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Program on WorkLife Law
Comments by Pannelist

At the Work/Family Summit


sponsored by Senator Kennedy and Organized by the Program on WorkLife Law, February 12, 2002, Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Alison Hooker, Ernst & Young

Work/Life Integration: A Business Imperative

Why does E&Y consider this a business imperative?

Demographics

Academic Research

E&Y - 1996

Bottom Line Impact of Addressing These Issues

Solutions

Where to Begin

The Old Paradigm (HBR)

Assumptions

Work/Life Balance Initiatives

Two E&Y Developed Tools:

Work/Life Balance Matrix

FWA Database

E&Y Results

Bottom Line Impact

Retention Savings

Conclusion



Judith Lichtman, National Partnership for Women and Families

Thank you. I'm pleased to be here today to discuss policies that can help women and men balance work and family.

Americans routinely say that lack of family support for families in the workplace makes balancing work and family responsibilities one of the greatest struggles in their lives.

As many of you know, the National Partnership for Women & Families led the fight for passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act, which became law in 1993.

Since then, thirty-five million Americans have been able to take unpaid leave: more parents are spending precious time with new babies, fewer children have to face hospital stays alone, and more workers can care for their parents in an emergency.

But for all that we have accomplished, our work is not yet done. Currently, 38% of employees work for employers that are not covered by the FMLA and this number grows to 45% of employees that cannot take advantage of the FMLA if you account for those that do not work enough hours to qualify for this benefit.

And work/family conflicts will only intensify in the years ahead as the number of dual-earner families increases, fewer families have full-time caregivers, and the elderly population continues to increase.

As we learned with passage of the FMLA, the government plays an important role in creating family-friendly workplaces. We also learned that, for many Americans, unpaid leave is not a viable alternative. 34% of the men and women who take FMLA take it without pay. 78% of ELIGIBLE employees who needed but did not take family or medical leave did not take it because they could not afford to. And, nearly one in ten leave takers who receive less than full pay while on leave are forced onto public assistance.

That is why the National Partnership for Women & Families launched a Campaign for Family Leave Benefits two years ago to fight for a family leave benefit that helps working families afford to take family or medical leave when they need it.

To date, 27 states have introduced legislation to provide paid leave benefits. These proposals vary in scope, size and cost but all will make it easier for women and men to balance work and family in times of need.

Temporary Disability Insurance: Five states, California, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Puerto Rico have mandated short-term disability to all state residents for more than 40 years. These programs provide coverage to employees suffering from non-job related injuries and/or illnesses and maternity related disability. There are efforts in each of these states to expand this coverage to include family leave. In addition, these six successful models are evidence that paid leave is affordable and despite the dire predictions of many in the business community businesses in states with these benefits have continued to thrive.

Paid Family Leave Benefits: These proposals provide a payment to all women and men that take Family or Medical Leave. The Washington State proposal is anticipated to cost less than $40 per worker each year and benefits would be $250 per week for up to six weeks.

Unemployment Insurance For Parental Leave: In August 2000, the Clinton administration promulgated a regulation allowing states to use their unemployment insurance fund surpluses to provide paid parental leave. Although rising unemployment rates may make it politically difficult to enact proposals to use unemployment insurance funds for parental leave this year, many states expect to have surpluses far into the future.

At Home Infant Care: These proposals allow parents to use childcare subsidies to stay at home with their infant for one or two years. Minnesota began it's at home infant care program in 1998. Montana began a similar program in December 2001. These programs recognize the reality that in some places infant care is either not available or not affordable, or both.

Flexible Sick Leave: California passed a law in 1999 that allows workers to use already accrued sick leave for FMLA as well as less serious family illnesses such as taking care of a child with the flu. Just this year four states have introduced legislation to do the same.

Shared Leave: Some employers including many state employers allow employees to donate unused paid leave to co-workers in need. Oklahoma enacted legislation last year that allows all state employees to share their leave.

Sick Leave: 76% of workers in the bottom quartile of earnings have no paid sick leave. Legislation to create a minimum requirement of job protected flexible sick leave will make an enormous difference in helping low income women and men attend to their family responsibilities. Oklahoma allows employees to use their paid sick leave for all FMLA purposes.

