual harassment), gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, marital status, partnership status, pregnancy and caregiver status. But they have holes and they don’t do much for those who not in protected classes and who are being harmed by workplace discrimination.

I started a moveon.org petition supporting the NYS bill – https://goo.gl/uK0cM6 – and that link networked me to supporters of similar bills in other states. The activists with whom I work with in other ares of the country believe that New York and Massachusetts have the strongest chances of getting a bill passed this spring. If one or both happen, we are hoping those successes will influence other legislatures to pass similar bills. We’re hoping for a cascade since every state in the country has a bill pending and the northeast seems to have the best shot getting things going. But there is a downside. And I need to address that in coming posts.