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Speaker 1: It's a big take from Bloomberg News and iHeart Radio.

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Speaker 1: I'm West Consova today how the US government is making

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Speaker 1: it harder for companies to silence women who are sexually harassed.

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Speaker 1: With everything happening in the world, you might have missed

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Speaker 1: an important story that hasn't got as much attention as

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Speaker 1: it should. This year, the US Congress passed two big

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Speaker 1: pieces of legislation to protect the rights of women who

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Speaker 1: come forward with charges of sexual abuse in the workplace.

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Speaker 1: President Joe Biden signed the second one into law just

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Speaker 1: this month. Some states, including New York, have also taken

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Speaker 1: action to make it easier for women to sue their harassers.

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Speaker 1: So it seemed like a good time to check in

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Speaker 1: and how much has changed since the beginning of the

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Speaker 1: Me Too movement five years ago, and how how much

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Speaker 1: hasn't I'm here with two members of the U. S

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Speaker 1: Congress who can help answer those questions. Representative Sherry Busto, said,

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Speaker 1: Democrat from Illinois, and Representative Lowest Frankel of Florida, also

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Speaker 1: a Democrat. They were the driving force behind the two

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Speaker 1: new laws I just mentioned, and it's worth noting, by

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Speaker 1: the way, that both of these laws passed the Congress

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Speaker 1: with overwhelming support, not just from Democrats but Republicans too.

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Speaker 1: Compress moment, Frankoh, don't we start with you, because just

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Speaker 1: recently President Joe Biden signed a bill that was passed

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Speaker 1: in November called the Speak Out Act. Can you tell

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Speaker 1: us about this bill? The bill makes unenforceable any predispute

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Speaker 1: nondisclosure agreement. What does that mean? That means these contracts

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Speaker 1: that people sign and when they sign up for a job,

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Speaker 1: I say, they always have these I call them gobblegook closes.

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Speaker 1: You don't know what they're saying, but you sign it

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Speaker 1: away your rights. You sign away your rights to actually

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Speaker 1: come forward and tell us buddy, for example, that you've

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Speaker 1: been sexually harassed or abused or raped. You are silenced.

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Speaker 1: And this new law makes those kind of agreements unenforceable.

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Speaker 1: And these are non disclosure agreements that if you have

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Speaker 1: a grievance against the workplace, you've signed a piece of

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Speaker 1: paper that says you won't go public with it. You're

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Speaker 1: going to stay quiet. And what this new law says

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Speaker 1: is those are unenforceable, unenforceable if it's about sexual abuse,

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Speaker 1: sexual harassment, or rape, something like that and what was

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Speaker 1: the inspiration for this bill and how did it come together? Well,

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Speaker 1: you know when the when the meat tune movements came about. Look,

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Speaker 1: sexual harassment, rape, that's been going on as long as

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Speaker 1: we've been human beings. Correct, About two years ago, the

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Speaker 1: Bipartisan Women's Caucus we started holding hearings on the issue

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Speaker 1: of sexual harassment in the workplace. And these are Democratic

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Speaker 1: and Republican members of Congress, the women members of Congress.

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Speaker 1: We came together and we were really shocked what we

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Speaker 1: heard because you know, we listen. We had heard about

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Speaker 1: Harvey Weinstein and Matt Lauer and the movie stars and

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Speaker 1: so forth. But we started to hear from waitresses who

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Speaker 1: told us they had to endure getting pinched to get

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Speaker 1: their tips, who tell made to wearing panic buttons because

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Speaker 1: they were getting raped by customers, a farm worker who

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Speaker 1: was raped in the fields by her supervisor. Even a

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Speaker 1: tech professional who was told you have to go out

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Speaker 1: on dates to get these jobs. So we realized this

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Speaker 1: is rampant, and it is about one in three women

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Speaker 1: in the workplace are sexually harassed, and men are too,

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Speaker 1: but mostly women. Is there something very important about this

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Speaker 1: bill that I think everybody should be mindful of and

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Speaker 1: what an n DA is in the first place. One

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Speaker 1: of the reasons was originally to protect corporate secrets that

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Speaker 1: are valuable trade secrets, and then then it started to

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Speaker 1: be expanded to really cover up everything. And then corporations decided,

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Speaker 1: this is the way we're going to protect our reputation.