Public support for paid leave is overwhelming. A recent national poll found that 88% of parents and 80% of all adults support paid parental leave.

A recent poll of New York State parents found that 81% support expanding the states Temporary Disability Insurance Program to provide more paid leave after childbirth and expanding the program to include adoption and/or care for a seriously ill child, spouse or parent.

In 2000, ¾ of Massachusetts voters said they favored proposals to create a family leave benefit using either a new payroll tax or tapping their state's unemployment insurance system.

We realize that paid leave alone will not solve the plethora of problems facing today's families. Our society needs to think creatively about other ways to relieve work-family balance crises, including:

Policy makers like Senators Kennedy and Collins have always been a part of the solution. We applaud their efforts and the efforts of countless other federal and state policymakers that are working to make family friendly policy the law.

We look forward to working with many of you on policies that will make it easier for women and men to balance work and family.

Thank you.



Joan Williams, Executive Director, The Program on WorkLife Law

I am very pleased to be here today as part of this outstanding panel and delighted to see renewed interest in Congress in helping people balance their work and family lives. I would like to thank Senator Kennedy, who is such a tireless advocate on these issues, for sponsoring this event and Senator Collins and her staff. Thanks also to Holly Fechner and Julie Kashen for helping organize this event, as well as to my staff, Nancy Segal, Megan Brown, and Liz Bankert for their tremendous work on this event and many others. My particular thanks to Nancy Segal, who worked closely with our friends Rick McHugh of the National Employment Law Project and Jeff Wenger of the Employment Policy Institute, on the report "Laid Off & Left Out: Unemployment Insurance Eligibility for Part-Time Employees."

Over the past 20 years, transformations taking place in businesses have caused them to recognize the concrete benefits of work/life policies. We'll hear today about innovative programs that have helped companies save millions in decreased attrition and increased productivity. But it has become increasingly clear that businesses can't go it alone. Public policy is needed to help the ordinary Jane and ordinary Joe. To understand why, we need to step back and examine our ideals at work. We still see the ideal worker as we did fifty years ago - as someone who starts to work in early adulthood and work, full-time and full force, for forty years straight. And full-time often means overtime. Americans work longer hours than in any industrialized country - even Japan, which has a word for death from overwork. So, in concrete terms, the ideal worker will often leave home at 8 in the morning and not return until 6, 7, or even 8 at night.

This schedule conflicts with another cherished ideal: that children need and deserve time with their parents. And it's not only children who need family care - 85% of elder care is delivered through family and friends. So there is the clash: between our ideals at home and our ideals at work. It is a clash between a work system that enshrines a worker without family responsibilities and a family system that still relies heavily on family care.

We often hear of work/family problems of professional women, but this is a narrow slice of the picture. In fact, the lower a family's income, the more likely it is to rely on family as opposed to paid care, for a simple reason: you get what you pay for - and they can't pay much. Lower-income families also are less likely to have access to job flexibility. All this means is that work/family conflicts actually become more acute as income falls.

A very broad range of parents are finding it hard to reconcile their job responsibilities with family life:

To help all these parents - and more - we need workplaces responsive to family needs. This policy goal is important to a wide variety of constituencies, particularly women, 85% of whom become mothers. When we consider that 2 out of 3 mothers work less than a 40-hour week, in light of the requirements placed on the ideal worker, this helps create what I have called our economy of "mothers and others." The wage gap between mothers and other adults has actually been rising in recent decades, in part because, when mothers cut back, their only choice is part-time jobs with depressed wages, few benefits, and no advancement.

The lack of equal pay for part-time work, in proportion to hours worked, also affects many other groups. It affects the one-in-four fathers who work 50 or more hours per week, many of whom would like to cut their hours according to the so-called "time divide" studies. It affects individuals with disabilities, 70% of whom are currently unemployed, many of whom would like jobs but can only work part-time. It affects seniors, many of whom want to continue working once they retire, but only part-time - not loading groceries, but in quality part-time jobs. It affects low-income workers, who often can get only part-time jobs, and for that reason are often now permanently barred from the promotion track.

