I recently joined a committee within my employer's women's employee resource group to draft a petition for better PTO/sick/parental leave benefits. Our current policies are barebones and pretty terrible.
I was approached about this and signed up, because, ya know, solidarity is important. I've never done this before – do I need to worry about retaliation? If so, what do I do? I need my job in order to pay my mortgage, but I can't leave my fellow workers hanging.
For context, my employer is contracted with the US federal government, so any reports of retaliation to the Dept of Labor could be very detrimental to their business and bottom line. Everyone involved knows this.
I guess I just need to know what to prepare for and how to respond if I get fired, demoted, knocked down to part-time, etc. Also, what options do we have for next steps if we're successful? I've never been involved with anything like this before and I feel a bit lost.
Thanks in advance.