Press Release: Lift Our Voices Launches Know Your Rights Campaign
For Immediate Release: Fabruary 8th, 2023
Contact: JON CARVALHO
PRESS RELEASE
Campaign will educate workers and organizations about the
Washington, DC – Today, Lift Out Voices, the non-profit organization dedicated to eradicating the legal mechanisms that prevent survivors of workplace toxicity from speaking out about their experiences, launched a major Know Your Rights campaign to educate workers about new protections under the federal Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act. This landmark legislation, which Lift Our Voices was proud to shepherd from inception to passage, was signed into law last year.
The Know Your Rights campaign will inform workers, their advocates, and legal representatives that they now have right to file a lawsuit in cases of sexual misconduct, rather than be forced into the secret chamber of arbitration. It will feature a significant digital advertising buy that will be aired in Washington, DC and in markets across the country.
At the launch event for the campaign, Lift Our Voices co-founders Gretchen Carlson and Julie Roginsky were joined by Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) and former Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-IL), co-sponsors of the federal legislation to end forced arbitration; advocate and attorney Andowah Newton; and employment attorney Susan Lorenc. The program was co-hosted by ALM | Women, Influence & Power in Law, which ) offers an opportunity for unprecedented exchange with women in-house and outside counsel.
“All too often, employees are unaware that they gave up their ability to speak up about abusive workplace practices when they signed their employment contracts,” said Carlson. “By educating the public about the rights that workers now have, we will ensure that people know that they can sue their employer and have their case heard in open court.”
Lift Our Voices championed the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act, which was passed with wide bipartisan support in Congress and was signed into law by President Joe Biden in March 2022. Prior to its passage, millions of Americans who had been sexually assaulted or harassed were unable to file a lawsuit against their abusers or the organizations that allowed them to go unpunished. Instead, survivors of sexual misconduct were forced to endure arbitration, a closed-door process that is designed to hide abuses behind closed doors, rather than allowing them to be heard in open court. The new legislation now gives survivors the choice to reject arbitration if they would rather file a lawsuit.
“Our campaign will arm survivors of sexual misconduct with the information they need to defend their rights in the workplace, regardless of what their contracts say,” said Roginsky. “It levels the playing field by giving these workers the right to tell their stories openly, rather than being forced to watch in silence as organizations use the secret chamber of forced arbitration to hide their dirty laundry.”
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ABOUT LOV
Lift Our Voices (LOV) was launched in December 2019 to create positive, systemic change in American workplaces through the eradication of forced arbitration clauses and nondisclosure agreements for toxic workplace issues. Created and launched by Gretchen Carlson and Julie Roginsky, LOV’s mission is to protect American workers by giving those in toxic work environments the freedom to speak freely about their workplace experiences and free them from the laws and business practices that prevent employees from publicly discussing toxic workplace conditions.