GA Proposal: Repeal: “Rights Of The Employed”

[HumanSanity]

Repeal: “Rights Of The Employed”

A resolution to repeal previously passed legislation.

Category: Repeal

Resolution: GA#491

Proposed by: Cretox State

General Assembly Resolution #491 “Rights of the employed” (Category: Civil Rights; Strength: Strong) shall be struck out and rendered null and void.

The World Assembly,

Commending the efforts of GA 491 "Rights of the employed" in enumerating several rights of workers,

Concerned, however, that sloppy writing and easily foreseeable consequences have transformed this well-intentioned resolution into a heavily flawed piece of legislation that imposes substantial unintended costs and directly undermines its own agenda,

Troubled that the resolution requires that workers prove to their employers the necessity of their breastfeeding in the workplace, a condition which is both obviously problematic and flies in the face of the legislation's stated purpose,

Disturbed that the resolution mandates a private area in the workplace "reserved for the sole purpose of breastfeeding" for workplaces subject to the mandates of clause E(3), a costly and unrealistic burden on small businesses and workplaces that cannot practically accommodate such a requirement,

Elaborating that the above mandate also establishes a substantial incentive for firms to avoid hiring female labor in direct contravention of the intentions of this resolution and WA labor law, especially given the absence of any non-discrimination hiring protections applying to breastfeeding in this resolution,

Confounded that the resolution requires at least eight weeks of leave for adoption, despite older children generally needing no special caregiver attention,

Adding that this mandate incentivizes business-minded governments to unduly burden adoption of older children to the detriment of adoptees, adopting families, and foster care systems,

Recognizing that extant WA law covers the two main policy objectives of this resolution, parental leave and retaliation, to a far greater degree, with:

1. GA 503 "Protecting Legal Rights of Workers" ensuring that workers are not retaliated against for seeking legal enforcement of their rights; and

2. GA 527 "Protected Working Leave" providing for far broader parental and other leave;

Reminding that several extant resolutions, including GA 35 "The Charter of Civil Rights", GA 91 "A Convention on Gender", and GA 457 "Defending the Rights of Sexual and Gender Minorities" more than adequately cover discrimination based on gender identity, gender expression, or sexual identity, and

Convinced that a heavily flawed, overreaching, and largely redundant piece of legislation has every reason to be repealed,

Hereby repeals GA 491 "Rights of the employed".

This is the discussion thread. To cast your vote, go HERE

[HumanSanity]

I was (once again) wrong and this did not make it to queue at minor update. It likely will at major, but that's what I thought about minor. /shrug

[Tacta]

Requiring employers to provide workers full pay for 2 months of no work is a huge ask of businesses large and small alike. Not only does this create financial incentive to pass around orphans from family to family (already a notorious problem), but it virtually guarantees that business must flee to non-WA nations.  Consider that a couple adopting 3 children gets a year off between them, and is under no obligation to keep the children!

Also, we absolutely need to repeal legislation that requires every business to provide this breast feeding area to employees. Not only is this an onerous task to create and maintain such an area, but for some businesses it may be physically impossible. How is a mail carrier, for example, supposed to breastfeed on her delivery route? What about employers with telecommuting employees, who have no brick-and-mortar offices?

Breast pumps and babysitters exist to accommodate these problems already, and we should not mandate such unachievable difficulties onto our member nation's business owners. For these reasons and after careful consideration, Tacta is voting for this repeal.