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berniesrevolution · 6 years

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JACOBIN MAGAZINE

In September 2017, feeling the first twinges of labor, I walked beyond the ten-block radius my ob-gyn had prescribed me, defying her bed-rest orders for one reason: to tour day-care centers and get my unborn kid on as many wait lists as possible.

I knew I had to take the risk only because I’d worked for three years on youth and family programs at a high-quality New York nonprofit.

When I’d started in 2012, our preschool had a two-year wait list. By the time I left, the wait list had swelled to almost four years, which meant that most children who had been added to the list never got into the program. We had at least twenty applications for children in utero, and two for children who hadn’t yet been conceived. Sometimes mothers mentioned to me that they’d miscarried, but would like to keep their application open, and did in fact conceive again before receiving an offer of admission. One baby died while on the list.

My program was unusual in that it featured a first-come/first-serve “need blind” admissions process and substantial tuition assistance to families who could prove that they needed it — but its $37,000 a year price tag was all too typical for American childcare.

For the Church, life begins at the moment of conception. For an American baby, life starts much sooner — the moment a parent (almost always a mother) begins to think about how and when she can afford to have a child, and who will care for the child when she returns to work, as the vast majority of parents must do. If she has been in the same job for a year and worked at least 1,250 hours for an employer who also happens to employ at least fifty people within a seventy-five-mile radius of her workplace, then she will be eligible for twelve weeks of unpaid time off and continuation of health benefits under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). She may be able to extend that slightly further with unused sick time — assuming she has any.

FMLA is an accommodating piece of legislation passed during the labor-punishing Clinton era, which applies to a little over half of US workers. It was the Democrats’ polite throat-clearing sigh, a gentle nudge in the general direction of our bosses, asking “Please sir, can I have my job back after taking care of my dying daughter?” when working families needed a paid family leave program comparable to the rest of the world’s, and a universal, federally funded childcare program. Since 1985, the majority of mothers of preschool children have participated in the workforce, and in the thirty years since, unprecedented growth in wealth inequality has transformed an urgent need into a moral and economic crisis. Now, as Baby Boomers age and a smaller percentage of the population has young children, there are fewer adult advocates for their needs.

”At the same time we thrust new parents back into the labor market, we also insist that they comparison shop for childcare in a country with no national standards for quality, accessibility, or safety.”

There is no reason we can’t have nationally subsidized, paid parental leave and childcare today. At present, public spending on early childhood education and care in the United States represents less than 0.5 percent of GDP, less than any OECD country besides Croatia, Latvia, and Turkey.

At the time of its bipartisan passage in 1993, the Chamber of Commerce warned that FMLA set a “dangerous precedent,” and John Boehner muttered something about “the light of freedom growing dimmer,” but twenty-five years later, a vast majority of employers report that complying with FMLA is easy and has had a positive or neutral effect on their workplaces. It is the sole non-means-tested federal provision for American families in the first few weeks of their children’s lives. Still, the burden is on parents to obtain doctor’s notes and coordinate it — and even it can hardly be called universal.

Employers approve, but how has it turned out for families? Many of those who are eligible can’t actually afford to take it. A full quarter of American mothers return to work less than two weeks after giving birth. Marissa Mayer aside, those who return soonest are most likely to be working class. Mothers who do not have housekeepers or nannies are constrained in their parenting choices, such as whether and how to breastfeed, and are more susceptible to depression.

One factory worker described breaking down in tears of exhaustion while pumping in a parking lot after a twelve-hour shift. The cheerful slogan “breast is best” is more likely to produce heart pangs than an eye-roll in the 88 percent of women who have no paid time off.

Nurri Latef, an early childhood teacher who I spoke to about her experience returning to school when her son was two months old, says, “I hated it. I felt like I was leaving my child at such a critical bonding time for the two of us, and he was premature. He spent a month in the hospital, so … I was only at home for one month with Nasir before I had to jump back into toddler-teacher mode so I could keep a roof over our heads.” No parent in any job should have to feel this way, but there’s a unique cruelty to forcing women to leave their own children before they feel ready to take care of other people’s children.

Meanwhile, Apple and Google employees get eighteen weeks of paid leave and backup or on-site day care. Googlers are awarded $500 cash referred to as “Baby Bonding Bucks.” Of course, not every worker shares in the benefits even at these seemingly enlightened firms: tech companies often outsource security, food service, and janitorial work by hiring private contractors, who are not eligible. Overall, about a third of American workers in management and other professional

Here’s how Julia Roitfeld, the daughter of the editor of French Vogue, describes impending motherhood: “It was like a detox — I ate healthy, I slept a lot, and I didn’t drink. All of my hormones were at the perfect levels. I was super-happy, and I really didn’t give a shit about work. Usually I’m so on top of work, but I was in a little cloud. But in August I thought, ‘Okay, I need to go back to work and start making a living again.’”

