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.
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Unions representing thousands of federal workers came together in DC yesterday to rally and march in protest of the continuing shutdown and resulting furloughs that are financially hurting 800,000 employees and families. The rally began at AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, D.C.
After nearly two years of unsuccessful attempts to negotiate a new contract to replace the Lab Agreement with the Broadway League, members of Actors’ Equity Association have declared a strike calling for a halt to all new show development work with members of the Broadway League.
The N.Y. Campaign for Patient Safety, a coalition of nurses, caregivers and healthcare advocates from around New York, is calling on state Senators and Assembly Members to support and pass minimum safe staffing ratio legislation in hospitals and nursing homes.
Hundreds of union construction workers from across New York took to the State Capitol in Albany this week to demand that elected officials pass a public works bill which would also designate all work at Hudson Yards as prevailing wage.
SAG-AFTRA and New York Public Radio (NYPR) this week announced that they have reached a Voluntary Recognition Agreement that will add over 25 new employees – including reporters for the news site Gothamist – to the union’s longstanding collective bargaining unit, which covers approximately 175 wo
Editorial staffers at Refinery29, a web site focused largely on Millennial women, are the latest to unionize under the Writers Guild of America East.
The city’s Housing Authority and Teamsters Local 237 have struck a deal on a new contract that will for the first time allow employees to do weekend maintenance work at NYCHA housing.
Nearly 20 union leaders were arrested and hundreds of faculty, staff and students demonstrated in the wintry cold Dec. 10 to demand full funding for the City University of New York.
Staffers at New York Magazine on Wednesday morning asked management to voluntarily recognize an editorial union, joining a host of other news and magazine organizations that have similarly unionized in recent years.