9to5 Annual Leadership Conference a Success!

by Helen Bushnell, 9to5 member and activist

From April 24-27, I had the great opportunity to travel with the 9to5 Colorado Chapter to Washington, D.C. for the 9to5 Annual Leadership Conference and the Making it Work Conference, sponsored by the Family Values at Work Consortium and the National Partnership for Women and Families. The Making it Work Conference brought together activists from around the country, all working to pass workplace flexibility policies, like paid sick days, in their individual states and at the federal level.

All the events at both conferences were engaging, especially the small group activities at the 9to5 Annual Leadership Conference on Sunday. I met people from all over the country. Some of them are facing some of the same difficulties that I am. Avis Williams, a member from California, retired early a few years ago. Like me, she is now trying to get back into the US workforce after having been away from it for a while. Like me, she is not finding it easy.

Other people have different challenges. Christina DeHaro, a member from California, is a single mother who struggles with a climate that is hostile to children. She know helps single mothers speak to California’s legislators about the support that they and their children need.

Probably the most empowering part of the conference came at the end on Tuesday when all of Colorado’s members were filling the conference room in Senator Bennet’s office to talk with a staff member about work-family balance and passing legislation that helps working families. Through the Making It Work Conference, we were joined by other organizations from the Paid Sick Days Colorado Coalition. Both Bridget Kaminetsky, 9to5 staff member, and LaTerrell Bradford, 9to5 board member, talked about their personal experiences. They compared the benefits of having paid sick days with the fear that comes from being sick and not having them.

One of the participants at Monday’s Making It Work Conference mentioned that the biggest benefit to having paid sick days is not having to worry about losing her job.

I am grateful for having had the opportunity to meet people from all over the country and hear their stories, and I look forward to continued work with the 9to5 Colorado Chapter to pass paid sick days for all workers!

More Than Cards and Flowers, Mom Needs Paid Time Off

Gloria Dennis had been employed by a college in the Midwest for three years when she became pregnant. She took leave after the birth of her daughter Alicia Rae — 12 weeks, unpaid. Her co-workers showered the family with welcoming gifts. But as a new mom, what she really wanted was paid time off to care for her baby.

“My greatest joy would’ve been to stay home for a year. But there’s just no way we could have afforded that.” Instead, she took the 12 weeks unpaid leave and pieced together a total of 14 weeks by using sick days and vacation time, hoping all the while that the family had no emergencies and that no one got sick.

The predicament they faced is all too common for American families.

Most countries provide at least 10 weeks of paid leave for new mothers. Some countries provide up to a year. Only four provide no paid parental leave at all — and the United States is one of them.

But all moms should be able to stay home to care for a new baby and there is no time like the season that celebrates mothers to push paid family leave to the front burner.

The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 was a significant step forward for working families because it granted workers the right to take up to 12 weeks off to care for a new child or take care of a sick family member. Unfortunately, it also had several limitations. It applies only to workplaces with 50 or more employees, there are lots of restrictions on its use, and, worst of all, it provides only for unpaid leave. Many families cannot afford to take FMLA leave because they cannot afford the loss of income that would result.

Even for those workers who get some compensation during maternity leave — and about 16% of companies provide it — the norm tends to be a patchwork of unused sick or vacation days and a significant chunk of time unpaid, despite the obvious benefits of paid leave.

Paid family leave improves infant health. Babies have more bonding time during the period of critical early development and their mothers are more able to breastfeed, reducing childhood illness and the risk of childhood obesity. Paid family leave and time off before returning to work is also healthier for mothers.

There are benefits of paid leave beyond even motherhood. Paid family leave allows seniors and the chronically ill to be independent longer, recover faster, and stay out of nursing homes. Studies show that businesses also benefit from paid leave because it reduces turnover costs and helps workers stay attached to their jobs.

In these tough economic times, everyone is compromised by the lack of paid family leave in the U.S.

But there’s hope.

The legislatures of five states are currently exploring the possibility of employee-funded arrangements that would provide compensation to take time off to care for an ill family member or to bond with a new child. In addition, President Obama’s 2011 budget would establish a $50 million State Paid Leave Fund within the Department of Labor that would provide competitive grants to help states cover start-up costs. The Budget also provides resources to improve the collection of data related to the intersection of work and family responsibilities. It must be approved.

