Happy Mother’s Day—Now Get Back to Work

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/05/11/happy-mothers-daynow-get-back-to-work/

by James Parks, May 11, 2008

This Mother’s Day, we’d like to wish every mother a Happy Mother’s Day. Today is the day we show how much we appreciate the innumerable contributions that mothers have made to our lives and our country in a big way. This is one of the busiest days of the year for restaurants, florists and the phone companies.

But here’s something lawmakers and corporate bosses can give moms they can really use—time off from work with pay so they can spend time with their children, whether they are newborns or are just suffering from childhood ailments.



The United States doesn’t make it easy for mothers to raise their children. First off, if a mother works, she likely is going to get paid less than a man in the same job—about 77 cents for every $1 a man makes to be exact. And paid time off after a child is born is available in many western nations—but not here. In the United Kingdom, for example, a new mother can take a year off from work and be paid for about nine months. In Norway, she can take 26 weeks and about 20 weeks of that is paid.

In a selection of 19 countries with comparable per capita income, the Economic Policy Institute found the United States provides the fewest maternity leave benefits in both length of leave and paid time off. That doesn’t include any disability insurance for which mom may qualify.

The U.S. federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which has been the law for 15 years, gives eligible parents 12 weeks unpaid leave to care for a new child. Aside from being unpaid, the leave is limited to workplaces of more than 50 employees, which excludes about 48 million workers. About two-thirds of the women who responded to the 2006 AFL-CIO Ask a Working Woman survey said they don’t have paid family leave benefits.

In fact, as EPI points out, the United States falls two weeks short of the International Labor Organization’s minimum standard of at least 14 weeks general leave. Several studies have shown policies that guarantee adequate leave are increasingly valuable not only for working families, but also for employers, who benefit from the retention of skilled personnel in the workplace and improved employee morale.

FULL story at link.

[niyad]

1. for a nation that prides itself on "family values", etc., our record is pretty poor

in actually supporting families.

[JDPriestly]

2. Thanks. This is the best Mother's Day post I have seen.