Research & Reports:

Family values at work
9to5, MultiState Working Families Consortium call for guaranteed sick days, paid family and medical leave

Taking the high road
Policy proposal outlines need to improve job quality for low-wage workers, plus related briefs and articles

Who's next?
Future of Children experts say next generation of antipoverty measures should focus on male employment

Update on state child care assistance policies

Workforce:

Top companies for working mothers skimp on paid childbirth leave

More news and commentary on women & work

Motherhood & Parenting:

Sharing housework, the diaper-free movement, breastfeeding & public policy, more

Women & Men:

Pornography and masculinity, selling cosmetic surgery as an empowerment movement, do candidates' health care proposals measure up for women?

Reproductive Health & Rights:

Racial disparities in maternal and infant mortality, men & abortion, sex-selecting for girls, more

Family Values at Work
9to5, MultiState Working Families Consortium call for guaranteed sick days, paid family and medical leave

A new report from a coalition of labor groups, public interest organizations, and community action and advocacy leaders -- including the MultiState Working Families Consortium, 9to5, ACORN, and MomsRising -- calls for government action to assure minimum workplace standards meet the needs of the 21st century workforce. According to the report, "History has shown repeatedly that setting minimum standards to protect workers is a legitimate and necessary role of government."

Slavery. Child labor. Hazardous workplaces. Sweatshop labor conditions. Employment discrimination against racial minorities and women. At one time, each of these practices was commonplace in our society, considered normal, often justified as essential to our nation’s economic health. As these practices grew more dissonant with public values, each was proscribed by government.

Today, the terrible work-family dilemmas facing many working families have created yet another deep divide between the realities of the workplace and our values regarding basic fairness.

Citing results of a new poll by Lake Associates, the Family Values at Work: It's About Time! report indicates strong public support for legislative solutions, including guaranteeing a minimum number of paid sick days for all workers (favored by 89 percent of voters polled) and paid family and medical leave (favored by 78 percent). The report offers the following policy recommendations:

• Seven to nine guaranteed paid sick days for all workers, and assuring that sick days may be used to care for a sick child or relative;

• Expanding the FMLA to cover more workers, including covering workers in businesses with 25 or more employees (currently, only businesses with 50 or more workers are covered);

• Establish a family & medical leave insurance program to provide full or partial wage replacement for workers who need time off to care for a new baby, a seriously ill family member, or their own health needs;

• Guarantee working parents the right to take a few hours or days off each year to participate in parent-teacher conferences and school-related events;

• Consider a new law granting workers the right to request flexible work hours, schedules or locations from their employers.

The report also calls for improving worker protections over time, including "extending FMLA to all workers, curtailing mandatory overtime, requiring pay and benefit equity for part-time workers, protecting working mothers’ right to take breastfeeding breaks, including family responsibility among protected categories in antidiscrimination laws, ending the so-called "at-will" employment standard that allows employers to fire workers at any time and for any reason, and removing barriers to workers' right to organize and bargain collectively."

The full report and an executive summary are available from the 9to5 web site.

9to5, National Association of Working Women
www.9to5.org

Family Values at Work: It's About Time!
Why We Need Minimum Standards to Assure A Family-Friendly Workplace
MultiState Working Families Consortium, September 2007
Introduction
Executive Summary, 8 pages, in .pdf
Full Report, 44 pages, in .pdf

No Time to Care:
A Mom (and Pop) Quiz on Family-Friendly Workplaces
Fact Sheet, 1 page, in .pdf

MultiState Consortium: Activity in the States
Lists related policy activities in 11 states (CA, CO, GA, IL, ME, MA, NJ, NY, PA, WA, WI) with contact information for lead organizations

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Taking the high road
Policy proposal outlines need to improve job quality for low-wage workers

A new policy paper from the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) concludes that improving opportunities for quality employment "is a critical part of the agenda for reducing poverty, supporting families, rewarding effort, and expanding opportunity for all."