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Speaker 1: If people don't know about discrimination, about harassment, about rape,

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Speaker 1: it protects our reputation. So that's so they were silencing

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Speaker 1: victims or now who are survivors, they were silencing them.

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Speaker 1: What this bill and then the Force our Reputration Bill does.

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Speaker 1: It says, look, we want you to protect your reputation,

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Speaker 1: but you've got to do it in a different way.

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Speaker 1: It's not by covering up your dirty little secrets. You

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Speaker 1: can protect your reputation by having good management practices, by

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Speaker 1: saying sexual harassment abuse will not be tolerated, by making

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Speaker 1: sure the management gets that message out and that it's enforced.

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Speaker 1: And that was not the first bill that passed this

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Speaker 1: year to protect women's rights. Congresswoman Boost, does you introduced

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Speaker 1: the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Harassment ACQUI President Biden

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Speaker 1: signed into law in March? Is that correct? Correct? Can

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Speaker 1: you tell us about that bill. Sure, so, uh, we

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Speaker 1: first wrote it in my office back. So things in

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Speaker 1: Washington don't always move quickly. But how we advanced from seventeen,

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Speaker 1: which was really at the height of the meat too movement. Right, How,

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Speaker 1: I'm not a lawyer. I'm a I was a journalist

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Speaker 1: and then I worked in healthcare, and then I came

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Speaker 1: to Congress. I'm not a lawyer. Lois is a lawyer.

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Speaker 1: So I read this story about this horrendous, horrendous case

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Speaker 1: of sexual assault, sexual abuse in the workplace. Just these

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Speaker 1: horrible stories of being raped, of of women being asked

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Speaker 1: to undress in front of their male supervisors, of women

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Speaker 1: saying they felt like meat at a meat market, that

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Speaker 1: they couldn't take a male partner to any of their conferences.

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Speaker 1: Just just really some horrible, horrible behavior by the men

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Speaker 1: in this company and so and why we had never

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Speaker 1: heard about it was because every complaint that came forward,

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Speaker 1: they had to take it to an arbitrator that was

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Speaker 1: paid for by the company. Employees couldn't sue the company

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Speaker 1: because they had an arbitration agreement similar to the non

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Speaker 1: disclosure agreement which you signed that says nope, you can't

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Speaker 1: talk about it. These forced arbitration agreements say, if you

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Speaker 1: have a dispute with the company, you can't sue, you

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Speaker 1: have to go through an arbitrator that's paid for by

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Speaker 1: the company. That most often there is no settlement at all,

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Speaker 1: and most often it is not found in favor of

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Speaker 1: the person who's bringing it forward. So these were these

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Speaker 1: silencing mechanisms, the non disclosure agreements and the forced arbitration.

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Speaker 1: So the two bills that we're talking about, the one

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Speaker 1: by Congresswoman Lois Frankel on nondisclosure agreements, the one that

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Speaker 1: we wrote out of my office on forced arbitration, it

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Speaker 1: really is a one to punch that we needed to

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Speaker 1: be able to make sure that the survivors of this

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Speaker 1: have an opportunity if they want to go to court

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Speaker 1: and if they want to talk about this, especially with

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Speaker 1: their fellow employees, they can do it now. So both

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Speaker 1: of these laws, both sign this year, had another notable

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Speaker 1: feature to them, which is that they passed with overwhelming

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Speaker 1: support in the House and the Senate, not just from

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Speaker 1: Democrats but Democrats and Republicans. And that's a pretty uncommon

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Speaker 1: thing these days in Washington, where Democrats and Republicans don't

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Speaker 1: agree on anything. How is it that your bills were

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Speaker 1: able to get so much support. So we got a

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Speaker 1: hundred and thirteen Republicans to vote for our forced arbitration

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Speaker 1: in the House. In the House, the hundred and thirteen,

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Speaker 1: think about that. On the nondisclosure agreement bill, we got

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Speaker 1: a hundred Republicans in the House. Both of these bills

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Speaker 1: passed unanimously out of the Senate. The women who testified

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Speaker 1: before the House Judiciary Committee who were survivors of some horrible,

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Speaker 1: horrible sexual assault, rape harassment in the workplace. Their testimony

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Speaker 1: was so powerful that you you really could not walk

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Speaker 1: away from that and say, I've got to do something

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Speaker 1: about it. And I don't care if you're a Democratic Republican.

