Emily Martin, Vice President and General Counsel

Emily Martin

Emily Martin is Vice President and General Counsel at the National Women's Law Center, where she undertakes cross-cutting projects addressing women's health, economic security, and education and employment opportunities. She also provides in-house legal advice and representation to the Center. Prior to joining the Center, Ms. Martin served as Deputy Director of the Women's Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, where she spearheaded litigation, policy, and public education initiatives to advance the rights of women and girls, with a particular emphasis on the needs of low-income women and women of color. She also served as a law clerk for Senior Judge Wilfred Feinberg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Judge T.S. Ellis, III, of the Eastern District of Virginia and previously worked for the Center as a recipient of the Georgetown Women's Law and Public Policy Fellowship. She has served as Vice President and President of the Fair Housing Justice Center, a non-profit organization in New York City. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia and Yale Law School.

Expert in: Issues Before the Courts, Platform for Progress, Treaty on the Rights of Women, Supreme Court, Voter Education, Women & the Constitution, Unemployment, Employment
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My Take

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act: Long Past Due

Posted by Emily Martin, Vice President and General Counsel | Posted on: May 08, 2012 at 03:11 pm

A pregnant woman’s job shouldn’t depend on her willingness to ignore her doctor’s advice. But many women face just this choice, particularly women working in physically demanding jobs. When an employer refuses to accommodate, say, a request to shift job duties so a pregnant worker can avoid lifting more than twenty pounds for a few months, the worker will often lose her job (and possibly her health insurance), at the worst possible moment for her family. Today, Representative Nadler (D-NY) and more than 60 cosponsors introduced the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), a bill that would ensure women are no longer forced into this impossible position.

The PWFA provides that employers must make reasonable accommodations when employees have limitations related to pregnancy or childbirth and when these accommodations do not pose an undue hardship to employers. In other words, it requires employers to provide pregnant workers the exact same sort of accommodations they already provide employees with disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act. In the absence of the PWFA, courts have often rejected the claims of women whose employers fired them when they sought modifications that would allow them to continue to do their jobs. 

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Tags: Employment, Pregnancy, Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), Pregnancy, Parenting, and the Workplace, Employment | 1 comment

Help Close the Pregnancy Loophole

Posted by Emily Martin, Vice President and General Counsel | Posted on: May 08, 2012 at 11:13 am

Help Close the Pregnancy Loophole!
Call today and help close the pregnancy loophole!
Tell your Representative to co-sponsor the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act to ensure that pregnant women are treated fairly on the job.
Call (202) 224-3121 today!

Yes it's true: In 2012, getting pregnant can still cost you your job.

Thanks to a gap opened between discrimination laws and disability laws by court decisions, some employers are refusing to accommodate even simple requests that help workers maintain a healthy pregnancy.

Here are three startling examples of women who, thanks to the pregnancy loophole, were fired for doing what was best for their pregnancies:

  • A retail sales associate in Salina, Kansas was fired for drinking water while working because it violated store policy.
  • A nursing home activities director in Valparaiso, Indiana lost her job because she could no longer lift heavy tables, an activity that took up less than 10 minutes of her workday and with which her coworkers routinely volunteered to assist.
  • A pregnant truck driver in Tennessee was instructed by her obstetrician not to lift more than 20 pounds and sought light duty work. Her employer terminated her, as it made such modifications only to those injured on the job.

Sounds crazy, right? Unfortunately, thousands of pregnant women are forced to choose between losing their jobs (or taking unpaid leave) and endangering their pregnancies, when just a few small workplace accommodations are usually all that's needed.

To close this egregious pregnancy loophole, Pregnant Workers Fairness Act was introduced today in the House of Representatives by Reps. Nadler (D-NY) and a number of his colleagues. To give this bill a solid start, we need as many Representatives to co-sponsor this bill as possible.

Will you take 3 minutes to call your Representative and ask them to co-sponsor the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act? Calling is easy to do.

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Tags: Employment, Pregnancy, Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), Pregnancy, Parenting, and the Workplace, Employment | 2 comments

Supporting State Efforts to End Violence Against Women: Unconstitutional?