Rather than focusing exclusively on low-wage jobs, the Opportunity at Work: Improving Job Quality report identifies a range of factors related to employment quality, including benefits, job security, opportunities for advancement, work schedule, paid family and sick leave, health and safety conditions, workplace fairness, and workers having a say in their day-to-day working conditions. According to the paper, "looking at each element of job quality separately misses an important part of the picture. Low-quality jobs tend to be bad in many, if not all, of these ways. Jobs that pay well also tend to be safer, more pleasant, and more interesting; to provide more benefits and advancement opportunities; and to allow more autonomy and flexibility in hours." The report suggests that proposals to increase training and educational opportunities for low-income workers are, at best, a partial solution:

For any level of education, there are better and worse jobs. If we care about not leaving some workers behind, we need to think about ways in which job quality can be improved even for those jobs that do not require postsecondary education. Some workers may have family or other obligations that prevent them from making long-term commitments to education and training…We also need to pay attention to those who have invested in education but have not achieved economic security, or who have lost security they once had, as demand shifted away from their specialized skills.

Explaining that many forces have combined to erode job quality in the U.S., the issue brief notes that some high-performance companies continue to offer high-quality jobs, and may be more successful because of their strong employment practices. Rather waiting for more employers to take the high road, Improving Job Quality calls for government action. "Low-quality jobs impose substantial costs on workers, families, government programs, and society. We no longer allow companies to reduce costs by polluting the air and water. Likewise, we should not allow them to do so by providing substandard jobs and leaving it to workers, families, and communities to pay the price." Strengthening minimum labor standards would also benefit companies who are trying to do the right thing by leveling the playing field.

"Talking about job quality helps focus attention on the choices that employers make that shape the nature of work, and on how our public policies and programs affect these choices," the report concludes:

A widely held understanding of the importance of job quality would also help unify the many individuals and organizations who are already working on various aspects of job quality -- passing living wage ordinances, enforcing existing labor standards, developing sectoral strategies, promoting family-friendly workplaces…Job quality is a way to talk about and link the concerns of all types of workers at all levels of employment and to build broader political support.

Improving Job Quality is the first in a planned series of CLASP policy papers on opportunities at work. An Executive Summary and the full paper are available from the CLASP web site.

Center for Law and Social Policy
www.clasp.org

Opportunity at Work: Improving Job Quality
Elizabeth Lower-Basch, CLASP, September 2007
Executive Summary, 2 pages, in .pdf
Full Policy Paper, 24 pages, in .pdf

More on job quality and shared prosperity:

Working Family Values: No-Benefit Jobs Leave Parents Struggling
Heather Boushey, Center for Economic Policy Research, September/ October 2007
"Low-wage workers and their families are often excluded from what most of us would consider normal activities, such as taking a paid sick day if their child is sick. This is a moral outrage. In a nation where the majority of children do not have a stay-at-home parent, how should families cope when a child gets the flu? Leave the child at daycare and get all the other children sick? Risk their jobs by missing a day of work? Every day in the world's richest nation, parents are forced to choose between being a good parent and being at their job."

A New Social Contract: Restoring Dignity and Balance to the Economy
Thomas Kochan and Beth Shulman, Agenda for Shared Prosperity, February 2007
"The implicit social contract that governed work for many years -- the norm that hard work, loyalty, and good performance will be rewarded with fair and increasing wages, dignity, and security -- has broken down and been replaced by a norm in which employers give primacy to stock price and short-term gains often at the expense of America's workers."

Related articles:

The Right to Organize is Key to Democracy
Dean Baker, AlterNet, 27.aug.07
For decades, the U.S. government has been at war with organized labor. It's time to level the playing field.