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Speaker 1: And these were the hearings while the bill was under consideration.

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Speaker 1: Women came forward to inform the public about what had

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Speaker 1: happened to them. Keep in mind, we had to subpoena

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Speaker 1: them to testify because they were operating under nondisclosure agreements

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Speaker 1: and forced arbitration. They weren't allowed unless they were subpoenaed

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Speaker 1: by Congress to speak. That gave them protection to That's correct,

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Speaker 1: and that's how we they were able to tell their

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Speaker 1: stories and they were just horrible stories. And so I

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Speaker 1: give them a lot of credit, these survivors who are

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Speaker 1: have been able to share their stories. And then, um,

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Speaker 1: the Senate Lindsey Graham. You know like in politics that

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Speaker 1: the phrase about strange bedfellows. He was a real champion.

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Speaker 1: This is Lindsey Grahm McCord, the Senator from South Carolina, Republican,

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Speaker 1: very staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump. Yeah, you

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Speaker 1: might not hear lois doing a shout out to them,

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Speaker 1: but but I'll just give them. I'll just give him

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Speaker 1: credit on this. We we have this news conference when

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Speaker 1: we're announcing the forced arbitration bill, and he gets up

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Speaker 1: to the podium and he says a message to the

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Speaker 1: businesses out there, it is bad business to have these

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Speaker 1: forced arbitration classes for sexual harassment, sexual assault. And so

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Speaker 1: it was a really strong message, and the Republicans stood

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Speaker 1: up to what is a lot of times their foundation

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Speaker 1: of their party, and um, you know that could be

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Speaker 1: big business. The US Chamber of Commerce lobbied hard against

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Speaker 1: our bills. So we had had a little different experience

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Speaker 1: just in terms of members. We had Ken Buck in

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Speaker 1: the House who worked hard both on my bill and

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Speaker 1: on Cherry's on the arbitration, and other Republicans and the

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Speaker 1: Republican and in the Senate, the champion really was Senator

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Speaker 1: Marsha Blackburn, Republican, and Kirsten Gillibrand, who was also one

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Speaker 1: of the Senate sponsors. But some of the senators put

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Speaker 1: hold on the bill in the Senate and Marcia Blackbird

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Speaker 1: and swatted them down. What were their objections when they

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Speaker 1: put a hold? Some of them are just ordinery. They

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Speaker 1: put a whole on everything. There's some of them. I say, look,

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Speaker 1: sometimes it's politically driven, sometimes it's value driven. I'm not

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Speaker 1: gonna say which was which. The fact is, these two bills,

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Speaker 1: there were historically probably two of the biggest labor bills

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Speaker 1: to give rights to people in the workplace in a

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Speaker 1: very very long time. My conversation with Representatives Frankel and

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Speaker 1: Boostos continues after the break. Both of these bills of

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Speaker 1: course protect women who come forward and women. That's a

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Speaker 1: good point because it does protect men to on the

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Speaker 1: basis of sexual harassment. But of course there are all

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Speaker 1: kinds of other forms of harassment, racial discrimination, age discrimination.

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Speaker 1: Do you see this as kind of narrow end of

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Speaker 1: the wedge that once you get these then later other

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Speaker 1: forms of protection will inevitably follow. Well, I can't think

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Speaker 1: of a Democrat who is not in favor of adding

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Speaker 1: racial discrimination, age discrimination, l G, B, t Q, discribin.

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Speaker 1: I think any anything illegal we would love to have that.

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Speaker 1: In fact, Hank Johnson, who is a member of Congress

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Speaker 1: from Georgia, he has a bill that includes all of that.

