Congratulations, working women! As of today, your salary since January 1, 2007, has finally reached the total earned by your male colleagues in 2007 alone. What’s more, this pay gap is all your fault!
According to the media, the problem is that women just don’t ask. If we learned to speak up in salary negotiations, pay equity would be a hard fact.
An ABC News segment called the negotiation process “something that each of us has the ability to control…. No employer has an obligation to whisper in the woman's ear, ‘Hey, you know, you just lost out on more money because you didn't speak up.’”
Stories like these leave out a few important realities: The majority of women work in jobs where they have no right whatsoever to negotiate for pay. Many are like Donna, a software developer whose employment agreement lists “discussing salary with colleagues” among “fire-able offenses.” Hard to know you’re making less than others if you’re not allowed to know what the others earn.
Yes, women need to learn negotiation (and the facts about labor law, which already prohibit salary secrecy, according to the National Labor Relations Board). But blaming the wage gap on women’s lack of assertiveness is like blaming sexual harassment on women’s lack of snappy comebacks. The real problem isn’t that women don’t ask for more—it’s that employers pay women so much less than they deserve.
Why do employers do this? Because they can, and often because they think they have to in order to compete.
A key problem is that society undervalues the work women do. Many jobs that are now female-dominated, such as clerical work, once excluded females. When men were in short supply during the Civil War, women were hired at half to two-thirds the wages of men. Women performed well, employers hired more and more of them—and that discriminatory wage eventually became the market rate. Similarly, the lack of regard for women’s work as caregivers in the home set low values for similar work in the marketplace. That’s why those who care for our young children earn less than those who care for our cars, our pets, our lawns.
Lack of collective bargaining rights also undermines women’s wages. The Big Boys—those who control wealth and power in this country—like to say pay corresponds to risk. Yet the Washington Post found that one of the poorest paid occupations, nurse’s aide, faces a risk of serious injury higher than that of a coal miner or steel worker.
Power, not risk, is what determines pay rates.
Another reason for women’s low pay is the motherhood penalty. Studies agree that women with children are paid less across the board than women without kids or men of any family situation. The research varies only on how great that penalty is.
Women’s pay is also hurt by inflation pushing down the value of the minimum wage, since women are disproportionately clustered in minimum-wage jobs, and by the lack of laws requiring equal treatment for part-time and temporary workers.
What about professional women? Studies show that they are less likely than men to initiate salary negotiations—and also that they’re viewed as pushy when they do. More important, they’re less like to get leads, training, mentoring, opportunities, promotions, and other rewards that result in higher pay.
The wage gap between men and women has been stuck at 77 cents on the dollar—72 cents for African-American women, 60 cents for Latinas. The Big Boys like to remind women that the gap has narrowed. They forget to mention that half the narrowing comes from a loss of pay for men, especially men of color—not what we had in mind by equality. The gap is greatest for women with the most education and longest hours. And the mommy wage gap—the difference in pay between women with kids and everyone else—has in fact increased.
We need to change how pay is determined—not according to what you earned on your last job, or on how slick you are at promoting yourself, but rather on fair, objective, transparent criteria.
A number of public policies will help, starting with The Fair Pay Restoration Act. This bill would reverse the Supreme Court ruling in Ledbetter vs. Goodyear: that discrimination claims must be made within 180 days after the pay is set, rather than any time a person discovers they are being paid at a discriminatory rate.
Another bill titled the Fair Pay Act would require employers to use objective job evaluations to achieve equal pay for equivalent work and remove gender, race or national origin as criteria in compensation. The Employee Free Choice Act would ease the negotiating that matters most, collective bargaining, by removing barriers to union representation. To end the motherhood penalty, we need to ensure that family responsibility is added to the list of categories protected under anti-discrimination law. And we need to raise the wage floor and guarantee equity for those in non-standard jobs.
And yes, do learn the art of negotiation. Groups like WAGE (Women Are Getting Even) offer terrific workshops and information on the web about how to do this.
But above all, learn the necessity of organizing. The best way to get what you need for yourself is to work with others on behalf of everyone for changes in workplace and public policy.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Friday, March 14, 2008
Why We Must Oppose All Forms of Injustice
Oppression, alas, is not a zero sum game. The fact that Hillary Rodham Clinton has been subjected to outrageous displays of sexism throughout this campaign doesn’t mean racism has been defeated. Both forms of injustice are alive and well in American institutions and sensibility.