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Who's next?
Future of Children experts say next generation of antipoverty measures should focus on male employment

The Fall 2007 release of the Future of Children report recommends shifting the focus of anti-poverty measures from moving poor, non-employed single mothers into low-wage, dead end jobs, to moving poor, non-employed fathers into low-wage, dead end jobs. "Many of the nation’s most vexing domestic problems are linked with negative behaviors of and problems experienced by adolescent boys and young men," writes Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution in a related policy brief. "Delinquency and crime, school dropout, unemployment and nonwork, nonmarital births, and poverty are all associated disproportionately with young men." While acknowledging that economic factors, such as "the dismal growth record for wages and annual earnings of those at the bottom of the distribution of male wages" have contributed to high rates of workforce disengagement among young men in marginalized communities, the report also highlights the influence of cultural factors -- one contributing scholar attributes men's "poor work effort" to the "oppositional culture and a breakdown of work discipline" in low-income African American communities.

The Future of Children report offers several realistic solutions -- such as extending the Earned Income Tax Credit to all low-income workers, guaranteeing health care and access to affordable, quality child care for low-income working families, improving education for children living in poverty, and providing expanded welfare benefits and services to mothers with multiple barriers to employment. But the editors' key recommendation is using public policies to create "sticks and carrots" to attach young, non-employed men to the low-wage workforce.

If phrases like "restoring work discipline," "special measures" and "enforce work in available jobs" don't sound worrisome to you, perhaps they should. What's happening here is a strategic shift in the political construction of poverty as a social problem caused by the irresponsible behavior of poor women, to a political construction of poverty as a social problem caused by the irresponsible behavior of poor men.

Notably, the report overstates the success of 1996 overhaul of public aid to families with dependent children ("welfare to work"), which has been appropriately criticized for streaming poor mothers into substandard jobs that keep their families off the welfare rolls but don't provide basic benefits or living wages. The larger economic picture of rising income inequality and the concentration of wage growth among the top 5 percent of U.S. earners barely enters the discussion frame. I imagine the political construction of poverty as a social problem caused by the irresponsible behavior of low-road employers and wealthy, white people with disproportionate political power is a hard sell under present circumstances. But the latest rhetoric suggesting that poverty can be alleviated by forcing the poor to act more like the middle-class doesn't bode well for the future of children in low-income families. As far as reducing rates of nonmarital child bearing in poor communities through comprehensive sex education and renewed cultural pressure: let's work out another solution, because that genie is not going back in the bottle. The guaranteed child care proposal is a much better idea, along with more and better non-means tested supports for maternal employment.

I'm not opposed to increasing access to education, training and work supports for young men in low-income communities -- in fact, I'm strongly in favor of it, particularly if programs include a commitment to developing community resources. But it's doubtful that mandating male employment will substantially reduce family poverty unless a significant effort is made to improve the quality of low-wage jobs, and to rectify the effects of racism and other systemic factors that contribute to the social exclusion of poor and minority men. -- JST

Future of Children
www.futureofchildren.org

The Next Generation of Antipoverty Policies
Future of Children, vol. 17, no. 2, Fall 2007
Executive Summary, 2 pages, in .pdf
Introduction, Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill
Full Report (index page)

Fighting Poverty through Incentives and Work Mandates for Young Men
Ron Haskins, Future of Children, Fall 2007
Policy Brief, 8 pages, in .pdf

Related resources & articles:

State of Working America 2006/2007, Poverty Fact Sheet
Economic Policy Institute, 2 pages, in .pdf

State of Working America 2006/2007, Income Mobility Fact Sheet
Economic Policy Institute, 2 pages, in .pdf

It’s Not Easy Being Ultra-Rich
Barbara Ehrenreich, Barbara's Blog, 30.aug.07
"The poor whine about having no home at all, or maybe a two-bedroom apartment for a family of six. They should just think for one moment of the tribulations involved in running four or more mansions, each with its own full-time staff."

Are Corporate Titans Really Worth the Billions They Suck In?
Sarah Anderson and Sam Pizzigati, AlterNet, 12.sept.07
Is the labor of corporate CEOs really hundreds of times more valuable than the labor of other leaders?

Bush's Painful, Lopsided Economic 'Recovery' Continues
Heather Boushey, AlterNet, 30.aug.07
New data shows that while top earners are OK, this may be the first upswing in history in which middle-class families never fully rebound.

