Work and Family
Although the “traditional” family—a father who works outside the home and financially supports the children and a mother whose work is keeping the house and raising the children—has been disappearing for more than a generation, our workplaces and government policies have not kept pace with America’s new reality.
Most children are growing up in homes with both parents working or with single parents. One-third of workers don’t have access to paid sick leave, and only 42 percent have paid personal leave. What’s the impact on public health when working people can’t afford to take sick days during a flu epidemic? Who takes care of a sick child? Who’s home to fix dinner and help with homework? Who can dedicate time to a sick elderly parent?
The recession and jobless recovery have complicated life further for working families, when having to leave work for a family emergency could lead to long-term unemployment.
More about this issue:
As the holiday shopping season gets underway, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), has issued a statement urging workers be treated with dignity and respect from in-store shopping to e-commerce warehousing, from farm to table and everything in between:
On Wednesday, SAG-AFTRA's TV/Theatrical Negotiating Committee voted unanimously to approve a tentative agreement with the AMPTP. As of 12:01am on November 9, the 118 day long strike has been officially suspended and all picket locations are closed. From SAG-AFTRA's statement:
Thursday, November 16: Red Cup Day is Starbucks’s biggest sales event of the season - and also one of the most infamously hard, understaffed days for the baristas that work them.
A six-week wave of strikes that hobbled the three largest U.S. automakers has resulted in tentative contract agreements that, if ratified, will give autoworkers their biggest pay raises in decades.
Unionized staff of the Brooklyn Museum, members of Local 2110 UAW, have set a strike deadline and will begin picketing the Museum on Wednesday, November 8 if no agreement on a contract is reached before that date.
The Times Tech Guild – the largest union of tech workers with collective bargaining rights in the country – walked out Monday afternoon in protest of the New York Times’ flagrant disregard for their rights as union members.
Following the devastation of Hurricane Ida, the community of Cambria Heights, Queens lost a local landmark on the corner of 222nd Street and 115th Avenue. The dual archways ornamenting the sidewalks of 222nd Street are beautiful public artwork that predates most of the homeowners on the block.
Unionized workers at Scholastic – the children’s publishing powerhouse – walked off the job Wednesday in protest of the billion-dollar company’s refusal to pay its workers fair wages, specifically its rejection of the Scholastic Union’s proposal for annual raises.