That’s why feminists must repudiate remarks from Geraldine Ferraro implying Barack Obama is “lucky” to be a black man and wouldn’t be a presidential candidate otherwise. We’ve heard far too many comments implying racism somehow resides in the past. This dangerously underestimates the daily accrual of indignities and injustice experienced by people of color, including women of color, throughout our society.
Public displays of male supremacy and white supremacy often take different forms. The Big Boys, those who control power and wealth in this country, are more likely to minimize and trivialize gender (demeaning comments about appearance and emotions, sexual innuendos) and demonize race (Willie Horton ads implying big black men will rape nice white daughters.) Whenever necessary, of course, the Big Boys demonize women as well, especially when race and gender intersect on issues such as welfare (lazy, irresponsible -- read “black”-- freeloading women who refuse to work.)
It’s true that appalling sexist Hillary artifacts can be sold in airports while KKK paraphernalia would not be. We must all object, formally, in groups and individually, to each instance of such behavior.
Still, that doesn’t mean that racism has been silenced. In this election, blatant forms of racism persist (comments about needing to “rename the White House” if Obama wins, those white voters who say they simply won’t vote for an African-American). More common, however, and in some ways even more insidious are the code words used about race. Today’s ‘n-word’ are the ‘M-word’ for Muslim or ‘H-word’ for Hussein, hints of preferential treatment, photos of a candidate wearing African garb. Translation: this person is the inferior other, the danger to our (read “white”) way of life.
We can't win justice for women without justice for ALL women, and all others who experience unfair treatment at the hands of the Big Boys. Oppression on the basis of race, or class or sexual orientation or any other marker, affects some group of women. But that’s not all. Downplaying the enormous obstacles created by racism in this country only strengthens the very forces which maintain and profit from obstacles for women overall.
There’s also collateral damage. Many people pay lip service to the need for liberation movements to band together in the general election, whoever the candidate is. But calls for unity can’t be based on rhetoric. Every instance of belittling the realities of racism and the accomplishments of this particular African-American candidate undermines the trust needed for such an alliance to work.
What we need is less defensiveness and more willingness on everyone’s part to recognize and oppose every form of offensive and divisive behavior. Because the code words for disunity are very easy to identify: Four more years of occupation in Iraq. Another Supreme Court justice to undo Roe and weaken protections against discrimination. Free rein for the Big Boys.
That’s why feminists must repudiate remarks from Geraldine Ferraro implying Barack Obama is “lucky” to be a black man and wouldn’t be a presidential candidate otherwise. We’ve heard far too many comments implying racism somehow resides in the past. This dangerously underestimates the daily accrual of indignities and injustice experienced by people of color, including women of color, throughout our society.
Public displays of male supremacy and white supremacy often take different forms. The Big Boys, those who control power and wealth in this country, are more likely to minimize and trivialize gender (demeaning comments about appearance and emotions, sexual innuendos) and demonize race (Willie Horton ads implying big black men will rape nice white daughters.) Whenever necessary, of course, the Big Boys demonize women as well, especially when race and gender intersect on issues such as welfare (lazy, irresponsible -- read “black”-- freeloading women who refuse to work.)
It’s true that appalling sexist Hillary artifacts can be sold in airports while KKK paraphernalia would not be. We must all object, formally, in groups and individually, to each instance of such behavior.
Still, that doesn’t mean that racism has been silenced. In this election, blatant forms of racism persist (comments about needing to “rename the White House” if Obama wins, those white voters who say they simply won’t vote for an African-American). More common, however, and in some ways even more insidious are the code words used about race. Today’s ‘n-word’ are the ‘M-word’ for Muslim or ‘H-word’ for Hussein, hints of preferential treatment, photos of a candidate wearing African garb. Translation: this person is the inferior other, the danger to our (read “white”) way of life.
We can't win justice for women without justice for ALL women, and all others who experience unfair treatment at the hands of the Big Boys. Oppression on the basis of race, or class or sexual orientation or any other marker, affects some group of women. But that’s not all. Downplaying the enormous obstacles created by racism in this country only strengthens the very forces which maintain and profit from obstacles for women overall.
There’s also collateral damage. Many people pay lip service to the need for liberation movements to band together in the general election, whoever the candidate is. But calls for unity can’t be based on rhetoric. Every instance of belittling the realities of racism and the accomplishments of this particular African-American candidate undermines the trust needed for such an alliance to work.
