A great scoop from Molly Reden of Mother Jones:

When Obamacare compelled businesses to include emergency contraception in employee health care plans, Hobby Lobby, a national chain of craft stores, fought the law all the way to the Supreme Court. The Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate, the company’s owners argued, forced them to violate their religious beliefs. But while it was suing the government, Hobby Lobby spent millions of dollars on an employee retirement plan that invested in the manufacturers of the same contraceptive products the firm’s owners cite in their lawsuit.

Documents filed with the Department of Labor and dated December 2012—three months after the company’s owners filed their lawsuit—show that the Hobby Lobby 401(k) employee retirement plan held more than $73 million in mutual funds with investments in companies that produce emergency contraceptive pills, intrauterine devices, and drugs commonly used in abortions. Hobby Lobby makes large matching contributions to this company-sponsored 401(k).

So much for Hobby Lobby’s sincerely held religious belief that IUDs and emergency contraception are forms of abortion and therefore contrary to its religion. 

[Image Credit: “Copper IUD, Mechanisms of Action,” MIT Open Courseware, Creative Commons.]

A ruling by the director of the NLRB’s Chicago office puts the football team at Northwestern one step closer to unionization, Dave Jamieson reports. The regional director of the Chicago office ruled that the players are employees and are therefore eligible to vote on whether to have a union. 

[Photo Credit: Pennstatenews, Creative Commons.]

Today: Tuesday, March 25, Noon-1pm. 

Ceremony to mark the 103rd Anniversary of the Triangle Fire 

Washington Place & Greene St. in Manhattan (the site of the Triangle Fire)

This evening: 5:30pm 

Panel Discussion: From Triangle Shirtwaist to Bangladesh: The Garment Industry, Tragedy, and Workplace Safety Reform

Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College

47-49 East 65th Street, New York, NY 10065

Please RSVP to rhrsvp@hunter.cuny.edu. if you’d like to attend!

The Best of the Week’s News 

• A teenager is facing life in prison because she tested positive for a metabolite of cocaine after her baby was born dead from an obstetrical complication.

• Chris Christie’s cronies are managing state pension funds and taking big risks.

• Bowles-Simpson icon grudgingly admits he was wrong.

• Texas college student fatally shot by police was hit in the back, autopsy reveals.

• Wall Street Journal raves for All of Me a weight-loss surgery documentary that premieres on Monday at 10pm Eastern on PBS’s Independent Lens.

[Photo credit: Wander Mule, Creative Commons.]