How long can a parent stay in that “little cloud” and “not give a shit” about the cost of diapers, formula, and rent? That depends both on one’s class and nationality. Brazilian mothers get seventeen weeks of leave to take care of their little ones at their full salary; Canadian parental leave was recently extended from one year to eighteen months at about 55 percent pay; Russia offers mothers twenty-four weeks paid. I could go on. The United States, Papua New Guinea, and Lesotho are the only countries in the world that don’t guarantee all workers paid time off to care for a new child — here, parental leave is a luxury reserved for the rich.

At the same time we thrust new parents back into the labor market, we also insist that they comparison shop for childcare in a country with no national standards for quality, accessibility or safety. Nearly 11 million children, including over half of children below the age of one, spend an average of twenty-seven hours a week in some kind of childcare setting, yet the burden is on individual parents to assess the risks and benefits of a confusing, unaccountable, generally private system pieced together state by state for the care of our littlest and most vulnerable children. In essence, giving birth or adopting a child in America means you also take on the job of government regulator. It’s an impossible task, with occasionally tragic consequences.

In 2013, a day-care worker in Mississippi handed a ten-week-old baby boy over to his father at pickup time without noticing that the child’s skin was blue and he was unresponsive. The father directed the staff to call 911 while he performed CPR — none of the staff knew how — and his son was finally rushed to the emergency room, where he died. After an investigation, the state concluded that the childcare center met all legal requirements for operation. It remains open.

In 2014, Kellie Rynn Martin suffocated at the age of three months in a day-care center run out of a middle-class suburban home in South Carolina, where her mother suspects she was put to sleep in a bassinet with a blanket or even another infant. When forensics searched the house, they found fourteen children playing “the quiet game” in the eighty-five-degree basement under the supervision of the owner’s daughter. In an interview, Martin’s mother stressed that the day-care owner’s home had appeared clean and the owner appeared competent when she toured the program only a few weeks earlier.

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#politics #the left #jacobin #jacobin magazine #universal social programs #child care #day care #universal pre k

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golicit · 6 years

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Top Takeaways from our 28th Annual Labor & Employment Law Seminar

Another successful seminar in the books! Thank you to the nearly 400 attendees who came from near and far. We hope you enjoyed the day and that our presentations provided timely, relevant and valuable insight.

Congratulations to our blog contest winners! You will receive complimentary registrations to our 2019 Seminar.

Monelle Petgrave, Amadeus North America

Dawn Gevat, JCD Sports Group

The top takeaways from each of our sessions:

Lisa Berg: You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know About the ADA

ADA prohibits discrimination against qualified individuals on the basis of a disability in regard to hiring, firing, advancement, and other terms and conditions of employment; and requires covered employers to provide reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities absent undue hardship.

The definition of “disability” should be interpreted broadly.

Update job descriptions.

Generally, employee must request an accommodation (e.g., informing employer that an adjustment or change is needed at work because of a “medical condition”).

Interact before you act!

Employer should initiate interactive process by having an expeditious, meaningful dialogue with the employee. “How can I help you?”

Employer has an obligation to provide an effective accommodation, not necessarily the one the employee most wants.

Don’t forget GINA safe harbor language when requesting medical information from the employee.

Employer never needs to provide indefinite leave as a reasonable accommodation.

Eleventh Circuit rejects EEOC’s position and holds that ADA doesn’t require reassignment to a vacant position without competition.

Document good faith efforts to reasonably accommodate.

Bob Turk: 15 Ways to Ensure You Have the Perfect Lousy Supervisor

Hiring a lousy supervisor is easy. Finding a grade-A supervisor takes much more effort.

A lousy supervisor can be detrimental to your organization in many ways:

Infighting

Lower productivity and profitability

Increased turnover

Workplace sabotage

Unionization

Employee mutiny

A catalyst for legal claims

Calls to the DOL

Avoid hiring horrible managers by:

Performing a thorough background check

Structuring your interview process

Reviewing the application form/questionnaire

Following up with references

Working with HR during the hiring process

Completing pre-employment testing

If you already employ a horrible manager, all is not lost. There are many strategies that can improve management performance and help create a positive working environment:

Proper training for supervisors

Offer feedback or an evaluation from management

Avoid overwhelming the supervisor

Janet Goldberg McEnery & Bayardo Aleman: Investigating Harassment Complaints Post Weinstein – Are You Prepared?

