Reich's cabinet leave
ROSEN, HARVEY S.
Reich's Cabinet Leave by Harvey S. Rosen Robert Reich, the Clinton administration's forceful and feisty secretary of labor, resigned after the election, citing the conflicting demands of work and...
...A first step was the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act, which requires employers with 50 or more workers to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to employees for the purpose of caring for their families...
...I've done that, and I'm scheduled to the teeth...
...In such an environment, forcing employers to provide leave to employees is inimical to the proper functioning of the organization...
...Mean Bosses, because they are mean, do not...
...The policy implications are clear: A just nation must pass laws to make the Mean Bosses act like the Nice Bosses...
...You're inevitably shortchanging one or the other, or both...
...They did...
...Nice Bosses, because they are nice, give their employees time off to visit sick parents, be with their children, and take their dogs to the vet...
...Thus, we are presented with a puzzle: Why didn't Reich stay in the cabinet and periodically absent himself to be with his wife and children...
...Reich and his peers should learn from their own experiences that laws forcing businesses to adopt burdensome flexible leave policies are misconceived...
...Finding a better balance...
...he said...
...This simple-enough observation leads us to a view of the labor market more realistic than the Nice Boss-Mean Boss prejudice...
...And surely Bill Clinton falls into the Nice Boss category...
...At the least, their scope should not be widened...
...Workers who care a lot about flexibility gravitate toward jobs that provide it by paying a lower wage to cover the costs of flexibility...
...The labor market is like a marriage market: Individuals with common needs search for each other and then come together...
...I had to choose...
...This episode is quite revealing in view of Reich's idea of employer-worker relations...
...This is the model that explains the behavior of Secretary Reich, who is now apparently seeking a better match in the labor market...
...I've been kidding myself into thinking there is one...
...There's no way of getting work and family into better balance," he said...
...The truth is that, even for those in less fancy jobs, absence from the workplace imposes costs on employers and fellow workers...
...These varying arrangements are consequences of economic and technological factors, not the propensities of bosses to be nice or mean...
...Your vote will decide...
...Harvey S. Rosen is a professor of economics at Princeton University...
...But they [employee- and parent-hating Republicans] don't...
...Perhaps he believes that only cabinet secretaries are essential to their jobs and that the rest of us can take time off without unduly disrupting things at work...
...Reich's Cabinet Leave by Harvey S. Rosen Robert Reich, the Clinton administration's forceful and feisty secretary of labor, resigned after the election, citing the conflicting demands of work and family...
...Furthermore, "don't tell me to improve my time-management skills...
...Of course, some firms find it easier than others to shuffle things around when a worker disappears for a while...
...The obvious fact is that, even in a large enterprise with a lot of other employees and a sympathetic boss, it is not always possible to fill in for someone who takes a few days off, or even a few hours...
...But Reich felt he had to quit...
...Will you seize the day tomorrow and help us expand family leave...
...At a boisterous rally in Cleveland the day before the election, he declared, "I want to expand [family leave] because I think you ought to be able to take a little time off to go see your children's teachers twice a year and take your kids to the doctor...
...The president seeks to extend provisions of the act to include activities such as attending parent-teacher conferences...
...And workers who don't care much about flexibility end up at jobs where there is little allowance for taking time off...
...After all, he presumably has a bevy of very competent undersecretaries, assistant secretaries, deputy assistant secretaries, and the like to fill in for him during his occasional trips home to catch some quality time with his family...
...He and the administration act like there are two kinds of employers: Nice Bosses and Mean Bosses...
Vol. 2 • December 1996 • No. 14
