Dear U.S. Senate Workplace Flexibility Study Group; Love Gen Y
Senator Christopher J. Dodd looking daper via Wikipedia
About a month ago, out of the blue, Astri and I received an email signed by six senators. Sure, the email was undoubtedly written by staffers, but it’s not everyday that I see the words “Sincerely, Senator Christopher J. Dodd” and co. in my Gmail. The letter was regarding the work of the bipartisan U.S. Senate Workplace Flexibility Study Group, which has been meeting since August 2008 to “explore different aspects of workplace flexibility and study relevant data, policy models, and case studies in the public and private sectors.” Having looked over the “data” and the “models,” the committee is now interested in hearing from the people who will actually be affected by potential policy changes: employers, employees, working families, children, older workers, military families, and the disabled, etc. Call me crazy, but perhaps this should have been the first step.
I don’t mean to sound ungrateful! We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to offer our two cents (“a short policy statement, not to exceed two, single-spaced pages”) on behalf of Gen Y:ers. Here are the recommendations we have so far. We’d love some feedback and suggestions.
1) Affordable health care that is not tied to an employer. Too many young people feel like they have to get a job that provides health benefits. Given the outrageous cost of individual plans, many are right. But when health care benefits are a significant reason for taking a job, the American economy suffers because the job market is not a free market. Young people are not going into the fields and workplaces that are the most attractive to them; they are signing up with companies that offer good health insurance. Certainly, very few young people can afford to be entrepreneurs or freelancers because they cannot bear the financial burden of securing personal health care. This system is stifling job choice, creativity, and economic innovation.
2) Six months of paid parental leave for each parent. Paid parental leave is essential to keep young women in the workforce and ensure that they have the same opportunities for job promotions and growth. Female employees are integral to the American workplace. Studies show that having women in top positions improves the profitability of businesses. Yet women are often pushed out of the workplace by inflexible policies when they have children (be it completely leaving the workplace if they can afford to rely on their partner’s income alone, or pushed into a “mommy-track” of part-time and less well-paid work). Furthermore, the new generation of men wants to be more intimately involved in raising their children; and studies show that children who have close relationships with their fathers enjoy a wide-range of benefits. By providing six months of paid parental leave to both men and women, the federal government can help mothers and fathers provide their young children with an excellent start in life, as well as ensure that women and men can be productive and successful employees in the future. Providing an equal amount of parental leave to men and women also minimizes the gender discrimination that goes both ways: for women, that they are flight risks to the company because they are the ones assumed to be primary caretakers; for men, that they don’t have an equal right to be caretakers of their own children, thus reinforcing the pressure to be sole breadwinners.
3) Provide affordable child care options. The vast majority of American parents work. Child care during working hours is a necessity. Currently, it is of extremely variable quality, wherein the wealthy have access to better care than parents with modest incomes. Many parents cannot afford child care at all, which either means that children go unsupervised or that one parent, usually the woman, cannot be a contributing member of the paid workforce. Government supported child care would increase child care accessibility. Done correctly, it can also improve quality (see, for example, the public child care system in France). Public child care need not mean the expansion of child care centers, if that isn’t what the public wants. For example, in Sweden the government provides parents with a subsidy to hire a child care worker to provide child care for several families in the home of one of the families. For Gen Y men and women, who have a strong desire to be both productive workers and present parents, affordable and quality child care is a vital part of the equation.
4) Provide employees with paid sick leave to care for themselves and family members. As the recent 2009 H1N1 Flu outbreak vividly demonstrated, too many workers cannot afford to stay home from work when they are sick. This is a dire public health concern. Furthermore, the children or elder parents of employees get sick from time to time. Employees should not be forced to chose between providing care for family members or keeping their jobs. Not providing paid sick leave causes employee stress and financial repercussions that ultimately spill over to employers and the economy. Of the top 20 economies in the world, the United States is the only one that does not have a national standard for paid sick days. Congress should fully support and pass the Healthy Families Act, which would guarantee workers up to seven paid sick days a year.
5) Provide all employees with paid vacation. America currently boasts a business climate where it is looked favorably upon employees who don’t take advantage of the full vacation granted to them. This is a shortsighted perspective. If all workers are ensured a certain amount of vacation time, and are encouraged to take it, the American economy may well enjoy a boost in happier, more creative and more productive workers. This is especially true of Generation Y, who has made it clear that work-life balance is a priority.
6) Provide companies with incentives to establish flexible work arrangements like flexible hours, telecommuting, and compressed work weeks. Successfully balancing work and family life requires flexibility. The current rigid 9 to 5+, five-day-a-week work model, which inadvertently prioritizes face-time over efficiency, is outdated. It simply doesn’t take into consideration workers with family responsibilities, thereby losing the full participation of a big chunk of the workforce. Gen Y workers, in particular, have grow-up in a wireless world—it’s time for workplaces to catch up with the changing world and worker.
Noticed how we even referred to the Swine Flu as the “2009 H1N1 Flu.” Hope that gets us some points.
Help us out. Comments and suggestions are very welcome.
- Liz
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I applaud your enthusiasm but I’m not sure congress is right place for some of these measures. I believe mandating employers to give 6 months leave, sick time and vacation time is simply going to hurt many medium and small business. You should check out the discussions the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) has been having with Congress over Mandatory Paid Sick leave…it really is a tough issue not one easily solved (http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-8559-Job-Search-Examiner~y2009m6d21-Interview-with-SHRMs-China-Gorman-Workplace-flexibility)
And if everyone is given 6 months parental leave paid, and businesses have to pay for the replacements for those people during that 6 months – who will pay for all of that? Will it be up to the business owner? The taxpayers? And how do you control the parents who take 6 months paid leave and then don’t return to work at all (which currently occurs with maternity leave regularly). Do you ask them to repay that money?