We get mixed messages about women, work, and family. We believe it’s in a child’s best interest to be with mother when they’re very young and we also believe it’s the responsibility of both parents to contribute to the economic well being of families. Still, we continue to hold back from putting policies in place that allow women like Gloria Dennis, who now has a second child on the way, to succeed in both the workplace and at home.

As we celebrate Mother’s Day, isn’t it time to enact policies that provide support for mothers – and fathers – who want to be both good parents and effective family breadwinners?

Isn’t it time America had a paid parental leave policy?

Linda Meric is Executive Director of 9to5, National Association of Working Women.

Closing the wage gap

Today, April 20, people across Colorado, and the nation, will observe Equal Pay Day 2010 - representing the point when women's wages finally catch up to men's wages from last year.

According to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau statistics, women who work in full-time, year-round jobs earn, on average, 77 cents to every $1 earned by men working in full-time, year-round jobs.

For women of color, the wage gap is even wider. In 2008, the earnings for African American women were 67.9 percent of men's earnings and Latinas" earnings were 58 percent of men's.

In Colorado, women's earnings generally exceed the national average by a penny or so. But this is no great cause for celebration - especially in these tough times when every penny counts. As those lost pennies add up, women and their families are being shortchanged thousands of dollars a year and hundreds of thousands of dollars over a lifetime.

Reaching pay equity means more now than ever before.

According to the Center for American Progress report, "A Woman's Nation Changes Everything," women are now the breadwinner or co-breadwinner in two-thirds of all American families. With more women in the workforce, and more families reliant upon women's paychecks to make ends meet, it's clear to see how all of us - women and men - have such a huge stake in eliminating the wage gap.

The good news is that there are pending state and federal actions that would positively impact the pay gap now.

In Colorado, we're working to establish a permanent state Pay Equity Commission. Nationally, we are hopeful for the Paycheck Fairness Act.

The statewide effort grows from the nonpartisan Colorado Pay Equity Commission, created in 2007. That Commission brought a diverse group of stakeholders together to analyze the pay gap and identify solutions. One of the key recommendations was to create a permanent Pay Equity Commission to further focus on the problem, monitor pay equity progress and work toward solutions in the state. It's anticipated that a proposal to do so will be introduced this year.

Nationally, women were earning a mere 59 cents for every $1 a man earned when the Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963. Enforcement of the Equal Pay Act, and other civil rights laws, has helped narrow the wage gap, but huge disparities remained. In 2009, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act was signed into law, helping ensure that victims of discrimination have fair access to the courts. But we're not there yet.

Additional steps are needed.

One such step, the Paycheck Fairness Act, would close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act, enhance remedies, prohibit retaliation against workers who share wage information, and provide the government with new tools to monitor and address pay inequities. Passage is critical -- particularly in these economically perilous times when the self-sufficiency of women and their families is so at risk.

LaTerrell Bradford - a Denver woman who testified about pay inequity before the Colorado Legislature - calls equal pay a "non-negotiable." She was working as part of an all-female support team when a man was hired in the same job classification. Her supervisor - a woman - discovered that he was to earn much more than any of the women were presently earning. She went to human resources and the company agreed to pay everyone at that higher rate. "It would not have been fair," Bradford says, "nor legal, to sit next to him, do the exact same work and have him be paid more."

Are women workers really worth less than men? Any American of good conscience would say "no." We must ensure that our laws and workplace practices say "no" as well by ensuring family-flexible workplace policies, basic labor standards like paid sick days and, yes, an end to the wage gap.

Women and their families just cannot afford to wait any longer. We must tighten wage disparity laws now to ensure equity for every worker.

Linda A. Meric is National Director of 9to5, National Association of Working Women.

Paid Sick Days Podcast

Check out this great podcast about the paid sick days effort in Colorado!

9to5 Colorado Board Member Rev. Dawn Riley Duval and 9to5 Colorado Organizer Erin Bennett talk about the need for paid sick days in Colorado and how guaranteeing paid sick days for all workers will ensure healthy communities, healthy families and healthy workplaces.

