Time for a Change: The Case for LGBT-Inclusive Workplace Leave Laws and Nondiscrimination Protections

When Americans need time off work to recover from illness, bond with a new child, or care for a seriously ill family member, they often discover that their jobs provide little or no support. These important life moments can be especially difficult for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) workers to navigate. LGBT workers who need time off for personal health or family caregiving reasons often find themselves lost in a maze of legal questions:Am I entitled to any leave from work, and if so, is it job-protected and/or paid?Do any federal, state, or local laws provide protection or guarantee paid leave?Are my family relationships recognized under the law or my employer's personnel policies?Can I be fired from my job for disclosing that I am in a same-sex relationship or have an LGBT family?In April 2013, A Better Balance issued a comprehensive report to address these critical questions. Given significant developments in the law regarding LGBT Americans, as well as passage of several new state and local workplace leave laws, A Better Balance released this updated version of the report in November 2013

Healthy Workers, Healthy Businesses: A Small Business Analysis of Earned Paid Sick Time in New York City

[Excerpt] Earned paid sick time is an issue that affects a significant proportion of workers and employers in New York City, including small business owners and their employees. According to a 2011 survey, fully half of working New Yorkers do not have access to any earned paid sick time. An estimated 41 percent – between 1.4 and 1.6 million workers in New York – do not have access to any paid time off at all, whether for illness, vacation, or other uses. Lack of access to earned paid sick time disproportionately impacts small businesses and their employees in low-income, Latino, and immigrant neighborhoods, including neighborhoods such as Bushwick, Brooklyn, Jackson Heights and Corona, Queens and Port Richmond, Staten Island. According to a recent survey conducted by the Community Service Society of New York, about two-thirds (64 percent) of low-income workers in New York did not have access to any earned paid sick time in 2011. More than three quarters (76 percent) of low-income Latino workers had no earned paid sick time coverage (compared to 61 percent of low-income white workers). And more than two thirds (70 percent) of low-income immigrant workers had no earned paid sick time coverage (compared to 61 percent of U.S.-born workers)

Queens Center Mall: A Poverty Wage Center in Elmhurst

A report prepared by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union and Make the Road New York detailing the Queens Center Mall\u27s impact on wages, the mall\u27s tax abatement status, and lack of community commitment

Restaurant Workers in Crisis: A Report on the Unsafe, Discriminatory and Unfair Labor Practices that New York City’s Workers Face Every Day

[Excerpt] This report highlights the illegal and unfair practices of New York City’s restaurant industry by reviewing recently published reports and sharing examples of the frequently illegal employment practices that New York’s restaurant workers face every day. This report concludes that the Responsible Restaurant Act (Intro 569), currently under consideration by the City Council, would help to improve restaurant practices by encouraging the city to license only responsible employers when issuing or renewing operating licenses. The Act is an important step for the City Council to take to ensure that our restaurants act responsibly and better protect workers

Discrimination at the Workplace, From Application to Termination

[Excerpt] In the spring and summer of 2013, Make the Road New York surveyed over 250 LGBTQ and gender non-conforming identified individuals about their experiences with gender identity/expression employment discrimination. The individuals surveyed had applied for jobs in a variety of di!erent industries, including retail, finance, and education. We also surveyed more than 100 non-LGBTQ identified individuals. Surveys were conducted at local community organizations, LGBTQ support groups, and public events. Finally, we collected in-depth testimonies from transgender and gender non-conforming identified individuals about their experiences with employment discrimination. Those testimonies are included in this report

Transgender Need Not Apply: A Report on Gender Identity Job Discrimination

[Excerpt] Make the Road New York investigated possible employment discrimination against transgender job-seekers in Manhattan’s retail sector using the research tool of matched pair testing. We sent out carefully matched pairs of job applicants, one transgender and one not, to apply for the same jobs. Each pair was equivalent in age and ethnicity and equipped with fictionalized resumes that were evenly matched. Both testing pairs underwent extensive training on how to adopt similar interview styles and how to document their job-seeking interactions objectively. Transgender testers were instructed to explicitly inform store managers and interviewers of their transgender status whenever feasible

Victories 2011: Make the Road New York Builds the Power of Latino and Working Class Communities Through Organizing, Transformative Education, Policy Innovation and the Provision of Survival Services

Brochure listing Make the Road New York’s victories during 2011

Make the Road New York: Fifteen Years Fighting for Respect and Dignity, 1997-2012

[Excerpt] For 15 years, Make the Road New York (MRNY) has fought to ensure respect and dignity for immigrant, poor, and working class New Yorkers. From our early years working to combine legal services, education, and community organizing in Jackson Heights and Bushwick, we had big dreams about what kind of city and state New York can be. And we had the audacity to believe we could build an organization with the sophistication and muscle to deliver on those dreams

Dignidad, Comunidad y Poder: Make the Road New York 2010 Victories

Brochure listing Make the Road New York’s victories during 2010

A Bad Deal: The Proposal for a Mega-Mall on Parkland and the Willets Point Redevelopment

[Excerpt] The site for the proposed development of “Willets West” is public mapped parkland that forms a portion of Flushing Meadows Corona Park (FMCP). “Willets West” is one of three development pro- posals for the park that the Bloomberg administration has announced in its last eighteen months. The name “Willets West” is misleading; the proposal seeks to develop a 1.4 million square foot mall on public land that is located completely outside the actual Willets Point, on the other side of CitiField. Proposed to be developed by the Queens Development Group (QDG), a partnership between the Wil- pon family’s Sterling Equities and the Related Companies, many have dubbed the proposal the “Mets MegaMall” as a more accurate descriptor. This report summarizes the results of a community opinion survey of more than 1,200 residents, compares and contrasts the “Mets MegaMall” proposal to the original plan for Willets Point and makes recommendations about what would make development that consumes public resources and public land appropriately accountable to neighborhood needs. These recommendations are informed both by the original process for considering the future of Willets Point as well as recent experiences with the proposal for the U.S. Tennis Association to expand its footprint within FMCP and the proposal for Major League Soccer to site a new, private stadium within FMCP. Prepared by the Fairness Coalition of Queens, it represents the input of member organizations and individuals from the Corona, Flushing, East Elmhurst, Jackson Heights and Elmhurst communities