What we need is less defensiveness and more willingness on everyone’s part to recognize and oppose every form of offensive and divisive behavior. Because the code words for disunity are very easy to identify: Four more years of occupation in Iraq. Another Supreme Court justice to undo Roe and weaken protections against discrimination. Free rein for the Big Boys.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Time to Expand, Not Gut, the Family and Medical Leave Act
I’ve been an activist since the 1960s. But it doesn’t take long to figure out how opponents of progressive legislation work. Although the names and specifics change, they have a limited stock of arguments and a predictable set of tactics.
First they warn: “If we pass [fill in the blank] bill, business will flee, the sky will fall, and you’ll hurt the very people you want to help.” Then, when our side’s successful, they try to get around the law by not telling workers about it, or finding ways to punish those who use it.
And as soon as possible, they try to undo it altogether.
February 5 marks the fifteenth anniversary of the signing into law of the Family and Medical Leave Act. We should be celebrating our work to make it available and affordable to many more people -- more than half the private sector workforce isn’t covered, for instance, and more than two million a year who are covered can’t take the time because it’s unpaid. The definition of family is really narrow. And the law doesn’t include routine illness.
But the opponents of family values at work just won’t give up. Now they’re trying to gut the FMLA through an end run of changing the regulations.
Twice in recent years I’ve testified before Congress on whether or not this law needs changing. Each time I sat at a table with some of the same opponents who said passing such a bill would ruin business. Now they were trying a different tack. FMLA? Great bill, this one used it when she had a new baby, that one when his mom had a heart attack. It was mainly fine, but needed a little tweaking.
And what would those tweaks be?
For starters, the opponents would like to clarify that serious illnesses don’t include chronic conditions. Really, they testified, someone gets a little headache or has a little asthma attack and think they can just stay home.
Those little headaches, in case you’re wondering, are known as migraines. My mother used to get them from time to time. They knocked her out. But as long as she had a dark room and some medication, she’d be up and at’em the following day.
And then there’s asthma. An attack can literally be life-threatening. Fortunately, most people will be okay, some after just a few hours, once they’re able to get treatment.
The opponents don’t stop here. They’re want to end to the terrible inconvenience of administering intermittent leave. Really, they say, if you have to take off, take the whole day, not just an hour or less.
Well, let’s say you’re going for chemotherapy, or physical therapy. You may need to be absent only for a short time. Surely your co-workers and employer will benefit if you can come back to work that day. Most of us would much prefer not to lose a whole day’s pay if we don’t have to.
Forcing people to take a bigger chunk of time off is really a way of saying, don’t take it at all.
Here’s what gets me: all these efforts to gut or whittle the FMLA make us struggle to hang on to what we already won, in the hopes that we’ll forget how meager that was in the first place. The rest of the world, including the developing world, has left us in the dust.
On this anniversary, let’s redouble our efforts to EXPAND the FMLA to what it should be: a way to make sure that no one has to risk a job to care for a loved one, or put loved ones at risk in order to keep a job.
First they warn: “If we pass [fill in the blank] bill, business will flee, the sky will fall, and you’ll hurt the very people you want to help.” Then, when our side’s successful, they try to get around the law by not telling workers about it, or finding ways to punish those who use it.
And as soon as possible, they try to undo it altogether.
February 5 marks the fifteenth anniversary of the signing into law of the Family and Medical Leave Act. We should be celebrating our work to make it available and affordable to many more people -- more than half the private sector workforce isn’t covered, for instance, and more than two million a year who are covered can’t take the time because it’s unpaid. The definition of family is really narrow. And the law doesn’t include routine illness.
But the opponents of family values at work just won’t give up. Now they’re trying to gut the FMLA through an end run of changing the regulations.
Twice in recent years I’ve testified before Congress on whether or not this law needs changing. Each time I sat at a table with some of the same opponents who said passing such a bill would ruin business. Now they were trying a different tack. FMLA? Great bill, this one used it when she had a new baby, that one when his mom had a heart attack. It was mainly fine, but needed a little tweaking.
And what would those tweaks be?
For starters, the opponents would like to clarify that serious illnesses don’t include chronic conditions. Really, they testified, someone gets a little headache or has a little asthma attack and think they can just stay home.
Those little headaches, in case you’re wondering, are known as migraines. My mother used to get them from time to time. They knocked her out. But as long as she had a dark room and some medication, she’d be up and at’em the following day.
And then there’s asthma. An attack can literally be life-threatening. Fortunately, most people will be okay, some after just a few hours, once they’re able to get treatment.
The opponents don’t stop here. They’re want to end to the terrible inconvenience of administering intermittent leave. Really, they say, if you have to take off, take the whole day, not just an hour or less.
