How employers are reacting to the Roe news

Your definitive guide to women, politics and power.

May 13, 2022 View in browser   By Eleanor Mueller Politico Illustration/iStock Hello there! I'm Eleanor Mueller and I report on labor for POLITICO. I've written extensively about paid leave, child care, and other policies that shape the way women work – so it made sense for me to fill in for Katie this week with this dispatch on how the private sector is responding to the Roe v. Wade news. I'd love to hear your thoughts: Don't hesitate to email me at emueller@politico.com or find me on Twitter at @eleanor_mueller. See you next time! Mike Draper owns a clothing company, RAYGUN, that employs around 100 full- and part-time workers spread across four states: Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska and Illinois. When POLITICO reported last week that the Supreme Court had voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, it hit him: "Three out of four of those states would move to ban abortion if given the chance. "I'm not one of those people that says, 'I'm going to pack up and leave,'" Draper, 39, said. "I was born six blocks from the store, so Iowa is my state as much as it is anybody else's. It's on me to try to work to create a state that is once again welcoming." Draper is part of a mounting wave of employers who are starting to think about how they can protect their workers' access to abortion as the nation's highest court prepares to clear the way for states to enact laws restricting the procedure.  Amazon, Levi's, Yelp and Microsoft are among the latest companies to announce new policies that would help those on their payroll maintain access to abortion, including by reimbursing employees for related travel costs. "I give credit to the business community that stepped up and said, 'We're not going to allow our workers to struggle with something that is fundamentally health care,'" National Partnership for Women and Families President Jocelyn Frye said. Abortion rights supporters warn against becoming too reliant on the private sector for protecting access to abortion because companies are not obligated to maintain these kinds of policies — and they may, in some instances, reverse them if they encounter pushback from anti-abortion forces like those that have targeted employers in the past. Corporations are "not an incredibly reliable and consistent support on any one issue," Noreen Farrell, civil rights attorney and executive director of Equal Rights Advocates, said. "It's important to engage corporations where we can … but we can't rely on corporations for our fundamental constitutional rights or our economic empowerment." For employers like Draper, it's a matter of social responsibility to make sure their workers continue to have access to abortion. For others, economic factors may be at play as well. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday said that banning abortion would be "very damaging" for the economy by constraining women's labor force participation. Access to abortion increased the probability a woman would work 40 weeks or more per year by almost 2 percentage points, according to the Institute for Women's Policy Research. "To increase economic growth, the Treasury Secretary tells us we need women to be workers," Erika Bachiochi, author of The Rights of Women and a legal scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, tweeted this week. "For women to be workers, they can't be mothers too for then we'd have to change how we think about everything. And that's no good." In an email, Bachiochi raised questions about why companies might want to protect employee access to abortion. "It's not at all surprising that corporations are offering to pay for their employees' abortions — a far cheaper option than accommodations for parenting," Erika Bachiochi, said. "Why not invest instead in the culturally (and economically) essential work their employees do as parents? Easy answer: Abortion is far better for the bottom line." And some say employers are overreaching by protecting their workers' access to the procedure. "This sounds to me like some executive or corporate board members are getting way, way beyond the purpose of their business," David N. O'Steen, executive director for the National Right to Life Committee, said. "It's to provide a product." Some of this blowback has already materialized for companies.Citigroup , for instance, implemented its abortion travel reimbursement policy before the Supreme Court news, writing in a March 15 SEC filing that "in response to changes in reproductive health care laws in certain states in the U.S., beginning in 2022 we provide travel benefits to facilitate access to adequate resources." The bank has since faced fallout from GOP lawmakers, with dozens of House Republicans calling for the government to cancel its federal contracts.  RAYGUN is wary of such pushback, particularly in red states like Iowa where it is based.  "I don't really know how loud a company like RAYGUN," whose headquarters are "only a few blocks from the Iowa state capitol, really wants to broadcast how much we would support paying for abortions in a state where they might pass restrictive laws next," Draper said. "Even if those laws get overturned, they're going to look for somebody to make an example of." As a result, the company has said that its policy for protecting workers' access to abortion will remain informal. "It's not something that we've sat down to write out," Draper said. "For us, it's letting people know that there's flexibility in it." Some private-sector employers have instead focused on how to use their resources to advocate for protecting abortion access nationally — for instance, by supporting the Women's Health Protection Act, which would have banned states from enacting many kinds of abortion restriction and which the Senate failed to advance this week. Chicago-based flower delivery service Flowers for Dreams recruited its workers in its call center — where staffing levels were more robust than usual in preparation for Mother's Day — to target senators "that are on the fence or voted against" the legislation. "Our first instinct was — instead of throwing up our hands and saying, 'How can we now make this new reality work for our staff?' [was instead to ask] 'How can we prevent this new reality from happening in the first place?" CEO Steven Dyme, 31, said.    Sponsored by Business Leader members of Women Rule: The Exchange: As inflation rates soar and disruptions to the global supply chain persist, all eyes are on the nation's economic recovery. But getting back on track in an inclusive and sustainable way is no easy feat. POLITICO Focus connected with members of Women Rule: The Exchange to learn about the strategies and solutions that will power an economy that benefits all. Join the Conversation.   POLITICO Special Report Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images "Senate fails to pass abortion rights bill — again," by Alice Miranda Ollstein and Marianne LeVine for POLITICO: "The Senate once again failed to advance abortion rights legislation Wednesday, in a largely symbolic effort Democrats mounted in response to the Supreme Court's draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. "In a 49-51 vote, the Senate rejected the Democratic legislation, with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and all Republicans voting against the measure. While the outcome was no surprise and mirrored a similar vote on abortion protections the Senate took in February, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer suggested the court's draft opinion, published by POLITICO last week, had raised the stakes. "'Today's vote is one of the most consequential we will take in decades because for the first time in 50 years, a conservative majority, an extreme majority on the Supreme Court, is on the brink of declaring that women do not have freedom over their own bodies,' Schumer said in a floor speech Wednesday morning, adding that the decision 'will live in infamy.'" "How One Clinic in Texas Explains the Threat to Contraception," by Joanne Kenen and Alice Miranda Ollstein for Politico Magazine: "SAN MARCOS, Texas — In a small one-story clinic with peeling white paint, Community Health Services provides health care, including family planning, to low-income, mostly Latina, women in this city a 45-minute drive south of booming Austin. "The women who come here, many of whom had their first child when they were still teenagers, live in Texas, which has been on the front line of the abortion wars since September when the Republican-controlled legislature passed a novel piece of legislation banning all abortions after around six weeks of pregnancy. "This clinic, which is federally funded, does not perform abortions. It does dispense birth control pills, IUDs, implants, rings and other contraceptives to women who don't want a child, or don't want another child right now. "But the fate of this clinic is in doubt, just as contraception becomes even more critical. With a wave of strict statewide abortion bans just waiting for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade to take effect, advocates and policymakers face more pressure than ever to help prevent unwanted pregnancies. Yet the future of broad access to contraception itself remains uncertain." " Blue states want to become abortion safe havens. It will cost them," by Lisa Kashinsky, Shia Kapos and Victoria Colliver for POLITICO: "Blue-state governors and lawmakers from California to New York are vowing to turn their states into sanctuaries for people seeking abortions. … "'We will not stand idly by,' declared New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, at a press conference last week. 'Anyone who needs care, we welcome you with open arms.' But all these promises won't be enough if the Supreme Court strikes down Roe v. Wade, according to abortion rights advocates. "Groups that operate clinics and run abortion access funds warn that they'll need more money, more providers and more space to help care for the influx of people who will cross state lines to seek abortions. That means states hoping to protect access need to move fast to expand provider networks and deliver the financial support needed. "Abortion rights advocates whose organizations have spent months or years building capacity and raising funds in anticipation of Roe's demise still struggle to quantify exactly how much more money and resources they'll need given the unprecedented nature of the situation. But they know this: They are already stretched thin and, in some places, are unable to keep up with needs. And adding more clients from states that ban abortion will exacerbate existing problems." Number of the Week Read more here.   