H.R. 626 (sponsored by Rep. Carolyn Maloney/Oversight and Government Reform Committee) passed the House by a vote of 258-154 last week.  Congresswoman Maloney is an advocate for federal employees to have paid parental leave. While this is not directly one of NCPA's Family Policy Center issues, it may mean the whole "leave" issue/debate will get traction which could include the private sector being mandated to do the same.

Currently, federal employees are guaranteed 12 weeks of unpaid leave for the birth or adoption of a child.  HR 626 would allow federal employees to substitute 4 weeks of paid leave and expands coverage to foster children as well.  It is estimated by the Congressional Budget Office that this bill will cost roughly $1 billion over the next five years.  This bill pertains ONLY TO FEDERAL EMPLOYEES.  At a time when all families are struggling to find and keep jobs, should the private sector be asked to pick up the tab for a benefit that many of them do not have?  This bill now heads to the Senate. 

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Mother's Day is a time to celebrate family whether it is being a daughter, wife, mother, sister, aunt or grandmother.  We need to celebrate the tremendous impact women are having in our communities, on our economy and within our families.

This Mother's Day our policy makers can give all mothers, especially working moms, a lasting gift – policies that make balancing work and family easier.

More and more women are successfully balancing work and family – many because they have to, some because they want to.  In 1955 only 27 percent of mothers in the workforce had kids under the age of 18, today that number is over 70 percent. 

For the first time in our country's history women outnumber men in the US workforce.  And, despite tough economic times, women business owners, remain optimistic about the future and are more inclined to expand their business.

Unfortunately while the demographics of our workforce are changing, our current laws and public policies are not.  Many of our labor policies are too outdated and too stringent for our 21^st Century workforce. 

One of the best gifts we can give mothers is more time.  More time with family, more time to run errands, more time to attend a soccer game or care for a sick parent.   But right now our federal laws make it more difficult for employers to offer working parents the flexibility they need in today's workforce.

Federal laws prevent private sector employers from providing working parents the type of workplace flexibility that could allow families more time to care for an elderly relative or meet the needs of their kids.  Legislation is needed to allow employers to offer their employees the option of taking "comp" time in lieu of overtime pay.  This is a benefit that federal employees have enjoyed for over three decades.  It is time to let all employees have this option.

In addition to flexible schedules, mom's need more flexible benefits.   Working parents, especially women, are forced to make difficult choices when it comes to their careers.  Many parents have to chose between a full-time position with full benefits but a 9-5 (or longer) straight jacket schedule versus taking a more flexible, part-time position but forgoing many of the benefits.   Policy makers should make it easier for employees to trade taxable wages for workplace benefits like health care or retirement.  Policy makers should realize that our tax code makes this difficult.   

Most of the new, small businesses started in the US are run by women.  We need policies that encourage our small businesses to invest in their employees, communities and grow their business.   Policymakers should think twice about expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act (as is being proposed) and reduce the urge to increase taxes on small businesses.  The President's budget would increase taxes on those making $250,000 or more a year.  Many small businesses who report income from sole-proprietorships, partnerships, and S-corporations on individual tax returns would be subjected to this tax increase. 

Finally, we need more portable benefits.  Policy makers should allow people to carry their health insurance from job to job (even while they are unemployed or temporarily out of the workforce) and allow small businesses to cross state lines to purchase a health care plan that works best for their employees.

The best gift our lawmakers can give mothers this Mother's Day is to recognize we need to update our labor laws to reflect the many changes we have seen in the workplace.  Those policy changes should be flexible, personal, voluntary, portable and above all fair.  I hope by Mother's Day 2010 we will make some progress on these important issues and allow Mom the flexibility she needs .

Good, bad, or indifferent?  I had the opportunity to talk about Congressman Hoyer’s (D) Four Day Work Week proposal last week while I was in Washington, D.C.  I sure don’t want to throw cold water on federal government workers having a three day week-end; however, can they supply the services to American citizens in a 10 hour day, four day week?  Will it withstand the time economically and what kind of hardships will it bear for 10 hour days at child care facilities?  Check out the link to view the ABC News 8 broadcast Sept. 8, 2008:

http://cfc.news8.net/videoondemand.cfm?id=22363

Neese Challenges House Majority Leader on Workplace Flexibility

Terry Neese, a Distinguished Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, says a four-day work week proposal from U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md) won’t help most Americans. Hoyer has asked the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to analyze the transition to a four-day work week for federal employees.

“There are 1.8 million federal employees and 154 million workers in the U.S.,” Neese said. “That means there are about 152 million people who, because of arcane labor laws, don’t have the same opportunity for a flexible work week.”

To contact Terry Neese, call the National Center for Policy Analysis at 972-308-6481.

Yesterday, Associated Press reported on a study that showed that 4 out of 5 workers are not saving enough for retirement and that women are at a significant disadvantage in this area. (http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/25480689/). The study, done by Hewitt Associates, showed that while both men and women contribute to retirement plans, women have an 8% greater shortfall in savings. Why are women at such a disadvantage? The study answers this question with the wage differences of men and women, as well as a longer lifespan. However, the study stands out in its acknowledgement of a lesser-realized reason for the retirement savings difference: "women tend to be in and out of the work force more frequently for family reasons, leading to breaks in savings."