Well, let’s say you’re going for chemotherapy, or physical therapy. You may need to be absent only for a short time. Surely your co-workers and employer will benefit if you can come back to work that day. Most of us would much prefer not to lose a whole day’s pay if we don’t have to.
Forcing people to take a bigger chunk of time off is really a way of saying, don’t take it at all.
Here’s what gets me: all these efforts to gut or whittle the FMLA make us struggle to hang on to what we already won, in the hopes that we’ll forget how meager that was in the first place. The rest of the world, including the developing world, has left us in the dust.
On this anniversary, let’s redouble our efforts to EXPAND the FMLA to what it should be: a way to make sure that no one has to risk a job to care for a loved one, or put loved ones at risk in order to keep a job.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Open Letter to the New York Jets
I’m a die-hard Green Bay Packer fan, still in mourning over their playoffs loss, proud of their 14-4 season. Normally I could care less about the New York Jets, who won only 4 games this year. Still, I have a surefire blueprint for the Jets to land in the 2008-09 record books -- and I’m happy to share it for free.
It all has to do with the halftime spectacle at Gate D.
As many people now know, groups of male Jets fans have a tradition of lining a pedestrian ramp at Gate D of Giants Stadium during halftime and hurling obscenities (and sometimes plastic beer bottles and spit) at female fans in the area in an effort to force them to expose their breasts.
After the New York Times spotlighted the practice, a Jets spokesman decried such behavior as “outrageous and unacceptable” and called for beefed-up security. That statement was admirable – but it didn’t go nearly far enough. Security seems preoccupied with the narrow legal issue of women exposing themselves, rather than the bigger-picture issue of harassment which should be just plain unacceptable at a family venue or any other setting.
More important, the Jets are missing an opportunity to teach their fans and others about the connection between this kind of humiliation and the violence that flattens, maims, and destroys millions of women in this country every year.
Professional sports teams, unfortunately, have contributed to the problem by allowing players who’ve been convicted of spousal abuse or other forms of violence against women to keep on playing and collecting huge salaries. A three-year study published in 1995 by researchers at Northwestern University found an alarming rate of violence on the part of male student-athletes: while only 3 percent of the population, these young men represent 19 percent of sexual assault perpetrators and 35 percent of domestic violence perpetrators.
If only the outrage that accompanied Michael Vick’s abuse of dogs had carried over to players’ dogging women.
Stadium security and Jets officials have agreed that fans who are caught in harassing behavior can be thrown out of the game and even lose their season tickets. Here’s a proposal to utilize tickets in a very different way.
Why not offer free admission to male leaders from community organizations, congregations, businesses, colleges and elsewhere who volunteer to line the spiral ramp with huge signs saying, “What if this were your daughter?” The volunteers could hand out a flyer with statements from Jets owner Woody Johnson, coach Eric Mangini and star players from the team. The statements would emphasize why men need to treat all women with dignity and respect, just the way they’d want their daughters – and wives and sisters and mothers and friends -- to be treated.
By meeting with women’s groups that have experience combating violence and harassment, team leaders can develop these ideas into a strategic plan. They can approach Madison Avenue ad firms to design materials on a pro bono basis. And they can look to models of programs such as “Men Against Rape,” where men educate other men about the harm of treating women as objects.
In addition to training for a winning season next year, the Jets should use the off-season months to refine the Gate D plan and roll it out with a big media splash next fall.
The Patriots have hurt professional football with Spygate. Don’t let the Jets continue to tarnish it with Gate D-gate. It’s time for the team’s leaders and owners to give real leadership to the millions of fans nationwide who look up to professional athletes and those who guide them.
It all has to do with the halftime spectacle at Gate D.
As many people now know, groups of male Jets fans have a tradition of lining a pedestrian ramp at Gate D of Giants Stadium during halftime and hurling obscenities (and sometimes plastic beer bottles and spit) at female fans in the area in an effort to force them to expose their breasts.
After the New York Times spotlighted the practice, a Jets spokesman decried such behavior as “outrageous and unacceptable” and called for beefed-up security. That statement was admirable – but it didn’t go nearly far enough. Security seems preoccupied with the narrow legal issue of women exposing themselves, rather than the bigger-picture issue of harassment which should be just plain unacceptable at a family venue or any other setting.
More important, the Jets are missing an opportunity to teach their fans and others about the connection between this kind of humiliation and the violence that flattens, maims, and destroys millions of women in this country every year.
