I’m a career federal employee who lives in Washington, DC. Despite working without pay during the recent shutdown, I was fortunate enough to have saved enough to cover this unexpected gap in my income. Others – including many TSA employees – were not so lucky. As part of my job, I’ve had to travel during the shutdown. Recently, I arrived at the airport much earlier than usual because I was worried about long security lines. Much to my surprise, there were no lines. The TSA employees were pleasant and professional. They were doing their jobs as they do every day, looking out for us, even when our government isn’t looking out for them. We would never tolerate a major private sector employer forcing their employees to work without pay for weeks and months at a time, and yet, as federal employees, this is a new normal. It’s time to adjust federal pay scales to ensure that our hardworking federal employees at the lowest ends of the pay scale are not tossed into financial jeopardy with every shutdown. Everyone who works for the federal government should be able to accumulate savings. Join me in calling on decision-makers in government to act now by giving a raise to TSA workers and other federal employees who are struggling to make ends meet on their current salaries. *NOTE: Saul Derrity is a pseudonym of the federal employee who started the petition.

We are Instacart workers. Some of us work buying and delivering groceries full-time, and some of us work part-time. Some have been on the platform for just a few months, and some for years. But since November, all of us have seen dramatic cuts in our paychecks. Some of us have seen wages lowered by 30-40% overall. Some of us have had to work twice as many hours just to make ends meet. Now, we’re speaking out to demand that Instacart address these issues by agreeing to a predictable, transparent pay structure. Until Instacart implements these changes, we're asking that customers tip just 22 cents up front in the app (then add your tip after delivery or tip in cash) to show that you support workers. Instacart has changed their pay structure from a predictable system where we knew what each gig would pay and why to a new model where it seems they pay as little as they’re able to get away with, and even use customer tips to get away with paying us less. This means they're offering very low wages that can even fall under the equivalent of the minimum wage. The company claims their new model is more "transparent," but in reality, the new model gives no indication of how pay is actually determined. The pay per job is now inexplicable — and much lower. Under the old model, shoppers were paid a specific base rate per delivery (e.g. $9.25 in Tacoma) and then an item incentive (40 cents per item we picked up). Under the new model, there’s no breakdown of how pay is determined. Shoppers often reject jobs only to see the same jobs re-appear minutes later with slightly higher pay, indicating that Instacart is simply trying to sell the job to the lowest bidder with no other obvious standard for how a given job should be paid. ***THE INSTACART TIP PENALTY*** Instacart is also practicing a sneaky form of tip theft by using customers' tips to subsidize their own costs instead of passing those tips directly on to the workers. Under the new model, Instacart pays less to workers for gigs where customers have left higher tips, so customers' tips are essentially being paid to Instacart rather than to the workers ourselves. If customers don't tip up front, Instacart pays more. This essentially works like a tip penalty, where instead of being "extra," tips are just used to make up for not paying workers decently in the first place. Using tips to subsidize Instacart's costs hurts workers and customers alike. Led by Instacart workers of Washington state: Mia Kelly (Seattle); Corrinne Pettitt (Tacoma); Ashley Knudson (Tacoma); Phoenix Di Corvo (Bremerton); Mark Moran (Seattle); Lori Tripp (Gig Harbor); Hannah Leighton (Bellingham); Ryan Munsell (Lynnwood); Samantha C. Sanabria (Tacoma); Terri Harstad (Bremerton); Julia Mascarella (Seattle); John LeMaster (Lakewood); Austin S. (Bellingham); Josh Siliaga (Seattle); Theresa Herstad (Bremerton); Renee Cable (Federal Way); Kris Sanderson (Mountlake Terrace); Patricia M. (Montesano); Rick Flickenger (Seattle); Rachel Jenkins (Vancouver); Ethan Bendorf (Port Orchard); Caitlin Santos (Steilacoom); April Cipriano (Tacoma); Rhonda Kirkes (Spanaway); Janssen Sartiga (Seattle); Jackie H. (Shoreline); Jaimee S. (Des Moines); Deanna Brewer (Seattle); Dawn Sabatella-Burnam; Jessica Habbe (Seattle); Jessica Clark (Edmonds); Anna Butler (Kent); Eva Skillings (Vancouver); Kristin Klatkiewicz (Kent); Martina B. (Lake Stevens); Michelle Padilla (Marysville); Jamilyn Salas (Tacoma); Alviena Ross (Olympia); Rachel Ross (Spokane); Chelsea Ward (Spokane); Lee Holland (Kent); Angela Sumers (Tacoma); Andrew Lincicome (Monroe); Bryan Sanford (Snohomish)

Public schools should be public. Public and democratic institutions depend on the active engagement and oversight of informed participants. Transparency builds trust.   Currently DC Public Charter Schools are exempt from the DC Open Meetings Act and from complying with FOIA requests. Given the large amount of public funds that the charter sector receives, it must be transparent to the public it serves.  Without stakeholders such as teachers and parents being able to seek and receive information and attend board meetings, charter schools are free to keep unpopular and perhaps ill-informed decisions out of the public eye.  Parents, teachers, and taxpayers are kept in the dark about important curricular, mission, or budgetary decisions made by the schools that ostensibly serve them.  Boards become more secretive, insulated from negative feedback in response to their decisions, and less responsive to public concerns. Teacher voices are not heard. All public schools are public institutions, and should be equally transparent and accountable.