Problems of workplace inflexibility affect a very broad range of people. That's why it is so exciting to see business, unions, and advocates for such a broad range of groups coming together to think about solutions - solutions like parity for part-time work, limits on mandatory overtime, and minimum paid sick leave.

Until we begin to offer American families the kinds of supports that exist in other countries we will remain what we are today - a country that provides for children's care by pushing their mothers to the margins of economic life. The entirely predicable result is childhood poverty. I just came from a conference of demographers; they are reporting that countries without adequate supports for working families - including the United States - have sharply higher levels of childhood poverty than countries that do support their working families.

For men, for women, for seniors, for individuals with disabilities, but especially for children, we need to reshape work around the values people hold in family life.

Karen Nussbaum, AFL-CIO Working Women's Department

When my children were little, getting them out the door to the daycare center and myself and my husband to work on time every morning was a major mobilization. "Hurry, hurry, hurry," I urged in a voice a little too loud. "We're late, we're late, we're late!"

Months into this ritual, my middle child asked me, "Mom, what does 'late' mean?" Aha, I thought. Maybe this isn't a problem of will - he just hasn't understood me!

I have often thought of this when considering the inertia on the part of employers and some politicians when it comes to establishing meaningful work and family policies. It is late - too late for parents who have lost jobs because they couldn't take time off when their children were ill; too late for young children who are put in charge of even younger children because there are no affordable child care or after-school options; too late for the families torn apart because the strain of increasing work hours and no control over work hours ends in divorce and alienated children.

But it isn't too late to get serious now. I am heartened by today's event and the on-going commitment to working families on the part of the political leaders here today.

Some of the issues

Other panelists have outlined issues that need attention. Let me focus on research we did through recent national surveys of all American workers, not just union members, and some of the response of unions to these needs.

In the findings from the AFL-CIO Ask A Working Woman 2000 Survey, a representative sample of all working women, women told us of the strains on their families:

While their work hours wreak havoc with their families - Dr. Harriet Presser of the University of Maryland reports higher divorce rates for couples who work different shifts - workers are getting little relief from their employers.

Nearly one-third of working women say they have do not even have paid sick leave for themselves;

Yet workers believe they are entitled to these benefits. In a survey of all workers last fall, 90% of workers consider it essential or very important to have time off to care for a baby or sick family member and 90% believe workers are entitled to sick leave.

Unions Are Responding

How do we bridge this chasm?

Unions is one way. In fact, union representation is one of the strongest predictors of good work and family benefits.

In a 1998 study by the Families and Work Institute, companies with 30% or more unionized workers were far more likely than non-union companies to provide paid time off to care for sick children (65% compared to 46%); fully paid family health insurance (40% compared to 8%); temporary disability insurance (87% compared to 66%); and pensions (79% compared to 40%.

Today, more than ever, unions are fighting for core issues such as work hours, paid leave and child care in collective bargaining and public policy. Here are a few examples:

Part of a bigger struggle

While unions are increasing our commitment, these issues cry out for public policy solutions, including, just for starters:

And let's not forget equal pay. American families lose out on more than $200 billion dollars every year because of lack of equal pay. That's $200 billion that can't be used to solve the problems Americans are forced to solve with their own income: quality child care, paying doctors' bills, taking time off.

We look forward to the day - not too far in the future - when we are not faced with a failure to communicate. When your colleagues respond to work and family as a matter of public policy, not with "Say what?" but with "I hear you."

Thank you very much.



Remarks of Jocelyn Frye
Director of Legal and Public Policy,
National Partnership for Women & Families
Dirksen Senate Office Building
Tuesday, February 12, 2002

OVERVIEW

As we focus attention on how to craft effective work and family policies, it is important to examine these issues from a civil rights perspective. The lack of comprehensive work-family policies places particular burdens on low-income families. Many of these families are the same families that have limited access to the types of supports - like child care and employee benefits - that are critical to financial and family stability. Many of these families also are disproportionately minority families and families headed by single mothers. As Congress examines the types of work-family supports that families need, it is essential that the unique needs of low-income families and communities of color are also considered and addressed. We must ensure that any policies that move forward respond effectively to the needs of low-income individuals and communities of color.

