Dear Friend,

This Women’s History Month, we’re excited to update you on our work at Lift Our Voices. We’ve honored and celebrated the women around us, their history, and their accomplishments, and we thank you for helping us make the workplace a better place for women and all workers.
 
We also celebrated the 1-year anniversary of the Ending Forced Arbitration for Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act’s signing. Our bill allows survivors to speak freely about their sexual misconduct claims and take them up in open court, rather than being forced into the secret chamber of arbitration. Women and people of color are the most likely to be subjected to forced arbitration in the workplace. Read more about the one-year anniversary of this historic bill in Fortune.

Looking Back: Last month, we launched our #KnowYourRights campaign to educate employees and organizations about their rights in the workplace under this new law. If you haven’t seen it, head to our website to learn more about the campaign and share our campaign video widely.

We also celebrate the one-year anniversary of Washington State’s Silenced No More Act this month, which eliminated NDAs for survivors of workplace abuses. Thanks to the work of brave survivors in the state, the bill, which was signed by the governor on March 24, 2022, is a model other states can follow, expanding on the protections that our federal Speak Out Act provides. The law has since inspired corporations such as Microsoft to eliminate these provisions, not just in its Washington State headquarters, but to all employees globally. Read our op-ed on the bill in the Olympian. 

Our laws in practice: While we are thrilled that our two federal bills have become law, their power only comes when they are put into practice: protecting survivors and employees in the real world.

• As we continue to educate workers and legal representatives of their new rights, we’re seeing how these laws are making a difference. Check out our latest on Medium to read the cases that cite these laws to protect employees.

• We are excited to see the Speak Out Act being recognized on TV, too. Earlier this month, the bill got a shoutout in ABC’s General Hospital, which helped to inform millions of viewers about their new rights. Check it out here.

In the Big Apple: We joined advocate and survivor Dorothy Carvello in New York City this month to call on Warner Music to release all women from their NDAs so they can speak freely about their experiences. It’s time for all survivors to have the voice to speak truth to power and have autonomy over their own stories.

Thank you: We are proud to announce our new founding sponsors, the Ruth Harnisch Foundation and the Elizabeth Elting Foundation. We are so grateful for their support. Together, we are making a difference for all workers.

To join our mission as we fight for safer workplaces across the United States, please click here: 

Sincerely,

— Gretchen Carlson & Julie Roginsky | Co-founders, Lift Our Voices