Professional sports teams, unfortunately, have contributed to the problem by allowing players who’ve been convicted of spousal abuse or other forms of violence against women to keep on playing and collecting huge salaries. A three-year study published in 1995 by researchers at Northwestern University found an alarming rate of violence on the part of male student-athletes: while only 3 percent of the population, these young men represent 19 percent of sexual assault perpetrators and 35 percent of domestic violence perpetrators.
If only the outrage that accompanied Michael Vick’s abuse of dogs had carried over to players’ dogging women.
Stadium security and Jets officials have agreed that fans who are caught in harassing behavior can be thrown out of the game and even lose their season tickets. Here’s a proposal to utilize tickets in a very different way.
Why not offer free admission to male leaders from community organizations, congregations, businesses, colleges and elsewhere who volunteer to line the spiral ramp with huge signs saying, “What if this were your daughter?” The volunteers could hand out a flyer with statements from Jets owner Woody Johnson, coach Eric Mangini and star players from the team. The statements would emphasize why men need to treat all women with dignity and respect, just the way they’d want their daughters – and wives and sisters and mothers and friends -- to be treated.
By meeting with women’s groups that have experience combating violence and harassment, team leaders can develop these ideas into a strategic plan. They can approach Madison Avenue ad firms to design materials on a pro bono basis. And they can look to models of programs such as “Men Against Rape,” where men educate other men about the harm of treating women as objects.
In addition to training for a winning season next year, the Jets should use the off-season months to refine the Gate D plan and roll it out with a big media splash next fall.
The Patriots have hurt professional football with Spygate. Don’t let the Jets continue to tarnish it with Gate D-gate. It’s time for the team’s leaders and owners to give real leadership to the millions of fans nationwide who look up to professional athletes and those who guide them.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Clarence Thomas Tries to Rewrite History
Old argument against Anita Hill: “a little nutty and a little slutty.”
New argument against Anita Hill: a real ball-breaker – no one dared mess with her.
We shouldn’t be surprised that Clarence Thomas has settled on this tack. Much easier to turn the tables on his accuser than to defend himself. Anita Hill couldn’t have been offended by his behavior when she worked for him at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, says Thomas, because had she been, watch out!
“She did not take slights very lightly,” Justice Thomas told 60 Minutes’ Steve Kroft. “Anyone who did anything, she responded very quickly.”
Trouble is, back in 1981, there wasn’t much that Anita Hill or anyone else could have done about sexual harassment – treatment much more injurious than “slights.” Even today, 16 years after the infamous hearings and 26 years after the alleged misconduct, barriers remain for those who experience sexually offensive behavior at work.
The EEOC did not even draft a definition of sexual harassment until 1980, and for the first few years, the agency declined to hear cases based on one person’s word against another. A complainant had to have some corroboration in order to merit an investigation.
Had Anita Hill filed a complaint at the time, the intake staff would have turned her away. She, like most who describe sexual harassment, had neither witness nor evidence. Only in 1983 – two years after the alleged harassment – did the EEOC conclude that most sexual harassment cases involved conflicting stories. The agency finally began to hear such cases, relying on factors such as credibility, consistency, and detail to determine who was telling the truth.
Thanks to Professor Hill and others who broke the silence, we’ve made progress. Yet the majority of those experiencing harassment today still do not report it.
Why? Go back to those Senate proceedings, to the moment when Charles Kothe, dean of Oral Roberts University, was asked why he’d hired Anita Hill. Dean Kothe declared he’d supported her hiring after seeing the glowing recommendation from Clarence Thomas.
No one asked the obvious follow-up question: What if there’d been no recommendation? Would Kothe have even considered her for the job?
A powerful figure can impact your career for decades after you move on. The boss needn’t trash you. The absence of a favorable recommendation alone speaks volumes.
Fear of retaliation is just one of many reasons confident, tough women sit on their humiliation and rage and misery. They need the money, they like the work, they don’t know who to tell, they don’t think they’ll be believed – the list goes on.
In his book, Thomas ignores the fact that evidence about him emerged since the hearing – as Anita Hill recently pointed out, it’s no longer her word against his. Similarly, his claim of being the victim of a high-tech lynching leaves out a key reality: the woman involved is not white but African-American, a group of women raped at will under slavery and sexually vulnerable ever since.
If Clarence Thomas wants to rewrite history, the place to begin is with sexual harassment laws. We need to strengthen protections against retaliation. Employers should be required to have policies and post them, and to arrange awareness training for employees. Organizations need to establish an independent, outside investigation process when the accused is a high-level executive. Just as important, we need to change corporate culture to reward, rather than punish, those who stand up for decent treatment for themselves and others.