1. Basic data reveals that minority families and families headed by women are more likely to be low-income, thus, work/family policies must be responsive to the needs of low-income families.

- According to information from the National Survey of American Families, the Urban Institute found that in 1998, 31% of the overall population was low-income. However, higher percentages of Blacks and Hispanics were low-income compared to Whites. In 1998, only 24% of Whites were low-income while it was significantly higher for both the Hispanic and Black population: 56% of the Hispanic population and 50% of Blacks were low-income. For the years 1996 and 1998, the percentage of Whites and Hispanics who were low-income decreased while the opposite result was seen over that period of time for African Americans. (Urban Institute, "Key Findings by Race and Ethnicity: Findings from the 1999 National Survey of America's Families", 2000) - When looking at the 6.7 million families (23.4 million individuals) who were living in poverty in 1999, 53% of the families were headed by women. Furthermore, when looking specifically at single heads of household, 88% of those households were headed by women. Also, almost 62% of these female-headed families with children living in poverty were headed by black or Hispanic women.

2. Many of these individuals are working in low-wage jobs and often non-standard arrangements with little stability or advancement opportunities.

- Looking at all workers earning poverty-level wages in 1999, about 23% of White workers, 36% of Black workers, and 45% of Hispanic workers earned poverty-level wages. Overall 27% of all workers were earning poverty level wages. About 33% of female workers and about 21% of male workers earned poverty-level wages. (Economic Policy Institute, "State of Working America," Laura Michel, Jared Bernstein, John Schmitt, 2000-2001) - Involuntary part-time workers - those who want but are unable to secure full-time jobs - have especially high poverty rates: One in four (26.5%) is poor, compared to one in 10 (10.4%) voluntary part-timers and one in twenty (5%) full-time employees. Women, who are fewer than half - 46% - of all workers, are slightly more than 70% of all part-time employees. - The National Partnership for Women and Families surveyed job training program providers who worked with both welfare clients and low-income workers. The report found that lack of access to appropriate support services and discrimination had a significant effect on the ability of low-income women, both those receiving welfare and those not receiving welfare, to work and support their families. More specifically: - 74% of low-income women lacked access to adequate child care
- 72.1% of low-income women lacked transportation to work
- More than half (54.4%) of the respondents said that employer unwillingness to accommodate family and medical needs (sick child, seriously ill relative, client's illness, etc) often makes it difficult for non-welfare clients to find or keep a job.
- 48.8% of respondents said that non-welfare clients "often" face one or more types of discrimination
(race/ethnic, gender, pregnancy, or disability discrimination or sexual/racial harassment). (National Partnership for Women & Families, "Detours on the Road to Employment: Obstacles Facing Low-Income Women," 1999)

3. Many of these low-wage workers, who are disproportionately female and minority, lack access to critical supports that would allow them to balance their work and family responsibilities.

a. Lack of Benefits

- Low-income workers often lack important leave options in their job that would allow them to achieve a proper balance of their work and family responsibilities. The lowest income parents are less likely to have paid sick leave, paid vacation leave and work time flexibility (76% have no paid sick leave; 58% have no vacation leave; 54% lack both sick and vacation leave). These parents are also the least likely to be able to afford substitute, quality care.

b. Lack of access to health care

- Low-income African American and Latino workers lack adequate medical assistance and medical insurance. The Urban Institute found that low-income Hispanic children are more likely to be uninsured than low-income white children, while low-income African American children are less likely to receive insurance from employers in comparison to public coverage. (Urban Institute, "Key Findings by Race and Ethnicity: Findings from the 1999 National Survey of America's Families", 2000)

- Furthermore, the Census Bureau reported that from 1998-2000, 33% of Hispanics and 19.5% of Blacks were uninsured or underinsured in comparison to only 10.1% of Whites. (Washington Post, 1/12/02, H1)

c. Lack of child care

- Most low-income families find that child care expenses consume a high percentage of their income significantly increasing the hardship they already face. According to the Urban Institute, child care expenses often represent over 20% of a family's income for those who earn less than $20,000 a year. (Urban Institute, "Child Care Expenses of America's Families (Linda Giannarelli and James Barsimantov)," 2000)

- Oftentimes Latinos are more likely to use informal child care providers in comparison to whites. According to National Latino Children's Institute, there are less traditional child care options available for Latinos due to the high poverty rate and growing number of Latino children. (www.nlci.org/press/Past%20articles/newlaws.htm)

d. Lack of other economic supports

- According to the Urban Institute, low-income Hispanic parents are less likely to receive the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). (Urban Institute, "Who Knows About the Earned Income Tax Credit?", 2001)

4. People who are the lowest earners are the most likely to be affected by increases in unemployment and overall declines in the economy.

