Archive for the 'Family Leave' Category

Have You Used the FMLA?

Judi Casey March 18th, 2009

Recently (2/10-3/11/09), the Sloan Network posted a poll on people’s use of the FMLA. Here’s what the sixty-six respondents indicated:

36% had not used the FMLA
30% had used all 12 weeks
15% had only used some of the FMLA
9% indicated that they were not eligible (business too small or not at their job long enough)
9% wanted to use it, but could not afford time-off without pay

As of January 16, 2009, there are some important changes to the FMLA, including leave for caretakers of military personnel as well as leave for families with family members in the National Guard and Reserves.

We have numerous resources on the FMLA at the Network including a Topic Page, Fact Sheet, a Class Activity from our Teaching Resources page, Policy Leadership Series, and Work and Family Policy in the Judiciary.

Check out our new poll on the economic climate and your work-family lifestyle at our home page or blog. Prior poll results are available here.

The Granite State Introduces a Trifecta of Work-Family Bills

Julie Schwartz Weber February 4th, 2009

Yesterday, three new work-family bills, part of the New Hampshire Women’s Lobby’s (NHWL) Work and Family Economic Sustainability Initiative (“Initiative”), were heard by the House Labor and Commerce Committees in New Hampshire.  The Initiative, developed by the NHWL, several New Hampshire legislators, including Representatives Mary Stuart Gile and Carla Skinder, and other allies, is comprised of the following bills:

  1. HB661, a family leave insurance program bill, which creates a family leave insurance program to allow parents to take time off to care for a newborn, newly adopted child, or to allow persons to care for a family member with a serious medical condition, including a wounded service member.  This bill only applies to employers with 50 or more employees, and establishes the benefit at up to 6 weeks of $250 per week.
  2. HB662, a paid sick days and safe leave bill, which requires employers of full-time and part-time employees to provide up to five days of sick or safe leave for their employees, and is intended to enable workers to seek medical care, psychological counseling for themselves and family, due to sickness or injury, domestic violence, or preventive medical care.  The bill may exempt small businesses with fewer than 10 employees.
  3. HB663, a right to request a flexible schedule law, which creates a process for employees to request flexibility in work schedules, including the number of hours required to work, the times when the employee is required to work, or the location where the employee is required to work.  This process is contingent on meeting specific conditions described in the application and further specifies employer’s criteria for granting or denying such requests.  The proposal only applies to employers with more than 15 employees.

The Initiative evolved from discussions that occurred among and between business, policy and academic folks at the First Annual New Hampshire Summit on Work and Family, held in October 2008.  It will be interesting to see if deliberate efforts to collaborate with business, researchers, and other advocates on these work-family matters, prior to filing the bills, will have an effect on whether these bills move.

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Balancing Sick Children and Work Schedules

Featured Guest Blogger January 26th, 2009

This post was contributed by Holly McCarthy, who writes on the subject of job search. She invites your feedback at hollymccarthy12 at gmail dot com. Please note that the views of our guest bloggers do not necessarily reflect the views of the Sloan Work and Family Research Network.

During the winter months, working parents can face a variety of situations regarding their children’s health. The cold weather helps speed up the process from the sniffles to a full-blown, debilitating cold. What do you do when the school nurse calls and needs you to come pick up your children?

Many employers realize that children are an employee’s top priority. As a parent, taking care of your children will always be the first concern. However, what’s a parent to do in these tough economic times when taking time off for your children could adversely affect your standing with the company?  What happens if there are other emergencies outside of your immediate family that may require your attention? There are a few things that can be done:

  1. Speak with the Boss
    Let your boss know what is going on and what you are doing to remedy the situation.  Offer to work from home and stay in touch while your child gets better—there are many ways to rectify the situation. Being proactive in situations like this usually works out in your favor; if you are willing to tackle the difficult conversations head-on, your boss will often be willing to talk things through with you.

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  2. Take Turns with Your Spouse
    This is a good idea if you feel like you are the go-to parent for emergency pick ups. Employers might be understanding for a while, but eventually tire of you being the one who is always called to come to the rescue. Work things out with your spouse so that they take turns with you. Naturally, some days you may need to swap this duty if something particularly important is going on at work.