I was involved with Planned Parenthood in different capacities for about ten years and was a few months into working at a Planned Parenthood state affiliate when I found out that I was in need of emergency surgery. I soon learned that I had no paid medical leave and would have to rely on a combination of short term disability and unpaid leave to recover from surgery. Unpaid leave was not an option for me as I simply did not earn enough from the job to accumulate any savings. (I worked a second job just to make ends meet.) The process just to get approval to work from home for a few weeks while recovering (instead of taking time off) was incredibly onerous -- and I was lucky to even make that work as working from home isn’t an option for so many of my coworkers working in Planned Parenthood clinics. Overall, the experience of taking time off for a critical surgery was extremely challenging and it’s not just the lack of paid medical leave that was a problem for me and many Planned Parenthood employees. I’m also concerned for my former coworkers who are new parents. I learned that they do not receive any paid parental leave. Ultimately, because of what I went through, I decided I needed to leave the organization and look for other opportunities. It’s just unfair and it’s hypocritical for Planned Parenthood to deny their hard-working employees paid leave -- even as more and more employers are expanding similar benefits. I know that other state affiliates also lack paid family and medical leave and it is a major source of frustration for my former coworkers.

A few months ago, I became a dad to Fynlee and becoming her dad has been one of the greatest joys of my life and the time I get to spend with her is precious. But my employer, Publix, doesn’t offer any paid family leave, so after she was born I was left with no option but to use my vacation days to have the time I needed to bond with Fynlee. It wasn’t nearly enough. Even after only three months, I can see the difference between the connection she has with me and the connection she has with her mom. I try to make her smile the way she smiles with her mom, but it’s not the same because I’m not the one spending all the time with her. After reading PL+US’ 2018 Employer Scorecard, I learned that Publix is the worst employer for families -- they provide zero weeks of paid family leave. I’ve been at Publix for 15 years and I love working there, but the values they show their customers are very different from the reality facing Publix employees. When I found out that they don’t offer any paid leave, I was disappointed. And I’m not alone. A coworker with a five-month-old baby shared with me that she only had one week of paid short-term disability and seven weeks of FMLA, which is unpaid. It’s sad when you see mothers coming back to work at Publix so soon after giving birth. When I tried to use my sick days to help support Fynlee’s mom while she recovered, I was told that it wasn’t allowed. And I couldn’t afford to use FMLA because our family couldn’t go without a paycheck. Fathers have a role as caregivers too, but we can’t do that if we’re not given the time. Some days I see my fiancé and Fynlee for only a couple of hours because of my workload. I do my best. I am there, just not as much as I’d hope any father could be. Join me in asking Publix to take this opportunity to lead the way in creating a workplace where families can thrive. Ask Publix to introduce a 12 weeks paid family and medical leave policy for all employees.

We do the same, if not more, than management. So how are they paid time and a half on holidays while other AMC employees don't receive holiday pay? They've told me they're not required to by law. I looked into it myself and found out that the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) exempts us (hourly crew) from its overtime requirements “any employee employed by an establishment which is a motion picture theater.” 29 U.S.C. §213(b)(27). The FLSA was enacted in 1936. Movie theaters have drastically change since then -- so have the job requirements and daily job duties of movie theater employees. For example, not all movie theaters only show movies anymore -- they have full service dine-in restaurants that still serve food whether or not you buy a movie ticket. I believe that the movie theater exemption should be taken out of the FLSA in order to truly protect the everyday employee, but even so, that doesn't mean that AMC can't provide greater benefits for its hourly employees right now. I believe companies such as AMC, who make well over a billion dollars in revenue a year (5 billion reported in 2016), can afford to pay the new era of movie theater employees overtime, as well as holiday and sick leave like salaried employees already receive.