What we don’t need is to trivialize harassment or blame those who suffer it for failing to make it stop.
New argument against Anita Hill: a real ball-breaker – no one dared mess with her.
We shouldn’t be surprised that Clarence Thomas has settled on this tack. Much easier to turn the tables on his accuser than to defend himself. Anita Hill couldn’t have been offended by his behavior when she worked for him at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, says Thomas, because had she been, watch out!
“She did not take slights very lightly,” Justice Thomas told 60 Minutes’ Steve Kroft. “Anyone who did anything, she responded very quickly.”
Trouble is, back in 1981, there wasn’t much that Anita Hill or anyone else could have done about sexual harassment – treatment much more injurious than “slights.” Even today, 16 years after the infamous hearings and 26 years after the alleged misconduct, barriers remain for those who experience sexually offensive behavior at work.
The EEOC did not even draft a definition of sexual harassment until 1980, and for the first few years, the agency declined to hear cases based on one person’s word against another. A complainant had to have some corroboration in order to merit an investigation.
Had Anita Hill filed a complaint at the time, the intake staff would have turned her away. She, like most who describe sexual harassment, had neither witness nor evidence. Only in 1983 – two years after the alleged harassment – did the EEOC conclude that most sexual harassment cases involved conflicting stories. The agency finally began to hear such cases, relying on factors such as credibility, consistency, and detail to determine who was telling the truth.
Thanks to Professor Hill and others who broke the silence, we’ve made progress. Yet the majority of those experiencing harassment today still do not report it.
Why? Go back to those Senate proceedings, to the moment when Charles Kothe, dean of Oral Roberts University, was asked why he’d hired Anita Hill. Dean Kothe declared he’d supported her hiring after seeing the glowing recommendation from Clarence Thomas.
No one asked the obvious follow-up question: What if there’d been no recommendation? Would Kothe have even considered her for the job?
A powerful figure can impact your career for decades after you move on. The boss needn’t trash you. The absence of a favorable recommendation alone speaks volumes.
Fear of retaliation is just one of many reasons confident, tough women sit on their humiliation and rage and misery. They need the money, they like the work, they don’t know who to tell, they don’t think they’ll be believed – the list goes on.
In his book, Thomas ignores the fact that evidence about him emerged since the hearing – as Anita Hill recently pointed out, it’s no longer her word against his. Similarly, his claim of being the victim of a high-tech lynching leaves out a key reality: the woman involved is not white but African-American, a group of women raped at will under slavery and sexually vulnerable ever since.
If Clarence Thomas wants to rewrite history, the place to begin is with sexual harassment laws. We need to strengthen protections against retaliation. Employers should be required to have policies and post them, and to arrange awareness training for employees. Organizations need to establish an independent, outside investigation process when the accused is a high-level executive. Just as important, we need to change corporate culture to reward, rather than punish, those who stand up for decent treatment for themselves and others.
What we don’t need is to trivialize harassment or blame those who suffer it for failing to make it stop.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
It's Time to Value Families at Work
What do you do when school says you must show up to register your kids, and work says you must stay overtime for an extra shift?
If you’re like Vickie Underwood, in DeKalb County, Georgia, you choose your kids.
Underwood told her boss she was sorry but, unlike all the other times she did stay overtime, she couldn’t that day. She figured two decades with an unblemished work record would show her commitment to the job.
Her boss disagreed. Underwood was fired for violating the mandatory overtime policy.
We hear a lot of talk about freedoms in the U.S. Apparently the freedom to refuse mandatory overtime isn’t one of them.
Neither is the freedom to care for a sick family member. Just ask Monique Evans. When she called her supervisor at a Wendy’s in Portland, Maine, to explain that her two-year-old had the flu, the supervisor told her to come in anyway. When Evans refused, the supervisor cut her hours from 40 per week to 15 and demoted her to mopping floors and cleaning toilets.
This is the time of year when schools require children to be vaccinated. Keeping kids free of preventable diseases boosts learning and general child well-being.
But many parents – most of them low wage workers who can’t afford to risk their jobs -- can’t take the day off to get the children immunized.
The truth is, for millions of workers in this country, being a good family member can mean risking job, paycheck, or peace of mind. And being a responsible employee can put your family or relationship at risk.