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  3. Have an Emergency Back-Up Plan
    While this isn’t going to always be an option, some of us know people who either don’t work or work from home, possibly with a flexible schedule. Perhaps on the days when it is most difficult for you to get away, you can rely on these people to pick up your sick child and take them home.  If you are able to do this, planning for the next couple of days will be far easier and your day will not be truncated.  Finish up your work for the day, inform your employer of your forthcoming absence, and prepare to work from home if necessary.

Many workers have to deal with these kinds of situations all of the time, so know that you’re not alone. Work with your employer and spouse to keep the lines of communication open.

Work-Family Policy and Gender Equality: Global Perspectives

Judi Casey October 22nd, 2008

Recently, I read a fascinating report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research called Parental Leave Policies in 21 Countries: Assessing Generosity and Gender Equality. Written by Rebecca Ray, Janet C. Gornick and John Schmitt, the report examines the policies of “21 high-income economies.” It examines “two key aspects of parental leave policies: the level of support provided to parents; and the degree to which leave policies promote an egalitarian distribution between mothers and fathers of the time devoted to child care.”

The authors examined 21 countries and found that six countries have the strongest policies on both generosity and gender equality. These are three Nordic countries – Finland, Norway, and Sweden – plus France, Spain, and Greece. They also found that “across these six high-performing systems, five policy practices stand out as the most important: (1) generous paid leave; (2) non-transferable quotas of leave for each parent; (3) universal coverage combined with modest eligibility restrictions; (4) financing structures that pool risk among many employers; and (5) scheduling flexibility. ….The experience of the countries following international ‘best practices’ suggests that a generous, universal, gender-egalitarian, and flexible parental leave policy, financed through social insurance would go a long way toward spreading the costs of caring for children more equitably across mothers and fathers, parents and non-parents, and employers and employees.”

Any thoughts on how work-family policies might be synchronized to achieve both gender equality and career advancement, as well as responsive workplace policies and practices in countries around the world? Are you studying or researching this area? Please let us know as the Network is interested in gathering resources that examine this dynamic.

Happy Half-Birthday, Work and Family Blog

Judi Casey October 14th, 2008

Sloan Network Logo

Today marks the six-month anniversary of our Work and Family Blog and our 90th post! The Sloan Network bloggers have covered the gamut of topics from our first post on Paid Sick Leave to our most recent post on Take your Baby to Work. We have appreciated the opportunity to share our work-family thoughts with you, and we hope that the information has been useful to you in your work and lives. It’s great to hear your comments on our posts, so please, please give us as much feedback as possible.

In case you’ve missed these the first time, we have posted about our latest work-family Topic Pages, including Parents Caring for Children with Disabilities and Military Families. We have also covered a number of our existing focus areas in Family-Friendly Employers, Family Studies, Afterschool Care, Breastfeeding, Family Medical Leave Act, Gen Y, and those geared towards work, Overwork, Part-Time Work, Telework, Flexible Work Schedules in Small Businesses and Retirement.

A number of new issues have surfaced including an examination of the Pros and the Cons of a four-day work week. We reported on new trends for mothers, fathers, parents, grandparents and professors. We introduced an interactive entry with the Work-Life Quiz on Slide Share and linked to the highly useful Caregiver Database.

Politics is, of course, hot this year and we didn’t disappoint with a number of posts on the candidates, including work-family and work-life balance. We have blogged about our travels to many conferences including the National Conference of State Legislators and the WorldatWork Conference. We are privileged to have a number of guest bloggers, including A Better Balance: The Work & Family Legal Center, The Lattice Group, and The National Partnership for Women & Families. Thanks to all of the contributors!

And finally, we had 22 posts on What’s New in Work and Family, which covered over 100 articles and updates.

What’s coming up in the next six months from the Sloan Network? More exciting and relevant posts including a behind the scenes look at our social media efforts, including our new Facebook page. Thank you for reading our blog and do please continue to comment– we love your feedback. If you have suggestions for topics or are interested in guest blogging, please contact us.