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Update on state child care assistance policies

The National Women's Law Center (NWLC) has released a comparison of state child care assistance policies in four key areas: reimbursement rates for providers, income eligibility, waiting lists for assistance and copayment requirements. The report finds that states have made some progress since 2006 in the areas of income eligibility and waiting lists, but less progress in other areas. Most states also continue to fall behind 2001 levels of assistance.

• In 2007, only nine states set their maximum reimbursement rates at the federally recommended level; in contrast, 22 states did so in 2001. Low reimbursement rates make it difficult for families to obtain high-quality child care, and they also make it harder for providers to keep their doors open, retain qualified staff or acquire the supplies necessary to promote children’s learning.

• In 18 states, income eligibility did not keep pace with inflation as measured against the increase in the federal poverty level between 2006 and 2007.

• In 2007, two-thirds of the states avoided placing families on waiting lists for child care assistance. Yet the remaining one-third of the states had at least some families applying for assistance who were placed on waiting lists or who were turned away.

The full report and state-by-state analysis are available from the organization's web site.

National Women's Law Center
www.nwlc.org

State Child Care Assistance Policies 2007:
Some Steps Forward, More Progress Needed
Karen Schulman and Helen Blank, NWLC, September 2007
28 pages, in .pdf

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Top companies for working mothers skimp on paid childbirth leave

According to a new fact sheet from the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR), one-half of the top 100 "family-friendly" employers recognized by Working Mother Magazine last year provide just six weeks or less of paid maternity leave, and nearly one-half provide no paid leave for paternity or adoption. While Working Mother Media president Carol Evans remarks that companies included in the magazine's top 100 are "three to five times better than the average of all US companies on issues related to parental leave," Dr. Vicki Lovell of the IWPR notes that "too many of even the best companies provide almost no paid leave."

The fact sheet also summarizes data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicating that only 8 percent of all private sector workers -- and only 5 percent of those earning less than $15/hour -- have paid family leave benefits through their employer. Workers with the highest share of paid family leave (14 percent) are managers, professionals, and those in related occupations, and usually among the highest paid workers.

Institute for Women's Policy Research
www.iwpr.org

Maternity Leave in the United States
Paid Parental Leave is still Not Standard, even among the Best U.S. Employers
Vicki Lovell, IWPR, August 2007. 5 pages, in .pdf

Press Release:
Even the Best U.S. Corporations Fail to Provide Maternity and Paternity Leave
IWPR, 1.sept.07. 2 pages, in .pdf

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More news and commentary on women & the workforce

The New Mommy Track
More mothers win flextime at work, and hubbies' help (really!) at home
Kimberly Palmer, US News & World Report, 26.aug.07
"A new generation of American mothers…are rejecting the 'superwoman' image from the 1980s as well as the 'soccer mom' stereotype of the 1990s. Mothers today are more likely to negotiate flexible schedules at work and demand fuller participation of fathers in child raising than previous generations did, giving them more time to pursue their own careers and interests."

It's Time for Congress to Help Bring LGBT Employees Out of the Shadows at Work
Deborah J. Vagins, Huffington Post, 19.Sept.2007
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2007, or ENDA, would make it illegal for employers to make decisions about hiring, firing, promoting or paying an employee based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Religious organizations and the military would be exempt. The bill is modeled after other federal civil rights laws that already ban job discrimination based on race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age and disability.

"New Management" Team on Capitol Hill Needs to Protect Gay Workers
Deb Price, AlterNet, 27.aug.07
With few legislative workdays left before lawmakers become obsessed with the 2008 campaigns, now is the time for Democrats to produce results.

The Vanishing American Vacation
Don Monkerud, AlterNet, 3.sept.07
Compared to people in other developed countries, Americans don't ask for more vacation time, don't take all the vacation time their employers give them and continue to work while they are on vacation.

Unionized Nurses Flex Their Political Muscle
Lisa Girion, Los Angeles Times/AlterNet, 11.sept.07
Organized nurses are calling for a dramatic change in California's healthcare system. "Emboldened by the nation's huge need for their skills, bulked up through unionization, and energized by their last dust-up with Schwarzenegger, organized nurses have become a bona fide political force."

