PathWays PA Action Center

Are you ready to take action?

PathWays PA now offers an Action Center that you can use to write to your legislators and to your local news media on the issues that matter to you.

Legislative Action: Using the Action Center, you can send emails directly to your legislators about the issues that matter to you. We include facts and statistics on the issues, but you get to decide what you want to put in the letter! You don't even need to know who your legislators are - just put in your zip code and the alert will automatically go to the right people.

Currently in the Action Center, you can write to your legislators about:

• Earned Sick Time: Everyone gets sick, but not everyone has time to get better. 2,227,059 Pennsylvania workers lack access to earned sick time, meaning that when they or their families are sick, they must choose between working while sick or losing their pay - or possibly their jobs. If you believe all Pennsylvanians should have access to earned sick time, tell your legislators!

• Maternal Profiling: When do job interviews cross the line? One way that happens is when employers ask if you are married or have children, which is a legal question to ask in Pennsylvania. If you believe that marital and familial status have nothing to do with how workers perform on the job, please take a minute to write to your legislators!

• Adult Literacy: In Pennsylvania, we can support employment by supporting funding for adult literacy. Since more than 750,000 Pennsylvania adults (age 18-64) lack a high school diploma or GED, the only means they have of attaining these jobs is through adult education classes. If adult literacy is important to you, use this message to tell your legislators!

• Unemployment Compensation Benefits: Pennsylvania has the opportunity to receive $273 million from the federal government in return for making some small, commonsense changes to unemployment compensation (including making sure that survivors of domestic violence qualify for unemployment if they must leave their jobs). If you agree some changes should be made, write to your legislators now!

Letters to the Editor: In addition to writing to your legislators, the Action Center includes an easy to use tool for writing letters to the editor of your local newspaper. These tools include talking points that you can arrange in your letter to complement your personal story or reason for supporting different policies. It takes just a minute to share your point of view!

Currently in the Action Center, you can write to letters to the editor about:

• Earned Sick Time: Nearly 40 million private sector employees have no access to earned sick days, and a majority of employees without this benefit work in food service and care giving positions. If you have benefited from having paid sick days or feared losing your job if you took off to care for yourself or a family member, take a moment to tell your story!

• Unemployment Compensation Benefits: Unemployment continues to exceed 9.3% throughout our state. How can we help the unemployed? One way to start would be to accept $273 million from the federal government in unemployment compensation (UC) funds. If you support accepting this $273 million, please tell your story!

Please continue to check back for the latest issues, and tell us if there are new topics you would like us to cover!

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