Vickie Underwood and Monique Evans are among the many whose stories are told in a new report entitled, “Family Values at Work: It’s About Time! Why We Need Minimum Standards to Ensure a Family-Friendly Workplace.” The report was published by a network of state coalitions known as the MultiState Working Families Consortium.
With photos and stories, this report puts faces to the statistics, detailing what it means when family values end at the workplace door. It also summarizes mounds of research that tell us that policies like paid sick days and family leave insurance aren’t just the moral thing to do, aren’t just good for workers and their families – they’re good for business and taxpayers as well.
Consider this factoid, for instance: Replacing a salaried worker costs on average one and a half times more than the fired worker was earning annually. What about someone making $8 an hour? Even these low-wage workers cost an employer an average of $5,506 apiece to replace.
Political candidates, pay attention. “Family Values at Work” describes the growing movement to win time to care, and announces new polling data showing that voters want such policies. Nearly nine in ten voters support paid sick days – and that’s across demographics and party lines. Similarly, more than three in four support family leave insurance plans.
Most important, this document makes the case for government action as the only way to protect workers like Vickie and Monique. The right-wing keeps trying to tell us that our problem is big government. But “Family Values at Work” reminds us that a proper role of government is creating minimum standards for how we conduct ourselves as a nation.
Every so often, we say, enough – something we put up with for a long time, like slavery or child labor or discrimination against racial groups or women, suddenly seems barbaric.
It’s about time we said that about forcing people like Vickie Underwood and Monique Evans to risk their loved ones or their livelihoods.
You can read “Family Values at Work” on 9to5’s website, www.9to5.org.
If you’re like Vickie Underwood, in DeKalb County, Georgia, you choose your kids.
Underwood told her boss she was sorry but, unlike all the other times she did stay overtime, she couldn’t that day. She figured two decades with an unblemished work record would show her commitment to the job.
Her boss disagreed. Underwood was fired for violating the mandatory overtime policy.
We hear a lot of talk about freedoms in the U.S. Apparently the freedom to refuse mandatory overtime isn’t one of them.
Neither is the freedom to care for a sick family member. Just ask Monique Evans. When she called her supervisor at a Wendy’s in Portland, Maine, to explain that her two-year-old had the flu, the supervisor told her to come in anyway. When Evans refused, the supervisor cut her hours from 40 per week to 15 and demoted her to mopping floors and cleaning toilets.
This is the time of year when schools require children to be vaccinated. Keeping kids free of preventable diseases boosts learning and general child well-being.
But many parents – most of them low wage workers who can’t afford to risk their jobs -- can’t take the day off to get the children immunized.
The truth is, for millions of workers in this country, being a good family member can mean risking job, paycheck, or peace of mind. And being a responsible employee can put your family or relationship at risk.
Vickie Underwood and Monique Evans are among the many whose stories are told in a new report entitled, “Family Values at Work: It’s About Time! Why We Need Minimum Standards to Ensure a Family-Friendly Workplace.” The report was published by a network of state coalitions known as the MultiState Working Families Consortium.
With photos and stories, this report puts faces to the statistics, detailing what it means when family values end at the workplace door. It also summarizes mounds of research that tell us that policies like paid sick days and family leave insurance aren’t just the moral thing to do, aren’t just good for workers and their families – they’re good for business and taxpayers as well.
Consider this factoid, for instance: Replacing a salaried worker costs on average one and a half times more than the fired worker was earning annually. What about someone making $8 an hour? Even these low-wage workers cost an employer an average of $5,506 apiece to replace.
Political candidates, pay attention. “Family Values at Work” describes the growing movement to win time to care, and announces new polling data showing that voters want such policies. Nearly nine in ten voters support paid sick days – and that’s across demographics and party lines. Similarly, more than three in four support family leave insurance plans.
Most important, this document makes the case for government action as the only way to protect workers like Vickie and Monique. The right-wing keeps trying to tell us that our problem is big government. But “Family Values at Work” reminds us that a proper role of government is creating minimum standards for how we conduct ourselves as a nation.
Every so often, we say, enough – something we put up with for a long time, like slavery or child labor or discrimination against racial groups or women, suddenly seems barbaric.
It’s about time we said that about forcing people like Vickie Underwood and Monique Evans to risk their loved ones or their livelihoods.
You can read “Family Values at Work” on 9to5’s website, www.9to5.org.
Friday, August 31, 2007
On Labor Day: How the U.S. Stacks Up for Those in Labor
Recently I gave a talk in Calgary, Canada for representatives of credit unions from around the world. The woman who introduced me, a director of marketing, was Canadian. “I just got back from maternity leave,” she told me, raving about her first child.
