Is family leave enough?
Buell, John
John Buell IS FAMILY LEAVE ENOUGH? Not by a long shot In the weeks after President Bill Clinton's re-elec-tion, we have once again heard that American citizens always vote their pocketbooks. To...
...More surprising, perhaps, there is even less reason to believe that his proposals would make much difference in the lives of most working Americans...
...But it was also obvious that many citizens are increasingly disturbed about the ways "getting and spending" control their lives and make worthwhile family and community life difficult...
...As always, one wonders if Clinton will stick with his campaign proposals come January...
...f such an agenda...
...Or threaten the boss with a suit if your request is refused...
...Perform an intellectual experiment...
...A large majority of workers would also like to be able to negotiate the reduction of work hours-rather than simply being paid more-as the productivity of their businesses increase...
...Adequate family leave and overtime policies are a first step...
...At this time, we are not pursuing either course with regard to a host of violations of overtime and occupational-safety laws...
...I am not arguing that law is powerless to address social problems...
...For in truth, workers are unlikely to gain more time off, more economic security, or more flexibility in the use of their time until they achieve more power in the workplace...
...Or workers and grassroots activists can strive both to organize workers and foster a legal climate more congenial to democratic unions...
...President Clinton desperately needs an issue to show that he is empathetic with the concerns of working-class families...
...And to be honest, there is little reason to believe that Clinton will push this issue forcefully...
...Clinton needs to champion, much more publicly than he has so far, an independent union movement and its right to organize in support of such an agenda...
...Or perhaps you live this experiment...
...Eighty-five percent of workers want to choose their own representatives to worker-management committees and more than three-quarters of them believe that an active and independent worker voice in training, the selection of technology, and safety policy will improve corporate performance...
...Business interests frequently harp on the limits of detailed, bureaucratic, one-size-fits-all approaches to issues such as occupational health and working hours...
...Indeed, the lack of any tangible impact on the workplace from the Family Leave Act is a major reason why the business lobby did not press Bob Dole to make opposition or repeal of the law a centerpiece of his campaign...
...You are a junior-level technician or a secretary at a factory or retail outlet...
...The most recent detailed study of work practices, the federal government's own 1994 Worker Representation and Participation Survey, showed that nearly two-thirds of workers want more say in on-the-job decisions...
...Full-time U. S. workers now toil on average a month more per year than they did a generation ago...
...For the most part, these workers would have been granted leave without the law...
...Up to a point, they have a point...
...With a more level playing field on the shop floor, detailed rules are less necessary and retaliation against those who report gross abuses either to management or government is less likely...
...Your spouse has just developed a serious medical condition and could use help around the house for a few months...
...A reliance on sweeping governmental mandates to effect social change has obvious limitations...
...Advocates for families, unions, and other progressive forces should demand more...
...To be sure, secure jobs were a major concern of the electorate...
...It allows Clinton, who has a hard time saying the word "union," to express concern for the plight of workers without challenging the corporate economy that creates the problem in the first place...
...I know of no comprehensive study of family-leave practices, but the consensus of experts is that relatively few American workers have availed themselves of the law...
...Federal laws protecting workers become virtually meaningless unless we are willing to pursue one of two courses of action...
...Workers want something more than employer-sponsored suggestion boxes or "quality circles" where management chooses employer representatives and limits the topics under discussion...
...Currently the law allows workers to take twelve weeks of unpaid leave to care for a sick relative...
...But four years after the passage of the initial legislation, the facts tell a different story...
...The president responded fliply: "Where I come from, they call that a high-class problem," and went on to suggest that workers should be grateful for the overtime hours...
...Even if you are fortunate enough to be able to get along without your salary, will you ask your boss for the time off...
...Government can fund extensive and intrusive enforcement mechanisms...
...I suspect that most employees now taking leaves are either so indispensable that employers don't want to risk alienating them, or work for one of those few businesses in which workers and management have negotiated genuinely cooperative agreements on such issues...
...Responding to these concerns will require some major changes in how we run our economy, something current corporate and political leadership-including Bill Clinton-is unlikely to promote...
...The New York Times recently reported that the number of families unable to take any vacation last year increased to 38 percent, a 4-percent rise...
...Predictably, Clinton's reading of the public mood changed as the 1996 election approached...
...It is important to take a look at the effects of previous legislative efforts on family leave and working hours...
...Last July he asked Congress to expand the Family and Medical Leave Act...
...I support the Family Leave Act...
...Workers are smart enough to know that they are one downsizing away from the loss of a job and that their record in management's eyes will determine if they survive the next reorganization...
...Other studies indicate the longer work week has substantially eroded volunteer support for a range of charitable activities and other civic associations essential to healthy community life...
...In 1992 and '93, Congressional liberals trotted out stories of bereft families who would be saved by family-leave legislation...
...During a state visit to Canada early in his first term, President Clinton was asked about the many hours of overtime U. S. and Canadian auto workers are frequently forced to work...
...But strengthening family leave is just a quick fix...
...But if business is genuinely interested in greater flexibility and not merely looking for an excuse to abandon workers and families, it would join labor and progressive groups in support of a more independent voice for workers on the shop floor...
...In July Clinton argued for employees to be guaranteed an additional twenty-four hours of unpaid leave a year to attend to any family concern...
...The Wall Street Journal suggested that the president, who waited until Democrats were in the minority to introduce such legislation, merely used it on the campaign stump "to prove his affinity with the concerns of average working families...
...The Employer Policy Foundation, an employer-supported think tank, recently estimated that workers would gain an additional $19 billion a year if businesses merely stopped violating long-standing regulations on overtime pay...
...But laws are rarely more than wish lists if they are not the product of grassroots and rank-and-file social movements that are committed to the law's enactment and able to play some role in its implementation and enforcement...
...Business lobbyists made dire forecasts about the loss of U. S. competitiveness as a consequence of "tying the hands" of management...
Vol. 123 • December 1996 • No. 22