Sponsored by Business Leader members of Women Rule: The Exchange: In the Round: A conversation with today's leaders.   MUST READS Justin Sullivan/Getty Images "What Do Female Incels Really Want?" by Kaitlyn Tiffany for the Atlantic: "'We were all ugly,' Amanda, a 22-year-old student from Florida told me, recalling the online community she found when she was 18. 'Men didn't like us, guys didn't want to be with us, and it was fine to acknowledge it.' "This Reddit forum was called r/Trufemcels, and she commented there under the username 'strangeanduglygrl.' Amanda didn't post very often, but she checked in every day on the community of self-identified "femcels," or involuntarily celibate women. (I agreed to refer to her by her first name only, to separate her current life from her former internet identity.) They came to complain about the superficiality of men and the privilege of pretty women, and to share their experiences moving through the world in an unattractive body, which therefore disadvantaged them romantically, socially, and economically. … "In recent months, headlines have named 2022 'the year of the "femcel"' and heralded a coming 'femcel revolution,' wherein women are 'reclaiming involuntary celibacy' and asserting their right to give a name to their loneliness and alienation. This new recognition of femcels has tended to stop there. But incel had political meaning — people who identified with the term were read as reactionaries, the young, mostly white men who felt left behind as society progressed beyond its historical focus on their specific needs. The term femcel is now in widespread use, not just in Reddit forums but on every major social platform, including the Gen Z-favored TikTok, but we still don't know what it's for. If a femcel revolution is coming, what new world are femcels dreaming about?" "Min Jin Lee wants to keep building on the Asian-American experience in real life and on the page," by Jennifer Gerson for The 19th "In 'Women Painting Women,' the female gaze is front and center," by Susan Stamberg for NPR: "For decades, women artists have been fighting to get their work on museum gallery walls. Recently, the battle is being won: Various exhibitions across the country feature female's work. Once visitors notice the change, they see that art can be different when women wield the paintbrushes. Sometimes. And sometimes not. … "So, how do women paint women? It's less about seeing them differently from men, than showing them different. For centuries, artists' male gaze saw women as objects of desire, idealized and voluptuous, with luscious white skin and dimpled knees. Women artists in this exhibition, like Alice Neel and Emma Amos and others, show women as differently beautiful: pregnant, overweight, sometimes despondent. As we are, wrapped in our truths." Quote of the Week Read more here. Transitions Allie Owen will be acting development director of Generator Collective. She currently is finance director for Christian Wise Smith's Georgia A.G. campaign and Pennsylvania state Rep. Brian Sims' lieutenant governor campaign. … Garima Verma is now digital director for Stacey Abrams' Georgia gubernatorial campaign. She most recently was digital partnerships and content director for a nonprofit. (h/t Playbook) … Danielle Okai is leaving the White House's Presidential Personnel Office, where she is senior associate director for candidate recruitment. Okai is heading to the Commerce Department to be deputy director of the Office of Public Engagement. (h/t West Wing Playbook/Daniel Lippman) … Mariafernanda "Marifer" Zacarias is now senior adviser for Latino engagement at the DCCC. She is an Equis Institute Latino Talent Project, Wondros, For Our Future and Planned Parenthood alum. … Clinton White House alum Amanda Crumley and Steve Israel alum Swati Marwah will join Bouchard Gold Partners as new partners.   Sponsored by Business Leader members of Women Rule: The Exchange: As inflation rates soar and disruptions to the global supply chain persist, all eyes are on the nation's economic recovery. But getting back on track in an inclusive and sustainable way is no easy feat. Today, women are still finding themselves disproportionately affected by pervasive inequities when it comes to leadership, wages, and skills-building. Bridging these profound gender 'gaps' will be paramount to the country's ability to achieve sustained growth for the future. But where do we start? POLITICO Focus sat down with members of Women Rule: The Exchange to answer this very question. Click here to see what leaders had to say about the strategies and solutions that will power an economy that benefits all.     Follow us on Twitter Katelyn Fossett @KatelynFossett   Follow us

To change your alert settings, please log in at https://www.politico.com/_login?base=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.politico.com/settings This email was sent to rouf@idiot.cloudns.cc by: POLITICO, LLC 1000 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA, 22209, USA Please click here and follow the steps to unsubscribe.