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Speaker 1: And the problem is we cannot get enough support on

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Speaker 1: the other side of the eye. And so we made

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Speaker 1: this decision again after I found out what forced arbitration

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Speaker 1: was five years ago, were that we were going to

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Speaker 1: do this, carve out and at least try to make

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Speaker 1: some progress in this area. And I think that's the

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Speaker 1: same thing with Congresswoman frankl She It's like, yeah, we

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Speaker 1: wanted nondisclosure givements in all of this, but we also

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Speaker 1: want success and we wanted to move things forward. People

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Speaker 1: who understand the the politics and they say it's like

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Speaker 1: making sausage, but this is a pretty good sausage. But

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Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that any form of illegal discrimination should

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Speaker 1: not be silenced. That's my opinion. As Sherry said, that's

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Speaker 1: every Democrat I know would agree with that, maybe some Republicans,

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Speaker 1: but I could tell you this, there are members who

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Speaker 1: have been trying to get these bills passed for a

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Speaker 1: long time. And the thing that we are facing as

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Speaker 1: of January three of next year of three, is that

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Speaker 1: the majority in the House will change. That's when the

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Speaker 1: new Congress is going to end. It will be a

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Speaker 1: Republican House after the midterm elections. The Senate, of course,

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Speaker 1: will still be under the control of Democrats. Right. So,

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Speaker 1: but what will happen with that is Hank Johnson's bill,

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Speaker 1: that's a very good bill, probably won't see the light

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Speaker 1: of day after the Republicans take the majority in the House. Um. So,

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Speaker 1: yet again, we'll probably have to go another two years

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Speaker 1: and then hopefully the Congress will be able to make

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Speaker 1: some progress after that. So what's next? Uh? These are

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Speaker 1: two big bills. You've described them as being historic bills.

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Speaker 1: Hard to argue with that, Um, where do you go

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Speaker 1: from year? Obviously this is something that could actually put

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Speaker 1: a dent in this kind of behavior. Um, And yet

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Speaker 1: there's so much further to go. Well, I think what's next?

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Speaker 1: I mean, we can't you can't just say okay, we

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Speaker 1: did this and move on. The word has to get

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Speaker 1: idea that this bill was signed. They still don't know

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Speaker 1: they signed an agreement. And so getting the word out,

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Speaker 1: making sure that corporations know they can enforce these agreements,

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Speaker 1: and I really I think spreading the word is very important.

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Speaker 1: Forced arbitration clauses and nondisclosure agreements will still be in

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Speaker 1: employment contracts. They will still be in, for instance, the

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Speaker 1: terms and conditions box that you check off when you're

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Speaker 1: you know, put downloading some app, if you're doing a

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Speaker 1: right to your app, if you're hiring a moving company,

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Speaker 1: if you they will still be there. Um, And you

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Speaker 1: have to think about the unscrupulous businesses that are still

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Speaker 1: customer or to the employee that as it pertains the

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Speaker 1: sexual harassment or sexual assault, those are null and void.

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Speaker 1: But how many businesses are going to say, oh, by

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Speaker 1: the way, even though you were harassed and even though

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Speaker 1: you were you know, attacked or whatever, those don't apply.

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Speaker 1: So so to Lois's point, we want to make sure

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Speaker 1: that people know about it, that lawyers know about that this,

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Speaker 1: that that employees do, that customers do. And you know,

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Speaker 1: a lot of times you you write a bill and

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Speaker 1: you see it all the way through and then you

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Speaker 1: move on to your next thing. It is going to

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Speaker 1: take our good friends in the media. It's going to

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Speaker 1: take making sure that we're going out and talking to

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Speaker 1: our associations and the chambers and all of that to

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Speaker 1: make sure that people know that these are null and void.

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Speaker 1: As of two. Representative Lois Frankell, Representative Sherry Bustos, thanks

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Speaker 1: so much for taking the time to talk to me today.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you. Wes. Let's pull back the lens

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Speaker 1: of it now and take a outer look at how

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Speaker 1: things have changed in the workplace since Me Too began

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Speaker 1: and what more needs to be done, because there's a

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Speaker 1: lot to spell that out. I'm joined by Fatima gus Graves,

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Speaker 1: president and CEO of the National Women's Law Center here

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Speaker 1: in Washington, and my colleague Rebecca Greenville, who leads Bloomberg's

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Speaker 1: equality coverage. She's in New York. Thank you both for

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Speaker 1: being here, Thank you for having us. So happy to

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Speaker 1: be here. I was just speaking with two members of Congress,

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Speaker 1: Charry boost Dos and Lois Frankel, about two laws that

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Speaker 1: were recently signed that really put in place protections that

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Speaker 1: didn't exist before for employees and companies who have been

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Speaker 1: sexually harassed. Those would seem like two significant steps forward.

