September 5, 2008.
The Workplace Flexibility 2010 News Roundup is a compilation of the latest news articles, reports and other materials related to workplace flexibility. The News Roundup appears twice-weekly. If you have questions about any of the items, please contact WF2010@law.georgetown.edu.
Articles
Ohio group drops fight over sick-day mandate
“Labor leaders on Thursday dropped their campaign for a ballot issue that would give most full-time workers seven paid sick days a year. Members of Ohioans for Healthy Families, an advocacy group that supported the sick-day mandate, said they have agreed with a request by Gov. Ted Strickland to keep the issue off the November ballot and avoid a negative and divisive campaign fight. Strickland opposed the issue, saying it would hurt the state's economy.”
Again, they ask how mothers do it all
“The decades-old debate over motherhood and work is back, reignited nanoseconds after John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate. [. . .] You can almost hear the communal sigh of feminists who had thought their work was done. "I thought we'd already handled all these questions about juggling work and being a mother and having it all, that they were in the past," said Michelle Nicholasen, a 42-year-old Somerville writer and mother of five children between the ages of 3 and 7. Many working mothers are rallying behind Palin, regardless of whether they share her politics.”
Letting staffers telecommute requires management
“With gasoline prices expected to remain uncomfortably high, many small businesses are letting some of their staffers work at home. And some owners are discovering that allowing employees to telecommute can require a different management style, and some basic trust. Having telecommuters can be challenging for a boss who's used to having everyone in the office in plain sight — and who now has much less control over someone who's working in pajamas with "The View" on TV in the background. Or a staffer who takes time away from work during the day to start cooking dinner or walk the dog. Owners can find themselves worrying about the work getting done, although it should be clear from telecommuters' output whether their productivity is suffering, or whether they're meeting deadlines.”
OPM criticizes propsal for a compressed work week
“The Office of Personnel Management opposes a proposal by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer to create a four-day, 40-hour work week for federal employees. A compressed schedule would hurt the government's ability to provide essential services and weaken national security, OPM acting Director Michael Hager wrote in a letter to the Maryland Democrat. Homeland security and intelligence operations, for instance, must run around the clock, Hager stated. He also expressed concern that some employees could find the new hours burdensome. Many care for young children or aging adults, he said, making it difficult for them to work longer days. Others depend on mass transit or carpools, he noted.”
Moving toward a non-traditional work force
“Employers, particularly retail and service companies, like to use contingency workers to provide labor flexibility to meet demand fluctuations, to attract specialized talent and to achieve higher productivity. Employees, researcher William D. Young notes, elect to pursue contingent work for reasons that are as varied as the work settings in which the work is performed. Some people see it as a route to permanent full-time employment. For others, it is a lifestyle decision that allows them to work when they want, for as long as they want. For others, contract work provides variety and challenge as they move among work sites. Three key sources of non-traditional employees will be introduced in this article.“
Paid Family Leave Program Goes Mostly Unused
“Few parents with chronically ill kids have made use of California's pioneering paid family leave program, and most of them are not even aware it exists, according to researchers at the Rand Corp. In 2004, California adopted the nation's first family leave law. It is funded by employees through an automatic payroll deduction of an average of $1 per week. After a one-week waiting period, the program provides most employees six weeks of non-job-protected paid leave annually to care for ill family members, and pays up to 55 percent of an individual's salary.”
Rare Birds
“Twenty years ago, a father who took paternity leave was the stuff of urban legend: Though rumors of the species circulated, proof remained elusive. Lawyers who became fathers got less sleep and made more runs to the grocery store, but they kept coming to the office. Times have changed-a bit. Today, the leave-taking lawyer dad is on par with the orange-faced honeyeater, the first species of bird identified in New Guinea in over 60 years. He's rare, but he's been spotted in the wild and is starting to be documented and studied.”
Fairness for Working Parents
“With the November presidential election drawing near, we may see groups of Americans pitted against one another: young versus old, blue states versus red, liberals versus conservatives. But there is one issue that cuts across these (supposedly) opposing groups: the importance of family. There is a growing consensus that the U.S. needs to build both public and private sectors that are friendly to families in order to remain the economic and democratic leader of the globe, as well as to fulfill our human calling to care for our tiniest, most innocent citizens.”
Blogs
Do you wear pearls to the RNC?
“While many of the policies that MomsRising advocates have been associated with progressive and centrist political views, the challenges that American families face certainly are not. Families in red states, too, have low-wage jobs that don't provide paid maternity leave or sick days. They are counted among the 45 million Americans without healthcare. The results of weak, uninspired, and often ill-advised domestic policy in this country have impacted Republicans and Democrats alike. I was raised by Republican parents, and all of my grandparents were Republicans, too. Why, then, do I feel like I am entering the dangerous unknown as I prepare to bring the voice of mothers and families to the Republican Convention in St. Paul?”