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Preemie Leave?

Featured Guest Blogger October 6th, 2008

A dear friend of mine recently had a baby at just 27 weeks in her pregnancy; Olivia was due in October, but was born in July. We are happy to report that she is doing well, and that she should be home by the end of the year. The emotional rollercoaster of having a premature baby was just the beginning of a slew of challenges that my friends are facing now. Preemies bring up issues that I hadn’t thought of before— for example, their daughter will always be a bit older in time than she is in development. When she is one, she will likely not be walking as people might expect from a one-year-old. It makes complete sense, but again, I had never stopped to realize this challenge. Another issue that they faced was what to do about their maternity and paternity leaves, since they had a baby who was going to be in the NICU for over 5 months.

Given that 12% of births are premature (1 in 8 pregnancies), thousands of parents across the country will have to think about these questions: Should we take our leave after the birth of our child, or wait until she is ready to come home? Should we stagger our leaves so that one of us works while our baby is in the NICU, and the other works when she comes home? What do we do if we want to pump breast milk for our baby in the NICU? Will we be forced to leave our jobs due to our extended absence?

Talking through these issues with my friends left me speechless, as I couldn’t imagine having a baby in the NICU while facing financial and career overhauls. So, are workplaces supportive of this unique situation? In some cases yes, and in others, no; it’s up to the employer. In looking into this issue, I have discovered some workplaces that offer “compassionate leave” for such circumstances. Are governments helpful? Again, some are more than others. The EU is allotting additional maternity/paternity leave for premature births, but the United States does not.

We welcome your opinions or knowledge on this matter, as it is not something that the Network has examined yet, but it is an incredibly worthwhile topic.

Sex Discrimination and Fathers

Featured Guest Blogger July 25th, 2008

I almost didn’t want to write this post because the last post that I wrote dealt with Australian work-family policy…and I like to keep a nice variety. But, I can’t help it; I just thought this was too neat to pass up…

Australia’s federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick, has just announced her position on several work-family policies (paid maternity leave, women in leadership positions, and sexual harassment, to name a few) as a result of her “Listening Tour,” a 6-month venture across Australia speaking with over 1,000 people about their journey for gender equality. I found one of her post-tour agenda items particularly interesting. As it turns out, she finds herself in a great corner to advocate for gender equality in the workforce, specifically mentioning sex discrimination against working fathers.

While Broderick was once hired to promote women’s equality in the workforce, she recently stated that she wanted to strengthen the Sex Discrimination Act to penalize employers who stick family-friendly fathers on the “daddy track” by refusing to promote them. Fathers have reported that they are not seen as serious players when they “raise their hand” for flexible work schedules, as they are still seen as the breadwinners and as individuals who need to be more committed to their careers. They find that women are more easily granted leave for family time.

Currently, the law only protects fathers who have been fired , not those who have been put on the daddy track without the possibility of promotion. Broderick stated, “If there is one thing I could do to promote gender equality in this country it would be to better share paid and unpaid work between men and women…If we strengthen the family provisions of the Sex Discrimination Act, that will allow men to be more involved in their family and women to be more involved in paid work.”

The opposition states that workers who put more into their careers should rightfully get more out of them. Those employees who take more time off should consider career advancement more of a luxury than a right.

We say, keep the discussion going!

For more information from the Sloan Network on this topic, please see our:
• Class Activity featuring information on the Daddy Track
• Statistics about fathers and family leave
• Suggested Readings about fathers and work

Grandparental Leave

Featured Guest Blogger July 14th, 2008

Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Chief Minister has announced that grandmothers and grandfathers who work for public services in Australia will be able to take 52 weeks of unpaid grandparental leave over the course of three years.  The purpose of this legislation is twofold:

  1. The workforce will able to retain its older workers who might have otherwise retired
  2. Grandparents will be able to maintain a better balance between work and family, and will be able to play an important role in their grandchildren’s lives. 

There is no age requirement or cut-off for the grandparents, but the grandchild must be less than three years old. 

