The Equity Program focuses on eradicating unlawful, artificial barriers to employment on the basis of gender. The Program works with issues of sex discrimination, sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination, equal pay violations, discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and multi-based forms of discrimination. The Gender Equity Program currently oversees three separate projects, the Domestic Violence and Employment Project, the Work and Family Project, and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Employment Project.

Work and family issues, domestic violence, wage and hour, and safety violations disproportionately affect working poor female employees. Although these unlawful practices are not grounded in the traditional gender-based discrimination analysis, poor working women are nonetheless disproportionately affected by such practices because of their gender.

The Gender Equity Program therefore seeks to eradicate unlawful conduct disproportionately faced by poor working women and their families. The Program achieves these goals through advocacy, representation, education, and policy work on behalf of the working poor and their families who face discrimination, economic injustice, and unfair workplace treatment.

For over twenty-five years, the Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center has litigated numerous law reform impact cases in state and federal courts throughout the country on a variety of employment issues including gender-based discrimination. Among other notable successes, the LAS-ELC was counsel of record for Lillian Garland in California Savings and Loan v. Guerra, the landmark pregnancy discrimination case upholding California's unpaid pregnancy disability leave law by the Supreme Court in 1987. The LAS-ELC has also litigated cases on behalf of low-income, female workers involving the minimum wage, overtime pay, health and safety violations, reproductive health hazards, equal pay violations, sexual harassment, sexual orientation-based discrimination and harassment, race, disability and age discrimination.

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Click to view legal information fact sheets related to the Gender Equity Program.

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The Domestic Violence and Employment Project

The Domestic Violence and Employment Project (DVEP) enables survivors of domestic violence to obtain and maintain employment while receiving necessary medical care and pursuing critical legal remedies in order to become economically independent. The Project also educates legislators, judges and investigators at administrative agencies about the importance of jobs to victims of domestic violence and the ways in which domestic violence affects the working lives of employees and their families. In this way, the DVEP encourages those who are in positions of authority and influence to make reasoned, fair-minded decisions that dramatically affect the lives of our clients. The Project serves victims of domestic violence and their advocates nationwide, with an emphasis on residents of California.

Brief History:
There are powerful economic barriers that prevent survivors of domestic violence from leaving their batterers. Millions of low-income workers are abused at home every year. The violence that pervades their lives, and the injuries that result from this violence can significantly affect their ability to work.

Victims of domestic violence often need to take time off from work to seek a restraining order, to seek medical attention, or to make arrangements to leave their batterer. Unfortunately, many victims of domestic violence are fired from their jobs for taking time off from work to seek judicial assistance or medical attention. Victims of domestic violence are also often terminated or forced to leave their jobs because they are perceived by their employers as posing a special workplace safety risk.

While the law provides certain protections to which they could avail themselves, most domestic violence victims are unaware of important employment rights, such as reasonable accommodation, part-time work schedules, unpaid leave, and unemployment compensation. The DVEP helps victims of domestic violence maintain their economic independence, which is crucial to escaping the cycle of violence, and provides critical assistance to victims of domestic violence by advocating for their employment rights. The Project enables victims of domestic violence to keep their jobs while seeking medical and legal assistance so that they are not unfairly forced to choose between economic security and their safety.

Project Services:

• Legal advice and counseling: The Project provides free legal information and assistance to domestic violence survivors through the toll-free DV and Work Helpline at 1-888-864-8335. You may also contact our Workers' Rights Clinic. For Clinic information, click here or call 415-864-8208.
• DV and Employment Fact Sheets: Click here.
• Community outreach and education: The Project offers in-service trainings at domestic violence organizations, and for workers and employers throughout California and nationwide. The DVEP publishes public education materials on issues of domestic violence and employment rights for clients, legal services providers, and advocates.
• Litigation: The Project will litigate cases that it believes will result in favorable case law for domestic violence victims in the workplace.
• Legislative advocacy: The Project participates in legislative efforts on the federal and state levels that expand the employment rights of domestic violence victims.

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The Work and Family Project

The Work & Family Project is dedicated to providing services to workers whose need to take leave to care for their own serious health condition or that of a child, parent, or spouse places them at risk of losing employment. Project objectives are to educate and advise workers and their advocates of the protections of the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the California Family Rights Act (CFRA), as well as other relevant employment laws.

Brief History:
Until recently, employers could legally fire a worker who needed time off to care for herself or a seriously ill family member, leaving that worker without income or health insurance in a medical crisis. For low-income workers, a family medical crisis can present an untenable choice between caring for a critically ill family member or keeping a job.

The FMLA and the CFRA were passed to provide job-protected, unpaid leave for workers who need time off to care for themselves or their family members when a serious illness strikes, or to care for a new child. In addition, employers are required to continue the employee's health care benefits during the leave, and employees are entitled to return to the same or an equivalent job after their leave.

Unfortunately, this important new protection has yet to become a reality for low-wage workers, due in part to the widespread lack of information at all levels of the medical, health care, and business sectors.

Project Services:

• Legal advice and counseling: The project provides individualized assistance and legal counseling to workers via the Work & Family Project Information Line (toll-free in California 800-880-8047 or 415-593-0033 outside of California).
• Community outreach and education: The project offers workshops and training for workers, health care providers, and advocates to learn about strategies to protect the rights of poor families who are grappling with the conflicting demands of work and family. The Work & Family Project produces fact sheets and other reference materials (in English, Spanish, and Chinese) that are available to inform workers of their rights under the FMLA and the CFRA.
• Litigation: The Project is committed to litigating cases which we believe will develop favorable case law under the FMLA and the CFRA.
• Legislative advocacy: The Project participates in legislative efforts on the federal and state levels that expand the rights of workers to take family and medical leave.

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The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Employment Project

The LGBT Employment Project helps low-income workers address discrimination and harassment they face at work on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Focusing on low-income and unemployed workers in traditionally underrepresented communities - including youth, people of color, immigrants, transgender people, and people with disabilities - the Project provides free legal education, counseling, advocacy and assistance to empower low-income LGBT workers to resolve instances of sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination in the workplace and lower the barriers to LGBT people's full participation in society.

Brief History:
As of January 2000, California amended the Fair Employment and Housing Act ("FEHA") to add sexual orientation to the list of prohibited bases of discrimination in housing and employment decisions. Leveraging this great opportunity, the LGBT Employment Project was established in the Fall of 2000, to educate workers and employers about discrimination in its various forms and ensure that the inevitable legal battles over this new law result in expanded workers' rights and more enlightened attitudes within the courts and society at large.

In addition to education and advocacy regarding the amendments to FEHA relative to the lesbian, gay and bisexual communities, the Project works to ensure that existing law is interpreted and expanded to protect transgender workers and others discriminated against on the basis of gender identity.

Project Services:

• Legal Advice and Counseling: The Project provides free legal information and assistance to LGBT individuals through the Workers' Rights Clinic. For Clinic information, click here or call 415-864-8208.
• Community Outreach and Education: The Project provides community education to LGBT workers and their advocates about employment rights in the form of workshops and prepared public education materials. View Gender, Identity, and New Developments in Employment Law, a joint publication of the the Legal Aid Society - Employment Law Center & The National Center for Lesbian Rights.
• Litigation: The Project will litigate cases that it believes will result in favorable case law for LGBT workers.
• Legislative Advocacy: In collaboration with other legal and LGBT advocates, the Project engages in legislative and administrative advocacy to improve legal protections for LGBT workers, and to expand protections to include transgender workers and those discriminated against on the basis of gender identity.