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Sharing housework, the diaper-free movement, breastfeeding & public policy, more

Love, Honor, and Thank
Jess Alberts and Angela Trethewey, Greater Good Magazine, Summer 2007
Researchers Jess Alberts and Angela Trethewey have found that a successful relationship doesn’t just depend on how partners divide their household chores, but on how they each express gratitude for the work the other one puts in.

Also from Greater Good:
Feeling Like Partners, Fall/Winter 2005
Family researchers Philip A. Cowan, Carolyn Pape Cowan, and Neera Mehta explain how couples can learn to practice empathy in their relationship. "We see five main conditions necessary for fostering empathy in couples’ lives. These are when both partners: (1) are reasonably mentally healthy; (2) have grown up in empathic families; (3) work collaboratively in parenting their children; (4) have relatively low levels of stress external to the family or sources of support to cope with the stresses they face; and (5) have what they consider to be a fair division of labor and an effective way of solving the problems that confront them." 4 pages, in .pdf.

Parents Begin Potty Training at Birth
Rodrique Ngowi, AP/Time Magazine, 27.aug.07
A growing "diaper-free" movement is founded on the belief that babies are born with an instinctive ability to signal when they have to answer nature's call.

Diaper Genie: Babies without diapers? No thanks.
Emily Bazelon, Slate, 14,oct.05
"Like washing machines and dishwashers, diapers are crucial labor-savers. They save time -- chiefly women's time. A child who wears disposable diapers is a child whose diapers need not be washed, rinsed, or soaked. More radically, she is a child who can be easily handed off to someone else."

Family Politics:Blogger Debates Kids' Place on Trail
Good Morning America, 30.aug.07
Mother Criticizes Elizabeth Edwards for Bringing Children on the Campaign Trail. "'Elizabeth, I don't like the choices you've made,' blasted blogger and mother of two Rebecca Eisenberg. 'Get off the freaking campaign trail,' she wrote."

How Much Is a Child's Life Worth?
Viviana Zelizer, AlterNet, 8.sept.08
"As long as child labor existed, 19th century courts had been able to assign economic value to the loss of child life -- just like the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund did for adults. But by the early 20th century Americans rejected any definition of children as economically productive -- a child was now exclusively an (expensive) economically useless but emotionally priceless being."

Deported Mother Sends Her Child to U.S. Protests
Lorraine Orlandi, Women's eNews, 14.sept.07
Barred from returning to the United States for 20 years, Elvira Arellano, a 32-year-old single mother and activist sent her U.S.-born 8-year-old son, Saul, to Washington to help lead demonstrations this week in the halls of Congress and attend congressional hearings that began on Sept 6.

Breast-feeding mom sues for extra exam time
Associated Press, USA Today, 12.sept.07
"A new mother who wants extra breaks so she can pump milk during a nine-hour medical licensing exam has asked a judge to settle her dispute with the board that administers the test. Sophie Currier, 33, requested additional break time during the test, saying that if she does not nurse her 4-month-old daughter, Lea, or pump breast milk every two to three hours, she risks medical complications."

Breastfeeding: The Latest Refuge of Scoundrels
Robert Drago, Huffington Post, 25.sept.07
Breastfeeding is the newest weapon in the war to keep women at home, and it is indeed powerful. Breastfeeding is a good thing to do, but requires a lot of time, as in feeding every one to three hours. Many men and employers are more than happy to accommodate by sending women home. Fathers are often willing to work longer hours at work to support mom, and employers may even offer to take her back once the children are a bit older.

Kid Nation': CBS' New Reality Show Creates Little Capitalists
Ellen Goodman, AlterNet, 29.sept.07
When 40 kids were asked to create a new town, was it possible for them to escape the model of cutthroat competition, class divisions and unrelenting consumerism?

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Pornography and masculinity, selling cosmetic surgery as an empowerment movement, men at work, do candidate's health care proposal measure up for women?

