Newsletter: July 2022 - Big Step Toward Another Landmark Law to Protect Workers

Dear Friend,

Lift Our Voices is committed to working with stakeholders to establish broad new protections for workers and survivors. To that end, we are excited to share that we are working with a bipartisan group of federal lawmakers on the Speak Out Act, which bans nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) in cases of sexual misconduct.

This is giant step forward in making the American workplace safer for all workers and builds upon our landmark law, passed earlier this year, that banned forced arbitration in cases of sexual assault and harassment.

We were honored to join members of the House and Senate for a press conference on Capitol Hill to urge the swift passage of this bipartisan legislation, which eliminates the use of NDAs for survivors and witnesses of workplace sexual assault and harassment. Forbes profiled our fight to pass the Speak Out Act, due to the unyielding support of leading co-sponsors Rep. Lois Frankel, Rep. Ken Buck, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, and Senator Marsha Blackburn, among other members of both parties. Thanks to you, we delivered hundreds of signatures in support of this measure to the House Judiciary Committee, which passed the bill with overwhelming support. There is still time to sign our letter before Congress votes on this crucial legislation.

A Bloomberg Law article touted the bill’s bipartisan support, noting that Lift Our Voices is “becoming adept at the art of achieving bipartisan backing on wide-reaching worker protections.” An editorial in The Star-Ledger hailed the legislation as “a giant step toward lifting the toxic cloud hovering over some workplaces” because of the perseverance of survivors, including Lift Our Voices and our allies.

In our interview with The Daily Beast’s Molly Jong-Fast for her podcast, The New Abnormal, we talked about our own stories and described why this mission is so personal to us. And we continue to partner with allies from the business world, including our ongoing partnership with Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose, for whom we authored a guest piece about the urgency of our work.

Our message is resonating with more and more people across the United States who share our belief that everyone has the right to speak about one’s own story and to work in an environment free of toxicity and abuse. We could not do this work without you, and we are so grateful for your commitment to our cause. Despite all that we have accomplished together already, we are just getting started.

— Gretchen Carlson and Julie Roginsky | Co-Founders, Lift Our Voices