Ozzie and Harriet Work Outside Home: Nation Needs New Laws to Balance Work and Family

by James Parks, Jul 23, 2009

With more women working outside the home to make ends meet in the global economy, the demands of working and caring for a family are becoming increasingly difficult.

Now as the nation decides how to cope with recession, we have a prime opportunity to take the next step and create workplace standards that are good for the bottom line and for working families, several experts told a congressional committee today.

A hearing by the Joint Economic Committee on “Balancing Work and Family in the Recession” examined the current recession’s impact on trends in the workplace that help employees meet the dual commitments of work and family life.

Working America Executive Director Karen Nussbaum told the committee that without enforceable workplace standards, such as paid family leave, most employers will not take necessary steps to initiate basic policies that allow workers to balance work and family.

It has taken decades to achieve basic workplace standards—in some cases, it has been more than a century of struggle: overtime after 40 hours, no child labor, nondiscrimination, and more recently, unpaid family leave. Many benefits workers took for granted in the 1950s are now seriously eroded…and most Americans are ending up doing with less.

Nussbaum cited several examples of how workers’ benefits and safeguards have disappeared in recent decades.

• Median family income has stagnated and actually dropped from 2000-2006.
• Defined-benefit pensions are a thing of the past—25 years ago, more than 80 percent of large and medium-size firms offered defined-benefit pensions. Today, less than a third do.
• Nearly half of private-sector workers have no paid sick leave.
• Nearly a quarter of workers have no paid vacation or holidays, and Americans work, on average, a month longer each year than in 1983.
• More and more women are working multiple jobs and nonstandard hours—more than one out of four regularly work nights or weekends. And nearly half of all women work different schedules than spouses or partners.

Read Nussbaum’s testimony here.

Nussbaum, who headed the Labor Department’s Women’s Bureau under former President Bill Clinton, added: 

We are now far behind all other industrial countries both in standards and practice, and we have seen that without the standards, we will not have the practice. Now is the time to put the next generation of basic workplace safeguards in place.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y. ), the committee chairwoman, said in her opening statement that  employers must keep up with the times if they want to be profitable.

Ozzie and Harriet go to work now, so most families no longer have a stay-at-home parent to care for a new child, a sick spouse or an aging parent.

Businesses that offer policies that help employees meet the competing demands of work and family have seen the benefits to their bottom lines with increased productivity and a more committed workforce.

Nussbaum told the panel the “most effective and flexible way” for workers to gain the benefits and safeguards they need to balance work and family is through collective bargaining.

A recent study by the Labor Project for Working Families found that among hourly workers 46 percent of unionized workers receive full pay while on leave compared to 29 percent of nonunionized workers, while companies with 30 percent or more unionized workers are five times as likely as companies with no unionized workers to pay the entire family health insurance premium. The Employee Free Choice Act would restore the right to collective bargaining, which would help create a contemporary version of work/life balance.

		Become a Fan on Facebook			Follow Us on Twitter			Subscribe to YouTube			Subscribe to Blog RSS

Print This Article | E-Mail This Article |Comments (0)