Merrill Lynch Providing Professional Women an Opportunity for Greater Returns
“The management team at Merrill Lynch was puzzled. While it was clear that Merrill Lynch was recruiting its fair share of the most promising women from campuses around the world and developing that talent, the number of women dropped at each successive level up the corporate ladder. Moreover, there was a recognition of the large pool of talented women looking to re-enter the workforce and an opportunity to tap into it. The management at ML set out to figure out how and why. Working with Sylvia Ann Hewlett, the founding president of the Center for Work-Life Policy and director of the “Hidden Brain-Drain” Task Force, they found that women who “off-ramped” from high-pressure “extreme” jobs rarely returned to the same firm or a similar job when they were ready to on-ramp. Despite their considerable education and experience, these women often preferred to start over in a new industry.”
Motherhood Isn't Red or Blue
“When I think back to where my head was in the days and early months of new motherhood, I could barely get dressed some mornings let alone find the time to dissect and digest world problems. For me, a proud personal victory was taking a shower. I was planning to go back to work after a few months of maternity leave. And while I ended up not returning to a demanding 24/7 job covering hard news, I have managed to cobble together some part-time work that keeps my mind energized and quells my anxieties about not staying on the hardcore career track. Some days I am perfectly satisfied and comfortable with my decisions. When I have the delicious luxury of sitting and reading to my children at the neighborhood library in the middle of the day or can drop everything when someone is sick or have the time to take them shopping for shoes without stress or time pressures, I know that my choices about work and family were the right ones for us...at this point in time.”
Questions for a Superhuman Mom
“It means doing it all—on steroids. Lois Romano of the Washington Post tells us today that when Palin got to the Alaska governor's mansion, she fired the chef so she could do her own cooking. She has five kids spanning 18 years but has had no full-time babysitter. She went back to work as governor when baby Trig was 3 days old. She commutes every day from Anchorage to Wasilla, which looks to be about 90 miles round trip. She nurses Trig during meetings. She shuttles from Blackberry to breast pump in the middle of the night. She flew to Texas when she was eight months pregnant, gave a big keynote speech, felt her amniotic fluid leaking, and then flew back home to have the baby—without getting her doctor's permission first.”
A Legal Brouhaha Over Leave For New Dads
“Many men secretly feel a little left out when perks like parental leave and flextime are handed out to new mothers – and not dads. Also, many new fathers fail to speak up and ask for the time off they want. The Massachusetts Maternity Leave Act entitles women to up to eight weeks’ unpaid time off for childbirth or adoption. It covers all Massachusetts employers with six or more employees, and thus affects more companies than the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, which applies only to employers with 50 or more workers. Attorneys at a seminar last May were stunned when a speaker from the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, the agency that enforces the maternity-leave law, said it would consider investigating complaints from men under the law, says James Bucking, a partner with Foley Hoag, Boston, the law firm that hosted the seminar. The commission, Mr. Bucking says, may have been “using the bully pulpit .. to give a gentle, coercive nudge to the business community” to assess their parental leave policies for bias.”
Global News
So you think you've got good job prospects? Think again
“The report examined 25 different fields of work, and found that in 12 of them the number of women holding top posts has decreased in the past year. So, for instance, the proportion of female MPs has fallen from 19.5% of the total to 19.3%, while the proportion of female cabinet ministers has declined sharply from 34.8% to 26.1%. Women make up just 25% of heads of professional bodies compared with 33.3% the year before, and the number of female editors of national newspapers (including the Glasgow Herald and Western Mail) has declined from 17.4% to 13.6%. In five other categories, the report found that the number of women at the top has stalled, while there has been a forward movement in just eight. And though this last result suggests that we have some reason to cheer, the increases are hardly the stuff of party hats and streamers.”
Wi-fi spells death of 9-to-5 by 2033
“FUTUROLOGISTS have predicted massive changes in the way people work and use Cardiff in 25 years’ time. The researchers at Microsoft predict that mobile technology and flexible working will redraw the map of the capital – and Wales’ other towns and cities. Microsoft’s experts, working with the Future Laboratory, say that traditional fixed-location workplaces will move to a mosaic pattern of working as 70% of UK office workers say that work in the 21st century is increasingly about work/life balance and the death of nine-to-five. It is predicted that Cardiff’s office space will be reduced as more people begin to work more remotely.”
Wage Gaps for Women Frustrating Germany
“Maria Schaad, an ambitious 41-year-old businesswoman, considers herself lucky. After the birth of each of her sons, now 7 and 3, her employer, a major pharmaceutical company, allowed her to work flexible, reduced hours — a perk that is far from a given in Germany. But her luck extended only so far: though Ms. Schaad had once set her sights on a position in management, her career stagnated after she started a family, she said, even though she had earned an M.B.A. after she became a mother. “At some point, women have to make a decision,” she said matter-of-factly. “Having children means you have to make compromises” at work.”