Social Media: Tool for Balancing Work and Family?
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The union movement may have a new tool in its efforts to reach out to young workers who increasingly say balancing work and family is a top priority: social media. A new study finds that young workers may be especially receptive to union organizers who use social media.
At our recent AFL-CIO Young Workers Summit, we heard from the more than 400 mostly union activists that social media is key—but outreach among workers also should involve personal contact.
The new report by the Labor Project for Working Families, Cornell University ILR Programs and UC Berkeley Labor Center underscores what young workers told us, saying:
Although not a replacement for face to face interaction with workers, young women organizers are calling for greater social media training, resources and support to use these new tools more effectively.
Writing at the AFL-CIO California Labor Federation blog, Brandy Davis from the Labor Project for Working Families concludes:
Women and young workers value control and flexibility in their lives—these are core bargaining issues. Social media may be the organizing tool the labor movement needs to be the leading voice for workers on balancing work and family.
Read Davis’ full blog here.
Work. Family. Conflict. Resolution?
The realities of our workplaces have not changed to meet the new realities of our economy and society, says AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker. Employers and political leaders must create new policies that help working families deal with their basic needs of feeding their families, caring for their elderly parents, paying the mortgage.
Speaking this afternoon to a conference on the “Three Faces of Work-Family Conflict,” sponsored by the Center for American Progress, Holt Baker said, “Our families are trying to live in two different worlds at the same time—and it is just not working.”
Most people—men and women, across race and class—agree that the changing status of women is a good thing, now that we are half the workforce and have the opportunity and the weight of being breadwinners. But we also agree that something’s got to give.
The conflict between work and family is no longer between men and women, Holt Baker said. “It’s between families and the systems that are not meeting our needs.” Read the rest of this entry »
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.
Bad News for Children, Good News for Seniors, Union Deaths Challenged
Here’s a quick roundup of some key news.
Colombia is the deadliest place for unionists—some 2,300 union leaders have been killed there since 1991 and only 37 people have been convicted in the murders. Now, in a civil trial set to begin today before a federal jury in Birmingham, Ala., union lawyers have presented affidavits from two people who allege that the Drummond Co. ordered the murder of two union leaders who worked at it’s coal mine in Colombia, a charge Drummond denies. The suit is filed under a law that allows foreigners to sue U.S. companies here.