Why Join the Movement?

Discrimination still exists. Poverty still haunts us. Racism confronts us everyday. We still struggle for equality and justice. These and many more reasons are why we must build a movement to strengthen the lives of working families.

Members have joined 9to5 because harassment and discrimination has existed in our personal lives, and we are now looking for justice. Many people first enter 9to5’s office seeking resources in the way of a lawyer for a sexual harassment charge or are seeking advice on how to file a claim of unemployment insurance. 9to5’s staff and members can provide these resources to individuals but many are not satisfied with this answer—they want change that will last beyond the individual.

Join 9to5 today to work towards systemic change and to start to build power with others—right in your own community. We can build a movement together.

International Women's Day -- How does America Compare?

by Helen Bushnell, 9to5 member and volunteer

A couple of years ago, I was teaching English at a middle school in a small town in Korea. After I had been there a year and a half, I had to leave because my mother broke her leg. Now, if I had been Korean, I would not have lost my job because I had to go back to the US to take care of my mother for a few weeks. In Korea, family is very important, and taking off to take care of family problems is often encouraged.

In Korea, maternity leave is paid, and people can seek help through the Labor Board if they are not paid correctly, loose out on a promotion or are even fired. There is currently a greater pay gap between men and women in Korea than in the US, but there is no difference in the wages that mothers and women without children make. A Korean woman with young children is on average closer in salary to her male coworkers than an American woman.

Like most developed countries, Korea offers health care to all its citizens. This makes it easier to handle illnesses since people can see a doctor the same day they get sick without having to go to the Emergency Room.

Most European countries offer even more benefits. Many countries offer paid leave to both men and women to take care of a newborn.

Yesterday was International Women's Day -- we should all take this week to reflect on the policies in America that affect women and families and on the disparities between other countries and our own. In America, it should not be the sole responsibility of women to care for their families; men also need to step up and share in this responsibility.

In the following video, one of 9to5's members in Atlanta speaks about her efforts to get her male employees to take care of their family responsibilities.

Why is the U.S. so far behind?

by Erin Bennett, Colorado Organizer for 9to5

Today, on International Women’s Day, I’ve thought a lot about the issues we work on at 9to5, especially compared to how the rest of the developed world operates. Two particular stories come to mind…

In February of 2009, 9to5 Colorado was fortunate enough to have three visitors from a women’s organization in Osaka, Japan. They were so interested to hear about all of our work, especially around paid leave. They informed us that in Japan, women can take 3 PAID days off a month for menstruation, if they wish – so they were obviously shocked that we don’t even have a standard of paid sick days for all. They told us that not many women take advantage of this opportunity, but it is there if needed.

Paid sick days are very much the same in our own country. On average, workers who do have access to paid sick days use only a couple days a year – much less than the amount they accrue. So, why accrue so many days? Just in case, like a rainy day fund. You never know when you might get sick and need to be in the hospital, or when you might get H1N1 flu and be out of work for two weeks, or when your kids get sick and you have to stay home with them.

At the very beginning of 2010, we started a Facebook group called “Support Paid Sick Days Colorado.” A man from Germany, Karl Mund, joined our group and posted his story on our wall:

As a shop-steward for most of my work-life in Germany (East and West), I never had to argue about questions like sick leave. My father's generation already succeeded in that fight, when West Germany got a law securing fully paid sick leave for 6 weeks per year with job security.

In this respect, I consider it a shame for the State of Colorado (and similarly other US-states) if such an ultra-modest demand as yours is not met with immediate approval.

Anyway, a healthy workforce is in the own interest of employers. Were they really smart, they would put pressure on State legislature even more than you folks do in order to get a decent legislation for healthy workers in healthy workplaces!

Keep up your fight, and be sure, you have my solidarity!

As the 2010 Legislative session began, this support from someone half-way around the world was much-needed motivation! An issue that Paid Sick Days is a no-brainer for the women from Osaka and for Karl. Why can’t it be for businesses and legislators in Colorado?

Why is the U.S. the only country in the developed world without Paid Sick Days? On International Women’s Day this year, we need to look to other countries and examine why we are so behind and what we can do to catch up.