Subsidized childcare would be nice…but again who pays, and as childcare workers are some of our lowest paid “professionals” in this country. In fact these workers are some of the ones you speak of that cannot afford childcare for themselves…what do you do about that? Do you raise the rates they get paid and subsidize?
I think encouraging more flexibility at work so parents can come and go as needed to attend to family is a much better solution. I think “mandating” without thoughts of how to pay for those measures is doomed to fail.
Points taken. As the current health care debate shows, cost is always a major issue. But somehow the federal government finds ways to pay for many costly endeavors, like wars and bank bailouts. I happen to think funding measure like parental leave and child care, which will actually give back to our economy in the long run, is worthwhile and entirely possible. Almost all Western European countries can do it–why can’t the world’s richest nation do it, too?
In response to another comment. See in context »Europe can do it because that’s their system – socialism – take care of all including retirement and unemployment with greater taxes. That is not our system…and the government is not paying for the war…we are, you are and your children will be. It’s part of the largest budget deficit in history!
As a fellow Gen-Yer, I appreciate seeing others around my age take an active interest in work/life balance issues!
First, I would encourage you to say which companies/researchers did studies that show support for your arguments. It is one thing to say fathers want to be more involved and there are benefits to this, but if you can add a well-respected source to back up this thought it will add credibility.
Second, I agree with LeanneCLC’s sentiments about who will pay for the parental leave. If this were implemented at the Federal level, Congress will have to come up with a way to ensure this is funded. If you have concrete, well-researched ideas as to how this could be possible (without the taxation system of Sweden), then you should state that in your argument.
Things to think about, would this paid time off run concurrent with FMLA so that time is taken all at once or can the 6 months be taken intermittently within a specific length of time? If it is in addition to the 12 weeks (unpaid) provided by FMLA, would the employee be guaranteed their position or a similar one upon their return? Would parents be allowed leave on an annual basis or with the birth of each child? Further, would all employers be required to provide this or only those with 50+ employees? Would employers have to pay into a federal or state disability insurance plan (how would this affect many non-profits and some government employers who may not pay into this?)
Third, we do have government supported childcare…it just needs an overhaul. I encourage you to read the testimony given by Heather Boushey to the EEOC on 4/17/07 for more information on several of your points (several great testimonies given at this meeting!) Specific to childcare, she states “There are some government child care subsidies available to low-income parents but research has found that many children eligible for child care subsidies do not receive them, with only about 15 percent of children eligible for federal child care assistance actually receiving any funds (Administration for Children and Families 1999). The United States spend less than one half of one percent of its budget on child care programs.”
I believe that there are many changes that need to happen within the US and our mindset of work/life balance, but I don’t know that all of these changes at the Federal level are the best solution.
Thanks for your detailed comments. I’ll try to respond to some of your concerns.
1) You called us out. No citations here. In our defense, the policy statement had to be under two pages. But I’m happy you asked! As for the studies about the benefits of involved fatherhood, here is a review of the literature from the Sloan Work and Family Network:
“Preschool children with fathers who perform 40% or more of the within-family child care show more cognitive competence, more internal locus of control, more empathy, and less gender stereotyping than preschool children with less involved fathers (Lamb et al., 1987; Pleck, 1997). Adolescents with involved fathers are more likely to have positive developmental outcomes such as self-control, self esteem, life skills, and social competence, provided that the father is not authoritarian, violent, or overly controlling (Mosley & Thomson, 1995; Pleck & Masciadrelli, 2003).”
2) As for funding of parental leave, economist Heather Boushey (who you mentioned with regard to child care, which I’ll get to next) suggests making it part of Social Security. The additional tax would be very minimal (about three-tenths of a percent! Nothing like the Swedish-like tax burden that leanneclc fears) and the infrastructure already exists. Her full report can be found in our headline grabs (the article is called “Helping Breadwinners When It Can’t Wait”).
3) Yes, we have some government supported child care, but as you mention it is only for low-income families. What we need is a universal child care system. Currently, precisely because government supported child care is only for low-income families, public child care is highly stigmatized. That really should not be the case.
Finally, I’m glad you agree that many changes are necessary. I don’t think you should underestimate the role the federal government should play, however. Frankly, the current system of work/life support in this country is piecemeal and insufficient. The federal government has the power to change that for everybody– not just a few lucky employees at a few companies or a few lucky citizens of a few states.
In response to another comment. See in context »American exceptionalism lives. When developed nations like Canada, France, Germany and many others have been able to figure out and successfully address many of these issues, every baby step here toward significant policy change — yes, some of which would require additional taxes or financial penalties to employers and employees — reveals many Americans deeply resistant to them.
Look at what this nation spends on defense and, I agree with you, maybe there’s a few places to squeeze an additional billion or so for different social needs.
As someone who grew up in Canada (health care is government-supplied cradle to grave with no link whatsoever to employment, where women have six months’ paid maternity leave), I’ve seen the benefits firsthand.
One-third of Americans now work temp, freelance, contract, perma-temp — left to their own devices to find and pay for: sick days, vacation, health insurance. I see little attention paid to our specific needs, while we individually represent millions of votes.
What seems to happen in the U.S. is a knee-jerk suspicion of any new tax and any service(s) provided by and controlled by government.
Caitlin, thank you for your insightful comment- I couldn’t agree more. As a Swede having lived a large part of my life in the US, it has always been difficult for me to understand the American resistance to provisions that would actually help them. I wonder if the certain shift in attitude that we’ve seen in the wave of Obama-enthusiasm may eventually also open American minds to this kind of change.
- Astri