Our Impact

We Advocate

A Better Balance advocates for policy change to ensure all working people, particularly workers in low-wage and hourly jobs, have the ability to care for themselves and their loved ones, without sacrificing their economic security.

We are leaders in federal, state, and local campaigns to put a stop to pregnancy discrimination, to pass paid family and medical leave for all, to enact a national right to paid sick time, to support nursing workers, to guarantee fair and flexible scheduling, to curb employers’ use of abusive attendance policies, and more. From conducting legal research to drafting laws to testifying before legislators to mounting fierce public advocacy campaigns, we work at every step of the way to enact supportive work-family policies and build a more just and equitable nation.

In 2022, after a decade of advocacy, we won passage of the groundbreaking federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act—the first workplace and civil rights law of its kind in decades—strengthening critical legal protections for pregnant and postpartum workers nationwide. We also played a leading role in passing the federal PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act.

By working with legislators and fellow advocates across the nation, from New York to Tennessee, from Colorado to Louisiana, we have passed a wealth of state and local policies, including paid family and medical leave programs in 14 states and paid sick time policies in 19 states and dozens of jurisdictions. We also work closely with agencies to implement these new laws and ensure they are meeting the needs of workers and their loved ones.

Our efforts have helped millions of individuals stay healthy and attached to their jobs with the supportive work-family protections they need. Because of A Better Balance’s advocacy:

Tens of millions of workers in all 50 states are now covered by the federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, so they can stay healthy and attached to the workforce during pregnancy and immediately after childbirth.
Nearly 60 million workers who previously did not have a single paid sick day are now covered by a state or local paid sick time law.
Over 40 million workers have access to paid family and medical leave in their state, allowing them to care for a new child or seriously ill family member or to recover from their own serious health condition.
9 million more workers now have a right to time and space to pump breastmilk in the workplace thanks to the federal PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act.

We Enforce

As a legal organization, our work does not stop with passing new laws—we work to robustly enforce these new and existing protections for workers. And when we hear from workers whose rights have been violated, we file legal actions on their behalf in order to achieve justice.

We are not afraid to take on industry giants, enforcing the law and zealously advocating for our clients when we learn of egregious workplace violations. This includes:

Securing a historic settlement in the amount of $14 million in a nationwide class action lawsuit against Walmart.
Securing relief for 1.5 million Walmart workers, following our legal actions challenging pregnancy discrimination and unfair policies punishing medical absences and forcing the retail giant to change its pregnancy accommodation policy.
Representing and vindicating the rights of clients whose rights have been violated when they needed time off or accommodations due to a health, pregnancy, or caregiving related need, holding large corporations accountable to the law. Clients such as Brooklyn, a fast food employee who was disciplined for missing work while recovering from a threatened miscarriage. Or Lisa, a healthcare worker caring for seniors who was illegally punished when she needed time off work because of her mental health condition.
Spurring a Congressional inquiry, led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, into the abusive attendance practices of 5 huge employers: FedEx, Walmart, ConAgra, 3M, and Kroger.

Similarly, when governments threaten to block or repeal progressive workplace protections or they are challenged in court, we step in on behalf of working people to protect and defend their rights. This includes:

Taking bold steps to defend the constitutionality of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and its implementing regulations, including filing an amicus brief in the matter of Texas v. Bondi, making the case before the court that the PWFA was enacted lawfully and an essential protection for the health and wellbeing of pregnant workers.
Intervening in a federal lawsuit to defend federal protections for pregnant and postpartum students, in light of the Trump Administration’s signals that it no longer intends to do so.
Representing the Transport Workers Union of America Local 556, which includes more than 18,000 flight attendants working for Southwest Airlines, in a lawsuit to force Southwest to comply with Colorado’s Healthy Families and Workplaces Act.
Fighting in court to successfully restore robust paid sick time rights to more than a million workers in Michigan, after the law passed via ballot initiative and was unacceptably weakened by state lawmakers.

Through strategic litigation, we are holding employers who serially violate the law accountable, and ensuring critical workplace protections that were enacted via the democratic process remain in tact.

We Empower

Through our free and confidential legal helpline, we provide advice and legal support to workers seeking information about their workplace rights. When an individual reaches out to us with questions about taking paid leave, accessing paid sick time, fair scheduling, or lactation or pregnancy accommodations, we provide them with hands-on support in understanding and exercising their rights under current laws that apply to their situation.

Since we introduced our helpline in 2009, we have fielded calls in both English and Spanish from tens of thousands of workers, helping countless individuals to keep their jobs and receive the support they need as they care for themselves and their loved ones.

Many times, armed with information about the law, workers are empowered to approach their employers and successfully advocate for themselves to receive the support they are legally entitled to. Other times, we step in, sending letters, filing charges with agencies, and taking on clients to secure relief for workers whose rights have been violated.

For some of our callers, our country’s existing federal, state, and local protections fall short of providing the support they need. Through our Community Advocates program, we empower individuals who are interested in doing so to speak out and call for change. A Better Balance Community Advocates speak out about mistreatment they’ve faced in the workplace due to a need to care for themselves or their loved ones, educate their networks about existing laws so they feel empowered to exercise their rights in the workplace, and highlight the need for supportive work-family policies on the national stage.

From our helpline to the halls of Congress, we remain committed to centering the voices and lived expertise of workers in all that we do. Many workers who are not sufficiently protected by existing work-family laws go on to fight alongside us for change.

In particular, our Community Advocates were integral to our successful campaign to pass the federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act—writing op-eds, testifying before Congress, speaking at rallies, participating in TV and media interviews, recording video appeals for social media, and so much more.

One of our longtime Community Advocates, Natasha Jackson, who was forced onto unpaid leave from her job at a South Carolina Rent-A-Center, and shared her story to call for the South Carolina PWFA and then federal legislation, went on to speak and introduce President Biden at a 2023 White House event celebrating the passage of the law.

We Educate

We provide vital know-your- rights information to workers and advocates through our vast online catalog of issue-specific resources, social media, working with journalists and the press on educational media items,, virtual and in-person trainings, and public speaking engagements. Since our founding, hundreds of thousands of workers and advocates have accessed and used our resources to successfully advocate for their own rights in the workplace.

Our state-by-state Workplace Rights Hub offers reliable, clear, and up-to-date information on the laws workers caring for themselves and their loved ones need to know, addressing:

accommodations during pregnancy
caregiver discrimination
paid family and medical leave
paid sick time
lactation accommodations

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, we sprung into action to create FAQs and other resources to inform workers nationwide about federal, state, and local sick time and emergency relief laws. And when the federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act took effect in summer of 2023, we undertook a sweeping, multi-year national public education campaign to ensure pregnant and postpartum workers and those planning their families were equipped to exercise their rights for years to come.

As part of our public education efforts, we spark and shape national conversations as thought leaders on work and family through media appearances and strategically placed thought-leader pieces in local and national outlets, including the New York Times, CNN, U.S. News & World Report, and Teen Vogue, among others. This coverage has inspired new legislative efforts and workplace fairness campaigns across the country. Because the workers we support are at the center of everything we do, we work hard to ensure their stories are heard in an authentic and meaningful way. Our clients have been prominently featured in investigative reports on the front page of the New York Times, as well as in special segments on CNBC, CNN, MSNBC, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, and more.