 

I see an additional, and unmentioned, benefit to this legislation.  Having grandparent care available will also enable working parents to better manage their work situation, as grandparent care can save parents gobs of money and energy in alternative child care arrangements.  In 2005, the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed that grandparents were providing child care services to more than 660,000 Australian children.  Grandparents cared for more than half of the one-year-olds who depended on child care and almost 40% of five-year-olds.  In almost every case, this care was cost-free for the parents. 

 

One troubling facet of this legislation that I can imagine is the class divide that may occur in who can use the new policy.  Who can afford to take a year of unpaid leave?  What good is job security if one cannot afford to go unpaid?  Might it be better for these workers to collect their post-retirement benefits than to have an unpaid year with job security at the end? 

 

We’re not sure.  Either way, it’s a well-researched piece of legislation with the well-intentioned goal of benefiting both the workforce and families of Australia.    

What’s New

Karen Corday June 20th, 2008

New from the Network:

New in Work and Family:

  • HellerEhrman Completes Opt-In Project: HellerEhrman has completed the Opt-In Project. Started in 2006, the project is “committed to identifying and raising awareness of the obstacles that still exist for women in the workforce, both the obvious and the subtle. The mission is to address and highlight viable solutions that can help overcome these impediments.” Listen to the final podcast and read the project report.

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  • Paid Parental Leave Act Passes House, But Faces Veto Threat: Simone Baribeau of the Washington Post reports that the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act has passed the House by a large margin, despite a threat of veto from President George W. Bush. Under the Act, federal and congressional employees would receive four weeks of paid parental leave after birth, adoption, or taking in a foster child.

For more popular press articles on work and family, please see What’s New in Work and Family.

Update: Is the Work and Family Agenda Gaining Ground in Congress?

Featured Guest Blogger June 4th, 2008

Thank you to Steffany Stern of the National Partnership for Women & Families for today’s guest blog entry. Please note that the views of our guest bloggers do not necessarily reflect the views of the Sloan Work and Family Research Network.

My fellow work and family advocates and I are trying not to count our chickens before they hatch, but these days we are more optimistic than we have been in a long time. It appears that after years of stalled progress, Congress may be poised to make real progress on work and family policy, a long neglected issue area that has left millions of families without badly-needed workplace protections. Following on the heels of the first-ever expansion of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) since it was enacted in 1993—to allow military families a few extra weeks to provide care for seriously injured servicemembers—two noteworthy federal bills are making serious headway, and there are signs that other initiatives will start moving soon. When considered separately, these bills contain incremental changes. Collectively, they represent big steps towards the progress working families so desperately need.

Just last week, Congress took a historic stand for flight attendants, and voted to pass a much-needed FMLA fix by a landslide vote of 402 to 9. When the law was originally written, a loophole was unintentionally created that excluded airline flight crews, including flight attendants and pilots, because of the unique way their hours are calculated. The bill clarifies the FMLA to extend protections to flight crews, thousands of whom have never had access to the law.

Our Congressional allies also expect that a bill to provide paid parental leave for all federal employees will be brought to the House floor for a vote in upcoming weeks. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) has proposed a bill to provide four weeks of paid parental leave for 2.7 million workers in the federal workforce, and set a standard for the rest of the country’s employers to follow.

In addition to these two bills, a number of innovative measures to address the real issues facing today’s working families have been introduced. These bills would provide paid family and medical leave for all workers, including those in the private sector (Reps. Stark, Miller, Woolsey and Sens. Dodd and Stevens); expand the FMLA to cover part-time workers (Rep. Baldwin); extend benefits (including FMLA rights) to domestic partners of federal employees (Rep. Maloney), and make sure victims of violent crime, including domestic violence and sexual assault, can access FMLA when they need to take time away from work to recover (Rep. Emanuel).

The introduction of these measures, and the prospects of actual progress for a few, signal that our elected leaders are beginning work to fulfill their promises to improve workplace policies to help working families at a time when many of us need it most. The chances for these bills will be far better if the public gets engaged. Our members of Congress need to hear that these are the issues that matter, and that we will hold them accountable for signing on in support of the bills and voting YES on each and every measure. Then, and only then, do we get to celebrate important progress for our working families.

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