News & Commentary February 23, 2023

[Omaha Steve]

https://onlabor.org/february-23-2022/

Maddie Chang

Maddie Chang is a student at Harvard Law School.

In today’s News and Commentary, Seattle becomes the first city in the U.S. to ban caste discrimination, Tesla union’s NLRB charge says their Twitter account has been shadow banned, and New York’s state law protecting worker absences goes into effect.

On Tuesday, Seattle City Council voted 6-1 to outlaw discrimination based on caste, becoming the first U.S. city and first city outside of South Asia to do so. While caste discrimination became officially illegal in India in 1948, violence and discrimination against Dalits persists and affects South Asian communities in the U.S. According to research by Equality Labs, two out of three Dalits surveyed in the U.S. reported being treated unfairly in the workplace, and 25% of Dalits surveyed said they have faced physical or verbal abuse based on their caste. Some scholars and activists understand caste discrimination to already be covered under Title VII. As reported in the AP, Seattle’s ordinance follows a handful of U.S. universities who’ve banned caste discrimination, including against student workers.

FULL story at link above.