Ozzie and Harriet Work Outside Home: Nation Needs New Laws to Balance Work and Family
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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.
Six Republican Governors Rather Play Politics than Aid Jobless Workers
With U.S. unemployment at the highest level in more than a quarter century, six Republican governors would rather play politics with the lives of their citizens than help them make ends meet.
President Obama’s economic recovery plan provides $25 more per week and extends benefits for those who are jobless and struggling to feed their families. But as Karen Nussbaum, director of Working America, the AFL-CIO community affiliate, writes on Huffington Post:
If you live in Alabama, Alaska, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina or Texas, you are laid off and left out.
When AIG defrauded investors and the government, employees there took home millions in bonuses. Elsewhere, people are living unemployment check to unemployment check through no fault of their own, laid off because everyone is tightening their belts and job growth is nonexistent. Shoring up the unemployment insurance safety net is fundamental fairness.
