BOSTON- Last week, the Massachusetts Senate passed Senator DiDomenico’s bill, An Act relative to healthy youth.  This bill will ensure that school districts in the Commonwealth that elect to provide their students with sex education provide age-appropriate and medically accurate information.

“The amount of information that students have access to today through technology and the media is almost overwhelming.  This bill provides for age appropriate and medically accurate sexual education for students in a school setting to give them the best information available through a trusted source,” said Senate President Stan Rosenberg (D-Amherst).  “The bill also requires parental notification and allows for review of all materials presented in the classroom.  We need our students to make the best decisions based on the most accurate information.”

“Massachusetts students deserve an education that will prepare them for the future and help them make smart and informed decisions,” said Senator Sal DiDomenico (D-Everett). "As legislators, it is our job to ensure that young people receive comprehensive education on every subject they learn in school, and these standards should also apply to sex education.  This commonsense bill not only guarantees that students receive accurate information to help them make healthy decisions, but also ensures that parents remain informed and are a part of their child’s education along the way.”

“Congratulations to my friend and colleague Senator Sal DiDomenico on his dogged work in support of healthy youth,” said Senator Sonia Chang Díaz (D-Boston), Senate Chair of the Joint Committee on Education. “The bill passed by the Senate today will ensure that health education in our schools is medically accurate and age appropriate, promoting healthy relationships and healthy bodies.” 

Currently, when Massachusetts public schools provide their students with health education that covers sexual activity, there is no guarantee that the information provided is age-appropriate or medically accurate. This legislation changes this by requiring school districts that choose to offer sexuality education follow certain guidelines to ensure that students are provided with age-appropriate and medically accurate information. Under the bill, sexual health education must include but not be limited to:

• the benefits of abstinence, delaying sexual activity, and the importance of effectively using contraceptives;

• ways to effectively discuss safe sexual activity;

• relationship and communication skills to form healthy, respectful relationships free of violence; coercion, and intimidation and to make healthy decisions about relationships and sexuality;

• physical, social and emotional changes of human development;

• human anatomy, reproduction, and sexual development; and

• age-appropriate information about gender identity and sexual orientation for all students.

Sex education programs have repeatedly been shown to work best when they emphasize the value of abstinence, while also teaching students about the importance of protecting themselves from unintended consequences.  This type of comprehensive curriculum is proven to be more effective at delaying sexual activity among young people, increasing the rate in which young people use contraception, while also lowering rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and teen pregnancy.

The bill does not require schools to provide sexuality information.  Local school boards and schools still make all decisions about whether to offer sex education. This legislation also maintains existing state law that allows parents to remove their children from sex education programs and gives school districts clearer guidance on how to notify parents about these programs.

School districts that provide a sexuality curriculum must adopt a written policy to give parents and legal guardians notification and inform them of the right to withdraw their child from all or part of the instruction. Notification to parents and guardians must be in English, as well as any other commonly spoken languages by parents. Districts must also have a process for parents to review the program instruction materials prior to the start of the course, if the parents request it.

This bill now moves to the House of Representatives for consideration.

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BOSTON- Senator Sal DiDomenico and his colleagues in the Massachusetts Senate unanimously voted to pass an Act Establishing the Massachusetts Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. This bill ensures that pregnant workers are protected from discrimination in the workplace. In addition to protecting the health of pregnant employees, the bill also promotes economic security for workers and their families.

“No woman should have to choose between keeping her job and maintaining healthy and safe pregnancy,” said Senator Sal DiDomenico, a co-sponsor of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. “However, the unfortunate reality is that women in Massachusetts still risk losing their jobs when they become pregnant, and many others are exposed to unsafe working conditions that threaten the well-being of themselves and their children. I am proud to support this important piece of legislation, which will undoubtedly make workplaces fairer and safer for all.”

Under this legislation, employers are prohibited from discriminating against an employee or prospective employee due to pregnancy or a condition related to the pregnancy. Employers are also required to provide reasonable accommodations for workers who are pregnant. At the request of a pregnant employee, employers must undergo a good faith and interactive process to determine an effective reasonable accommodation.

Provisions include low cost modifications such as providing employees with a stool to sit on, allowing for more frequent bathroom breaks, and allowing the worker to carry a bottle of water. Employers are not required to provide accommodations that would impose an undue hardship on the employer’s business.

In addition, employers are prohibited from refusing to hire a pregnant job candidate solely because the candidate requires a reasonable accommodation. Employers are not permitted to force pregnant employees to accept an accommodation that they do not want or to take leave if another reasonable accommodation may be provided.

The Massachusetts Pregnant Workers Fairness Act makes the Commonwealth a leader in addressing pregnancy discrimination and positions the state at the front of a national movement

The bill will now be reconciled with the House version of the bill, which was passed last month, before being sent to the Governor for his signature.

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BOSTON- Senator Sal DiDomenico recently testified before the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development in support of his legislation to prevent the illegal practice of wage theft and promote employer accountability. The bill, S.999, gives the state greater power to go after corrupt employers and provides additional tools for the Attorney General’s Office to hold violators fully accountable.

“The practice of wage theft comes in many different forms, but they all have the common denominator of hurting workers, their families, and our communities,” said Senator Sal DiDomenico (D-Everett) in his testimony before the committee. “This legislation takes crucial steps to protect workers from this illicit practice and holds employers accountable for their actions. I respectfully ask for the Committee’s favorable report, and I urge my colleagues in the Legislature to take action and pass this critical bill during this legislative session to end this growing epidemic of wage theft.” 

Wage theft- the illegal practice of not paying employees for all of their work through means such as violating minimum wage laws, not paying overtime, or forcing workers to work off the clock- has become a pervasive problem throughout the Massachusetts economy. The number of wage theft violations has especially grown as more companies move towards using independent contractors rather than full-time employees, overwhelming the capacity of our existing labor laws and enforcement mechanisms. 

According to Community Labor United, approximately $700 million is stolen by bad employers from 350,000 workers in Massachusetts each year. The Attorney General’s Office, which is tasked with protecting workers in this state, successfully recovers $5.2 million annually.

Immigrants are particularly vulnerable to wage theft due to a reluctance to speak out against employers. As a result, these workers can sometimes go weeks without pay, and when they do get paid, it can be less than originally promised.

Wage theft also hurts legitimate businesses by putting law-abiding companies at a competitive disadvantage when they lose contracts to companies that charge less for their work by cheating their workers out of their pay. These bad actors also avoid paying taxes and into critical safety nets for workers, putting an unfair burden on Massachusetts taxpayers and the Commonwealth when employees have a legitimate right to utilize these programs.

To increase accountability in labor contracting and subcontracting, the bill holds lead contractors accountable for the wage theft violations of their subcontractors if there is a significant connection to their business activities or operations and enhances the enforcement power of the Attorney General’s Office by allowing it to bring wage theft cases directly to civil court. The Attorney General would also gain the ability to issue a stop work order in response to a wage theft violation.

To protect employees affected by a stop work order, the bill requires that employees be paid for the period that the stop work order is in effect or the first 10 days the employee was scheduled to work had the stop order not been issued.

The Massachusetts Senate passed Senator DiDomenico’s wage theft bill last session with nearly unanimous and bipartisan support. Coming off of last year’s victory in the Senate, the bill has strong momentum and supporters are hopeful that the legislation will clear both chambers of the Legislature and receive the Governor’s signature.

An Act to prevent wage theft and promote employer accountability is currently pending before the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce development where is awaits a favorable report.

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