- The current decrease in employment in the industries that predominately hired former welfare recipients is already higher than the employment decline in the last recession (January 1989 to November 1992). (EPI, "Last Hired, First Fired: Jobs losses plague former TANF recipients," Boushey, 12/01) - According to the Economic Policy Institute, the industries that hired former welfare recipients rapidly during the booming economy from August 1996 to October 2001 are now the hardest hit by the recession. Four industries that mainly hired former welfare recipients include personnel supply, child care, hotels and lodging, and education. However as the unemployment rate increased, by October 1 these industries were greatly affected with the service industry losing bout 111,000 jobs. (EPI, "Last Hired, First Fired: Jobs losses plague former TANF recipients," Boushey, 12/01) - From September to December of 2001, the Department of Labor calculated that there was a total of 1.1 million jobs that were lost. An additional 300,000 jobs were lost from the beginning of the economic recession in March 2001 until September. (NYT, "Attacks are Estimated to Cost Nation 1.8 Million Jobs," 1/13/02) - According to the National Urban League, African Americans and Latinos face severe hardships in times of economic recession in comparison to other groups in the population. For example, African Americans have an incredibly high rate of unemployment in comparison to Whites, often rising during an economic recession. While the rate of unemployment for blacks last year was at 7.2%, it is currently at 10.1% while the national unemployment rate is currently at 5.7%. (Madison Times, "Rethinking Welfare Reform," 1/3/02).

5. Welfare clients and those who have left welfare face unique challenges in comparison to many other employees. Clients who have left welfare for work often have jobs with no benefits or supports, and may face new challenges given the current recession. Further, people of color who receive welfare assistance may confront unique challenges due to discrimination and lacking access to critical supports.

- Of those who leave welfare, only one-third to one-half of the employed welfare leavers have access to paid vacation and paid sick leave benefits at their place of employment.

- A report from the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) found that a large number of employed leavers do not have health insurance. Whereas close to half of employed leavers say that there employer offers health insurance, only one-quarter to one-third of these employees are actually enrolled in their employer's plan.

- Studies conducted in Virginia by Dr. Susan Gooden and in Illinois by the Chicago Urban League found racial and/or ethnic disparities in some TANF programs. Both studies found that caseworkers were less likely to refer African Americans to critical education and job-support programs than White welfare recipients.

- Affecting access to child care, a significant number of employed welfare leavers work non-traditional hours. CLASP found that close to half of the surveyed employed welfare leavers worked part, or almost all of the weekend; between one-quarter and one-half worked in the evenings, night, or early hours; and almost one-quarter had schedules that changed frequently.

- The CLASP report also found that those who left welfare for work struggled to meet their basic needs. Almost one-third faced food hardships, while others struggled with paying for medical care and housing. According to data from the Census and the National Survey of American Families, welfare leavers who were working part-time experienced even more hardships than those who were working full-time. Sources:
- CLASP, "Frequently-Asked Questions About Working Welfare Leavers," 11/01, p. 17-20
- Madison Times, "Rethinking Welfare Reform," 1/3/02

Conclusion

It is essential that work/family policies are comprehensive and flexible in order to respond to the diverse needs of a diverse workforce. The work-family policies we develop must extend benefits to workers in many different settings, particularly low-income workers who have not always been able to take advantage of existing, but expensive benefits.

As we develop and expand our work/family policies, we also must focus on and respond to any unique challenges that face racial and/or ethnic communities.

We extend our deep gratitude and appreciation to Senator Kennedy and Senator Collins for their leadership in developing policies to address these critical work and family issues. We also want to thank them for hosting this important work and family summit and look forward to their continued leadership on this important issue.
 
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