As the flurry of media coverage has brought to the forefront, the consequences of sexual harassment in the workplace are serious and far-reaching. Employers have the responsibility of maintaining a harassment-free workplace. Now is a good time to “reboot” your policies and take active steps to ensure compliance, including conducting thorough investigations.

Kara Nickel & Joanne Schiffer: Substance Over Forms: FMLA and I-9

FMLA: The FMLA poster must be visible to employees and In the Notice of Eligibility and Rights & Responsibilities form, make sure to check all relevant boxes and do not give inconsistent information about the use of paid leave time during FMLA (it is either required or the employee’s choice, don’t select both options). If the health provider certification is insufficient or incomplete, prepare a specific description of the deficiencies and attach it to the Designation Notice to request more information.

I-9: Fill it out on the first day of employment. Inspect original documents, even for remote employees. Exercise caution if using a prefilled form from a software program as the information may no longer be accurate.

Ingrid Ponce & Giselle Gutierrez Madrigal: All Rise! Decisions that are Changing the Way You Do Business

Be careful when relying on prior salary to set a new salary; make sure to conduct an equal pay analysis of employees at least on an annual basis.

One-time sexual advances can serve as the basis of a retaliation claim; make sure you train your managers to know that what happens outside of work can still bind the company.

We caution against conducting surveillance of employees on FMLA leave and especially without an objective reason to do so.

Remember that requests for a reasonable accommodation for religious reasons require the same interactive process as requests under the ADA. Unless the request poses an undue burden, the employer may have to accommodate.

Settling claims under the FLSA can be tricky. Make sure you consult with employment counsel to ensure your company is protected.

Emoji’s are invading your workplace. Make sure your policies are updated and your supervisors understand that not all emoji’s are harmless.

Andrew Rodman & Eric Roth: LGBTQ: The Issues, the Law, the Reality, and the Decisions Florida Employers Must Make

Train managers and employees on sexual orientation, gender identity and transgender-related issues.

Review/revise policies (e.g., harassment/discrimination, dress code).

Be aware of and comply with applicable state and local non-discrimination laws where your business has operations.

Be consistent in all hiring and employment decisions – based on performance and merit, not on gender stereotypes or other discriminatory factors.

Investigate claims of discrimination or harassment promptly. Be sensitive to gender discrimination issues such as bullying and other unprofessional behavior.

Be sensitive and accommodating: create an open atmosphere and develop goodwill among your employees.

Rene Ruiz & Laura Farinas: Nose Out of Joint? What’s the Law on Joint Employer Status?

Although the new administration is likely to narrow the recently broadened definition of “joint employer,” in the meantime, employers must review their practices to ensure consistency with the current NLRB standard. Most importantly, employers should confirm that they are not exercising or reserving control over essential work terms such as hiring, firing, discipline, exclusivity, or other job specifics.

Glenn Rissman & Elitsa Yotkova: From a 1990 Wheelchair to the 2018 Website: The ADA & Technology-Related Accommodations

When an employer thinks of a workplace accommodation, they may first think of lifting restrictions, or a modification of work duties or a policy. However, with the greater role of technology in all that we do, we anticipate that employers will start receiving requests (and lawsuits) relating to the accessibility of workplace software applications, online forms and web-based training. Employers should be prepared to offer technological accommodations or modify policies to allow an employee to do things “old school.” Similarly, employers may experience a surge in requests to bring an animal to work as an accommodation. Make sure to engage in the interactive process with the employee to identify a reasonable accommodation and remember that, if multiple reasonable accommodations are available, the employer gets to decide which reasonable accommodation to adopt.

Sharon Quinn Dixon, Carol Myers & Andrew McLaughlin: Another ERISA Fiduciary Duty? Protecting Your Benefit Plan’s Confidential Information

Employers must take affirmative steps to protect participant data; doing nothing or relying on either company procedures, or plan providers is not adequate.

Vendor procedures and vendor service contract obligations are essential to plan cyber protection.

Prudent cyber procedures must include frequent and repeated employee training as well as regular and frequent updates to policies and procedures.

If you have any follow up questions for one of our presenters, do not hesitate to contact us.

Today we are hosting our first annual labor seminar in Tampa with similar topics. We can’t wait to see what next year will bring!

Top Takeaways from our 28th Annual Labor & Employment Law Seminar published first on

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simonconsultancypage · 6 years