Posted by Emily Martin, Vice President and General Counsel | Posted on: April 30, 2012 at 04:34 pm

Last week, the Senate voted to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act by a bipartisan vote, an important step forward for the many thousands of women who depend on its protections. But before we forget the Senate debate, we should note not only the surprising resistance the bill met there, but also the specific basis Mike Lee (R-Utah) offered for opposing it. Senator Lee, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and whose views on the Constitution are thus particularly influential, implied that VAWA was unconstitutional.

Senator Lee objected to VAWA’s grants to state and local governments. VAWA provides funding for programs operated by courts, law enforcement, state agencies, local governments, and others, in order to address the needs of victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. In general, recipients must apply to receive these funds. Senator Lee asserted that somehow providing this funding to the state and local governments seeking it compromises states’ rights under the Constitution, because violent crime is regulated primarily by the states. “As a matter of constitutional policy,” Senator Lee stated, “Congress should not seek to impose rules and standards as conditions for federal funding in areas where the federal government lacks constitutional authority to regulate directly.” He also protested that “the strings that Congress attaches to federal funding in the VAWA reauthorization restrict each state’s ability to govern itself.”

Senator Lee’s theory of the Constitution seems to forbid Congress from imposing any sort of standards on the money it gives to state and local governments, even when state and local governments have specifically sought the money and voluntarily assumed the conditions that come with it. This is a radical theory that would make it impossible for Congress to fund the VAWA programs that have been so important for improving the criminal justice response to violent crime against women and for creating coordinated community responses to address the needs of those who experience domestic violence, dating violence, stalking, and sexual assault.

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Tags: Congress, Platform for Progress, Supreme Court, Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), A Women's Agenda | 1 comment

Really? Playing Games with the Violence Against Women Act

Posted by Emily Martin, Vice President and General Counsel | Posted on: April 25, 2012 at 10:08 am

Remember when some issues in Congress were exempt from political football — even in an election year? That used to be the case with the Violence Against Women Act. Until now.

This week the Senate is taking up the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), the first U.S. federal law that acknowledged domestic violence and sexual assault as crimes. Though it's a bipartisan bill with 61 cosponsors, we're facing an uphill battle to get it passed in the current Senate.

Why? Because this bill strengthens protections for those experiencing violence at the hands of a same-sex partner, as well as for immigrants and Native American women. Given the particular needs of these communities, the bill's focus on these women makes a lot of sense. But some Senators would rather leave these women behind. It's time to jam the phones on Capitol Hill! Please call your Senators to make sure they do the right thing and reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act. Here is exactly what you have to do to take action:

  1. Call (202) 224-3121 and ask the operator to connect you to your Senator's office. Since you have two Senators, remember to call twice! To look up your Senator's name and direct line, please check this website.
  2. When you get someone on the phone, please read this sample script: My name is _____ and I'm a constituent. I'm calling to urge Senator ______ to support the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, S. 1925. I urge Senator _____ to keep all of the critical provisions, including those protections for Native American women, immigrants, and LGBT victims, in the bill.
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Tags: Platform for Progress, Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), A Women's Agenda | 3 comments

April 17th: A Day to Remember That Women Can’t Afford an Unfair Economy

Posted by Emily Martin, Vice President and General Counsel | Posted on: April 16, 2012 at 03:03 pm

Tomorrow, April 17, 2012, is both Equal Pay Day and Tax Day—which means it’s a very good day to focus on economic fairness and what achieving it would mean for women.

First, fairness also requires closing the pay gap. Almost fifty years after passage of the Equal Pay Act, the typical woman working fulltime, year-round continues to be paid only 77 cents for every dollar paid by her male counterpart—a loss of close to $11,000 a year at the median.To catch up with the wages her male equivalent had been paid by December 31 of last year, this typical woman had to work through April 17. Even after taking into account factors such as occupation, education, and hours worked, women still consistently earn less than men, and this pay gap translates into lower unemployment benefits when women lose their jobs, lower Social Security benefits when they retire, and less ability to meet their families’ needs.

Because more and more families depend in whole or in part on a woman’s earnings, the pay gap doesn’t just shortchange women. It shortchanges everyone. Yet the pay gap persists, in part because pay discrimination is hard to identify and hard to challenge.

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Tags: Buffett Rule, Equal Pay, Taxes, Wage Gap, Equal Pay and the Wage Gap, Federal Tax Policy, Tax Reform, Employment, Tax & Budget | Add new comment