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Speaker 1: New York has recently come forward and suspended the statute

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Speaker 1: of limitations in civil lawsuits for sexual abuse cases. And

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Speaker 1: so it seems like in some ways things are being

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Speaker 1: done that have made us come a bit of the

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Speaker 1: way further than they were before. And let me start

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Speaker 1: with you for Team out, how do you see things

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Speaker 1: going and where are things working and where are they

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Speaker 1: really not? Yeah, we've been tracking this very closely, UM,

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Speaker 1: trying to understand the impact that me too has had

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Speaker 1: since me too and viral. And what we know is

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Speaker 1: that overall, twenty two states and d C have passed

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Speaker 1: more than seventy workplace anti harassment bills and and they

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Speaker 1: range right. Some of them are about things like the

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Speaker 1: statute of limitations. Others have passed and have focused on

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Speaker 1: which workers are cover extending their non discrimination protections for

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Speaker 1: example to independent contractors. Are there some industries that are

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Speaker 1: are leading the way for others? You know, that's a

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Speaker 1: harder thinking to measure in In some ways, we know

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Speaker 1: that there are some UH indicators that create opportunities for harassment,

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Speaker 1: and so, for example, sectors that also pay really low

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Speaker 1: wages and have other conditions of work that are sometimes

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Speaker 1: abusive to workers, those are spaces where harassment thrives. It's

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Speaker 1: also the case, though, that harassment often thrives in workplaces

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Speaker 1: where women make up only a small percentages of those

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Speaker 1: either in power overall or on the job right, so

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Speaker 1: you are more likely to see harassment in these historically

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Speaker 1: very male professions like finance, Wall Street, but also like construction,

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Speaker 1: where they're longstanding reports of harassment. One of the things

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Speaker 1: that you have seen, on the other hand, in uh

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Speaker 1: the aftermath of to Go in viral are employers at

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Speaker 1: the very very top, you know, CEOs, C suite individuals

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Speaker 1: naming that this was critical to them, following through with programs,

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Speaker 1: taking very seriously allegations of harassment, putting in place policies.

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Speaker 1: And so I actually think what we'll have to do

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Speaker 1: is measure the impact of that level of leadership over time. Rebecca,

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Speaker 1: in your coverage of equality, what changes have you seen,

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Speaker 1: both from the workers side and from employers in in

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Speaker 1: protecting people from harassment. Yes, so I think when we

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Speaker 1: talk about the me too movement. There's kind of mis

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Speaker 1: understanding or misconsuring that it's about like harassment will never happen,

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Speaker 1: and you know, and I think that's that's never been

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Speaker 1: the case. They're always going to be bad actors. I mean,

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Speaker 1: there shouldn't be, and we should hope for that, But

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Speaker 1: it's about the way that the system deals with them

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Speaker 1: and creating cultures where it's not tolerated and rules and

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Speaker 1: laws that can handle the behavior. And I do think

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Speaker 1: that's where we've seen changes broadly, Like with these laws

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Speaker 1: that you're talking about, I think we've seen it even

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Speaker 1: just standards have changed for the way the things we

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Speaker 1: deem acceptable or you know, I was just thinking of

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Speaker 1: one of a couple examples of CEOs are people who

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Speaker 1: have been in charge who, um, you know, they didn't

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Speaker 1: disclose consensual relationships and they lost their jobs or felt

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Speaker 1: like they needed to step down. Kind of there is

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Speaker 1: just a greater expectation that we're going to be more

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Speaker 1: transparent about those things. Just I think there is less

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Speaker 1: tolerance for the behavior, and that's really what I think

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Speaker 1: has been one of the more noticeable changes across industries broadly.

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Speaker 1: Have you seen a rise in the number of women

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Speaker 1: who are now willing to come forward uh than they

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Speaker 1: were before me to just in general, are our laws

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Speaker 1: don't treat people who make very serious allegations well, and

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Speaker 1: our laws don't treat people who um have been accused

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Speaker 1: of very serious things well. It's it just isn't really

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Speaker 1: set up. And yet despite those structural problems in our

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Speaker 1: legal system, UM survivors keep coming forward. And even though

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Speaker 1: everything would tell you that that's not a good idea,

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Speaker 1: people come forward, even though there's still shaming and blaming,

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Speaker 1: they come forward still. And I think that in part

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Speaker 1: was the power of me too more with Fatima gos

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Speaker 1: Graves and Rebecca Greenfield when we come back. Fatima, you

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Speaker 1: said that our laws are not set up well to

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Speaker 1: handle people who come forward. Could elaborate on that a

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Speaker 1: bit more. Yeah, many people feel as if they have

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Speaker 1: been real abused by our legal system and and that's

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Speaker 1: not a good thing. And some of that is that,

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Speaker 1: you know, it is set up where you have to

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Speaker 1: keep telling your story over and over again and to

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Speaker 1: people who whole role is to be skeptical of you.