I know that Canadian law allows for nearly a year of leave at 55 percent pay. “How long did you take?” I asked.
“Oh, the whole year,” she replied. I mentioned that the Family and Medical Leave Act in the U.S. provides for considerably less time, 12 weeks, and that the time is unpaid. (I didn’t mention that it covers only half the workforce.) The vast majority of new mothers in the U.S. are back at work before 12 weeks. More than half of them get no pay at all.
Could she imagine having returned that soon, I asked. She worked her jaw for a few minutes without speaking. “I just couldn’t have done it,” she said finally. I felt as if I’d asked her to imagine feeding her child weeds.
Our interaction reminded me of that scene in Michael Moore’s film “Sicko” when he asks the Americans living in France how many sick days they received. “If you’re sick, you stay home,” one of them told him. “Yeah, but how many days do you get?” The answer: as long as you’re sick.
Hard to imagine for those living in the U.S., where no state or federal law requires any paid sick days at all – and where half the workforce has none. Seven out of ten workers in the U.S. have no paid sick time to care for a sick family member.
The next time you hear some lobbyist argue that our lack of standards is about economic competitiveness, remember this fact: Of the 20 most competitive nations in the world, the U.S. is the ONLY ONE which does not guarantee any paid sick days. Eighteen of those 20 countries guarantee at least 31 days of paid sick time.
Three decades years ago, when I was pregnant with my first child, a friend in France wrote me to say how sorry she felt that I had to have my baby in the United States. She went on to list the standards available to everyone in France – not just paid maternity leave, but high-quality child care available on a sliding scale basis for babies, and pre-school free to every child at age two and a half. Nearly all French parents sent their kids to those pre-schools, even in homes where a parent was available during the day, because the experience was so positive.
At the time I was taken aback by my friend’s letter, a little embarrassed and a little envious. Today, I’m just angry – and determined to see this change before my children have children.
For those who labor and go through labor, or simply need time to care for loved ones of any age, it’s about time we created some new rules in this country – like a minimum number of paid sick days, and insurance programs that provide at least partial wage replacement during family and medical leave. It’s about time we made sure that family values don’t end at the workplace door.
I’d sure like to say to friends in other countries that the U.S. no longer stands alone.
I know that Canadian law allows for nearly a year of leave at 55 percent pay. “How long did you take?” I asked.
“Oh, the whole year,” she replied. I mentioned that the Family and Medical Leave Act in the U.S. provides for considerably less time, 12 weeks, and that the time is unpaid. (I didn’t mention that it covers only half the workforce.) The vast majority of new mothers in the U.S. are back at work before 12 weeks. More than half of them get no pay at all.
Could she imagine having returned that soon, I asked. She worked her jaw for a few minutes without speaking. “I just couldn’t have done it,” she said finally. I felt as if I’d asked her to imagine feeding her child weeds.
Our interaction reminded me of that scene in Michael Moore’s film “Sicko” when he asks the Americans living in France how many sick days they received. “If you’re sick, you stay home,” one of them told him. “Yeah, but how many days do you get?” The answer: as long as you’re sick.
Hard to imagine for those living in the U.S., where no state or federal law requires any paid sick days at all – and where half the workforce has none. Seven out of ten workers in the U.S. have no paid sick time to care for a sick family member.
The next time you hear some lobbyist argue that our lack of standards is about economic competitiveness, remember this fact: Of the 20 most competitive nations in the world, the U.S. is the ONLY ONE which does not guarantee any paid sick days. Eighteen of those 20 countries guarantee at least 31 days of paid sick time.
Three decades years ago, when I was pregnant with my first child, a friend in France wrote me to say how sorry she felt that I had to have my baby in the United States. She went on to list the standards available to everyone in France – not just paid maternity leave, but high-quality child care available on a sliding scale basis for babies, and pre-school free to every child at age two and a half. Nearly all French parents sent their kids to those pre-schools, even in homes where a parent was available during the day, because the experience was so positive.
At the time I was taken aback by my friend’s letter, a little embarrassed and a little envious. Today, I’m just angry – and determined to see this change before my children have children.
For those who labor and go through labor, or simply need time to care for loved ones of any age, it’s about time we created some new rules in this country – like a minimum number of paid sick days, and insurance programs that provide at least partial wage replacement during family and medical leave. It’s about time we made sure that family values don’t end at the workplace door.
I’d sure like to say to friends in other countries that the U.S. no longer stands alone.
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