More and more drivers are living in their cars. Unable to afford housing based off earnings as a driver, or unable to travel the distance home. More and more drivers are spending less time with their families, seeing their children, or taking care of themselves, because they cannot afford to turn their app off. What once was a reliable way to make income has become a cycle of driving as many hours as possible to barely scrape by. As Uber and Lyft prepare to go public this year with IPO offerings, they are doing everything in their power to show the profitability of their business. And they are doing this by taking more and more money from their drivers. Uber just reached a new low - cutting drivers’ mileage rates from $0.99/mile to $0.68/mile. Not only did Uber decrease the overall mileage rate, they changed the way drivers receive surge pricing - which is an incentive pay that drivers rely on to make a living. Prior to the change, surge pricing was based on a multiplier of the total trip (i.e 1.8x surge would earn the driver an additional 80% on the overall trip). The current change in surge pricing places a flat dollar rate such as $2.50, with a note that claims “you may earn even more than this amount on longer rides.” The key wording here is “may.” Driver experience has shown us that while some trips have added additional surge, others have not. Uber’s lack of transparency on how they formulate and determine surge payouts leaves drivers guessing what their fare will be. Gig Workers Rising is taking action against Uber and Lyft’s unyielding greed. Reverse the rate cuts and give drivers a voice! Join us by taking action and signing our petition.

As we reach a time where more radical ideas are being embraced, it begs the question why anyone's appearance (as long as health and safety are considered) would affect the quality of work they are capable of providing? It has been proven at a number of successful businesses like Google and Apple that allowing people to present themselves in a way that is comfortable to them actually improves retention of employees and produces an environment that feels open to creativity, collaboration, and trust. Most importantly, hair color, makeup, nail art, colorful accessories, and clothes have been a huge part of black, brown and queer culture. So what is it that we're saying about these people's work ethic and abilities? Why must we go so far to hinder expression? I find it odd for a company that uses the very gentrified logo of a lotus flower which often represents life, beauty, and passion to not let their employees stand out and represent their diversity. In the history of cannabis, we have seen how black and brown people in particular are negatively affected by heavy policing. One of the easiest ways of fighting against oppressive behavior is to allow workers to stand out like a lotus flower against the murky waters of monotony we often see in the work force. Though weed has a long and rich history, the industry surrounding it is anything but old-fashioned and should not be represented as such. In fact, the industry thrives because of people's constant innovations and ability to bring diversity to a plant that helps many groups. If we can agree that there is power in providing guests a choice in the way they medicate and treating them as an individual instead of just a patient, it makes sense to also give workers the power to be able to show up as an image of themselves (so long as it doesn't also impede on the health and safety of the work space). We are medicinal, we are not doctors nor pharmacists and shouldn't be forced to present ourselves as such. When we work in an environment where we acknowledge there is more than just pills as a health option, it would be ignorant of us to present ourselves as though there is only one way to be professional.

The workers at MSP, the cleaners, cashiers, servers, cart drivers and more, that make the airport function every day make as little as $10.65. Glen Brown, a wheelchair assistance driver for Delta sub-contractor G2 for three years and a member of SEIU Local 26 said "I live in St. Paul with my wife and kids, so I've seen the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis win the $15 minimum wage for workers in those cities. Why not here at the airport? We deserve the same pay and respect as workers in cities that border the airport!" For Feben Ghilagaber, a UNITE HERE Local 17 member who has worked at the airport for 13 years, $15 is important because "many of my co-workers are parents working 2 jobs. We believe at an airport as wealthy as MSP that one job should be enough!" Thousands of workers would benefit from raising the minimum wage to $15 at the airport, which would pump close to $13 million into the Twin Cities economy through wage increases! Right now, the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) is considering raising the airport minimum wage to $15 One Fair Wage! Please sign this petition to let the MAC know that you support them raising the airport minimum wage to $15 One Fair Wage! Brought to you by: SEIU Local 26, UNITE HERE Local 17 and the Minnesota Airport Workers Council

$10 an hour is hardly anything in this economy, especially for part-time employees trying to support their families. Teens working at McDonald's start off around $15.

Times are changing and I believe Publix is far behind in certain terms. Revising the dresscode won't change the satisfaction of your customers, nor should it affect the quality of your business and products, with that in mind I think you should be taking another look at your dress code. Like I said before, in these modern times this type of self expression is VERY important to some people. There's no point anymore in drawing out the past, and conforming people to this poorly out-dated dress code. When someone refuses to change their hair/etc. for Publix you're thinking they must not want to work there badly, but the message you're truly sending is that unless you give up your individuality you cannot work for our company. If someone decides they want to do something different for themselves they should be able to with out fear of losing their jobs.

A vast majority of the staff scrape by living check to check. Their sudden closure of Country Inn has left many workers, most with young children and families, with nothing for the upcoming holiday season. Most, if not all, these workers gave their all for JANCO for years and years only to be tossed aside 12 days before Thanksgiving. A lot, if not all, workers are facing a really difficult time through no fault of their own