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Speaker 1: So some of it is really the structural of what

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Speaker 1: it means to come forward. Some of it is that

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Speaker 1: we have rules in place that mean, in most states

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Speaker 1: you have to come forward very quickly. You have to

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Speaker 1: have made a decision about your desire to you know,

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Speaker 1: have a legal claim of some sort and and and

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Speaker 1: act on that very quickly. When um, that's not really

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Speaker 1: how the cycle of recovery works for people. It usually

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Speaker 1: takes a long time. But if you have a hundred

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Speaker 1: and eighty days or three hundred days, or in some

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Speaker 1: states a couple of years to be able to make

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Speaker 1: a state claim, it is really really difficult to do

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Speaker 1: all of that in a short time. It's not usually

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Speaker 1: the first thing people are thinking about. And beyond that,

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Speaker 1: beyond the short time periods, we are still in a

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Speaker 1: situation where retaliation is pretty typical. On this point that

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Speaker 1: you know, those sometimes the laws and aren't set up

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Speaker 1: to perfectly meet people where they are. We just had

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Speaker 1: a really great story run on Bloomberg recently about this

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Speaker 1: new law in New York that extended cases that may

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Speaker 1: have passed the statute of limitations for sexual abuse and

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Speaker 1: harassment claims. And the story was about how there have

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Speaker 1: been all these claims made for these suits. You know,

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Speaker 1: these people had experiences before, but for whatever reason didn't

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Speaker 1: report them. And now you know, we've kind of closed

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Speaker 1: this loophole with this law that's allowing a flood of cases,

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Speaker 1: a lot of them which are have been high profile

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Speaker 1: there These allegations are coming forward because of this, you know,

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Speaker 1: pretty slight tweak to a law, fatima. A lot of

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Speaker 1: companies have put in place changes, new policies to protect

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Speaker 1: women who come forward, But have you seen more willingness

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Speaker 1: within companies now to actually investigate, especially high ranking executives,

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Speaker 1: when harassment claim is made. Most people don't even report

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Speaker 1: allegations of harassment. They don't like if they experience harassment,

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Speaker 1: they often don't tell anyone, let alone go to HR

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Speaker 1: and make a formal complaint. But the thing that I

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Speaker 1: would say that is a shift is that companies and

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Speaker 1: and their boards are understanding that the risk analysis around

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Speaker 1: not addressing harassment at work has shifted. So you know it.

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Speaker 1: I would say it used to be probably that the

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Speaker 1: easiest past of resistance for a lot of places was

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Speaker 1: to do very little. Well, that creates additional risk for sure,

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Speaker 1: and um and so I I think companies organizations generally

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Speaker 1: are learning about this a little bit in real time.

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Speaker 1: They're learning from high profile cases, sort of watching organizations

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Speaker 1: and their boards who failed to take appropriate measures and

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Speaker 1: then found themselves with not only a giant legal claim,

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Speaker 1: but a public relations claim that was much bigger than

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Speaker 1: if they had just addressed it on the front end.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's not a new idea that harassment is

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Speaker 1: against the law. So the things that we can do

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Speaker 1: now to make a difference change loopholes in the law

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Speaker 1: that mean that more people are covered, that the that

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Speaker 1: the consequences for harassment are steeper, that it is easier

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Speaker 1: to bring claims that you don't encounter hurdles, including the

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Speaker 1: fact that you have to be silent. So we can

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Speaker 1: change those incentives, and we can better enforce the law,

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Speaker 1: including the long time constant ban on retaliation. The team

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Speaker 1: at gous Graves and Rebecca Greenfield, thanks so much for

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Speaker 1: speaking with me today. Thanks for having me. Thank you.

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Speaker 1: You can read all of Bloomberg's equality coverage on Bloomberg

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