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Work Fexibility

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Submitted By katya91
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WORK & FAMILY PROGRAM
POLICY PROPOSAL
WIN-WIN FLEXIBILITY
By Karen Kornbluh* Introduction
Today fully 70 percent of families with children are headed by two working parents or by an unmarried working parent. The “traditional family” of the breadwinner and homemaker has been replaced by the “juggler family,” in which no one is home fulltime. Two-parent families are working 10 more hours a week than in 1979.1 To be decent parents, caregivers, and members of their communities, workers now need greater flexibility than they once did. Yet good part-time or flex-time jobs remain rare. Whereas companies have embraced flexibility in virtually every other aspect of their businesses (inventory control, production schedules, financing), full-time workers’ schedules remain largely inflexible. Employers often demand workers be available around the clock. Moreover, many employees have no right to a minimum number of sick or vacation days; almost two thirds of all workers – and an even larger percentage of low-income parents – lack the ability to take a day off to care for a family member.2 The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 finally guaranteed that workers at large companies could take a leave of absence for the birth or adoption of a baby, or for the illness of a family member. Yet that guaranteed leave is unpaid. Many businesses are finding ways to give their most valued employees flexibility but, all too often, workers who need flexibility find themselves shunted into part-time, temporary, on-call, or contract jobs with reduced wages and career opportunities – and, often, no benefits. A full quarter of American workers are in these jobs. Only 15 percent of women and 12 percent of men in such jobs receive health insurance from their employers.3

JUNE 2005

A number of European countries provide workers the right to a part-time schedule and all have enacted

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