Pornography and the End of Masculinity
Don Hazen, AlterNet, 22.sept.07
Mainstream porn has come up with more ways than ever to humiliate and degrade women. Why then, is porn more popular? Includes an excerpt from Robert Jensen's new book, Getting Off.

Liberal Denial: The Link Between Porno and War
Riane Eisler, AlterNet, 25.sept.07
It's time to admit that the subordination of women perpetuates the very conditions of repression and violence liberals abhor.

Has Artificial Beauty Become the New Feminism?
Jennifer Cognard-Black, AlterNet, 29.sept.07
"The cosmetic-surgery industry is doing exactly what the beauty industry has done for years: It's co-opting, repackaging and reselling the feminist call to empower women into what may be dubbed 'consumer feminism.' Under the dual slogans of possibility and choice, producers, promoters and providers are selling elective surgery as self-determination."

Illinois Safety Campaign Dissolves Boundaries
Jeff Fleischer, Women's eNews, 11.sept.06
A statewide initiative in Illinois to prevent violence against women releases its findings today. The program has fostered new connections among people working on a range of issues in organizations that don't ordinarily come together.

Big 3 Dems' Health Insurance Unfriendly to Women
Susan Feiner, Women's eNews, 26.sept.07
The Big 3 Democratic contenders' health insurance plans all look alike to Susan Feiner. She sees triple versions of the same scheme to enrich the medical industrial complex at the expense of women. Only Dennis Kucinich gets her thumbs' up.

"NBA Syndrome" Helps Fuel Spiraling Inequality
Paul Buchheit, AlterNet, 12.sept.07
An exaggerated belief, especially among men, that they will be successful in competitive situations may be what's preventing an uprising among working Americans.

Come Back, Mr. Chips
Julie Scelfo, Newsweek/MSNBC, 17.sept.07
The number of men teaching in schools is at a 40-year low. "There are several reasons many men find it difficult to enter, and stay in, the teaching profession: the starting salary for teachers is about $30,000, and less in early education."

The Entertainment Industry's Love Affair With Immature Men
Alicia Rebensdorf, AlterNet, 13.sept.07
In Hollywood, a pudgy slacker man can always get a hot can-do woman. "This type of one-dimensionality bears many dangers. For one, the sort of playful exasperation with which these women tolerate their mate's boyhood antics makes light of their own needs. They act as if women are only too happy to play mother to lovers and children alike."

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Racial disparities in maternal and infant mortality, men & abortion,
sex-selecting for girls, more

Studies Plumb Depths of Black Maternal Health Woes
Molly M. Ginty, Women's eNews, 28.sept.07
Five reports released today probe the health crisis that afflicts black women and makes their infants more likely to die before their first birthday. Authors implicate racism and poverty in the high levels of infant mortality and premature births.

Unintended Pregnancy Down Among Teens But Up for Young Adults
Amy DePaul, AlterNet, 14.sept.07
Why an increasing number of 20-somethings are rolling the dice and getting pregnant.

Parents Paint the Petri Dish Pink
Alison Bowen, Women's eNews, 2.sept.07
Fertility technology is allowing parents to determine the sex of a child before it's conceived and, in the United States, couples are mostly trying to have daughters in an act of family balancing. Ethicists say the practice is on slippery ground.

Why Men Should Be Included in Abortion Discussion
Courtney E. Martin, AlterNet, 6.sept.07
Locking men out of conversations about abortion often comes at a great expense.

EU's Hormone Patch Stirs Uneasy Debate in U.S.
Frances C. Whittelsey, Women's eNews, 10.sept.07
A testosterone patch touted as a way to boost sex drive after menopause and hysterectomy is now on the market in Europe. Some in the U.S. say they can't wait till it arrives; others decry it as the "medicalization" of sexual desire.

From California to Maine, Straight Allies Stand Up
Deb Price, AlterNet, 24.Sept.07
Straight allies across the nation are taking the all-important step of going from privately opposing discrimination against LGBT people to actively speaking out against it.

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