But the real reason that women are at a disadvantage for saving for retirement is because our tax and labor laws make it that way. Women work part-time at a much higher rate than men because of care-giving responsibilities for children or elderly family members. Working part-time gives them more flexibility to raise children and care for their families' needs. However, part-time workers are less likely to qualify for employer-provided insurance. When this happens, they are forced to purchase their own health insurance outside the workplace, which our tax laws discourage through much higher tax burdens. Women are also more likely to switch jobs than men because of care-giving responsibilities, which lead to either a complete loss of benefits or, at the least, a significant decrease of benefits.

Kim Strassel, editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal and co-author of NCPA's book Leaving Women Behind, points out that "our major economic institutions – including tax law, labor law, and employee benefits law, as well as Social Security, and retirement policies – were designed for families with a full-time worker and a stay-at-home spouse. By comparison, they punish every other arrangement."

The National Center for Policy Analysis has long recognized this need of the modern workforce. Are there solutions to fix this problem so that women can save for retirement, just as easily as men? Absolutely! We need to update tax and labor laws so that they are applicable to today's working people. We need to, at the minimum:

• Allow part-time workers to accept lower wages in exchange for health care benefits;
• Create a level playing field under the tax law so that people that purchase health insurance on their own obtain just as much tax relief as people who get health insurance through their employer; and
• Create portable health and retirement benefits, so that people are not penalized when they switch jobs.

Why can't we allow these women to have portability, security, and flexibility now?! You tell me!

by Terry Neese

Our founding fathers believed in the American Dream, where all were given the opportunity to succeed through hard work.  Benjamin Franklin said that "energy and persistence conquer all things" Unfortunately, for many, our laws, that were originally crafted to protect the family and the work ethic, now prevent that principle being true today. 

Today, despite the evident and abundant blessings of liberty, America's labor laws aren't working well — for men or women. They simply don't reflect the needs of today's workers.

Beth Shulman, in her 2005 book, The Betrayal of Work, had some harsh words about today's reality: "For generations, Americans shared a tacit understanding that if you worked hard, a livable income and basic securities were to be yours. That promise has been broken and as a nation, we are living a lie."

Has the American dream become a lie?  That's harsh, but working hard is no longer enough to provide for you and your family.  Even those who work hard are having a hard time gaining basic security while they labor in the fields of the modern economy. If enough policymakers remember the principles behind our great country, and more important, the people composing it, proposals pending in Congress might, just might, be able to restore Benjamin Franklin's American dream.

For Americans, the value of work is unchanging. The satisfaction that comes from working hard and seeing a tangible result is at the center of our identities as humans.  Dignity, achievement, mutual benefit from a fair exchange in a free economy — these  needs of the American people never change. Our ability to meet those needs in the face of an ever diverse workforce unfortunately has changed dramatically since most of our labor laws were written in the 1930s.  Between 1950 and 2000, the labor force participation rate of women between 25 and 55 years of age more than doubled.  Today, more than 75 percent of these women are in the labor market.  Fewer than 12 percent of mothers with children under six were in the labor force in 1950.  Today, more than 60 percent are working. 

Today, those rigid labor laws function in ways that can deny the opportunity to attend a child's soccer game or take a parent to the doctor one week and make up the hours the following week. Women and men need the ability to bend schedules in order to care for aging parents or, increasingly, even an aging spouse.

The National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) has worked on such reforms for many years.  In "Leaving Women Behind," John Goodman, with Kimberley Strassel and  Celeste Colgan, acknowledged the needs of our changing workforce and began a push to reform labor laws. I continue to work with political leaders to promote the sensible reforms offered in the book. 

Our major economic institutions – including tax law, labor law, and employee benefits law, as well as Social Security, and retirement policies – reward families with a full-time worker and a stay-at-home spouse and punish every other arrangement. Today's employers and employees find it difficult to make any other arrangement, even though circumstances have changed.

In the Twenty-first Century economy, women and men need adaptable and flexible work schedules to allow the time and energy required to give adequate care to our children, and to support the quality of life our retired parents and loved ones need and deserve in the land of the free.  Our laws need to go back to when they allowed hard work to accomplish responsibilities both at work and at home.

One answer to the dilemma is compensatory time, better known to federal workers as "comp time." In 1995, a poll from the Employment Policy Foundation and Penn/Schoen Associates found that if they had the choice, three out of every four American workers would choose comp time instead of overtime wages. It's not surprising that support for the idea reaches 81 percent among working women, many of whom bear the primary responsibility for caregiving.

Many lawmakers have opposed making such changes in the private sector. But in 1978, Congress took an important and needed first step to change the rules to allow this flexibility for federal government workers. A recently proposed bill, H.R. 6025, would allow such flexibility and alternatives to the 40-hour work week for parents with children and caregivers for the elderly. It could shift the private sector toward greater use of compensatory time for employees who choose to take advantage of it.

There have been some recent rule changes to the overtime laws that applied to supervisory personnel. While welcome, these changes still exclude the private sector workers who most need the benefits comp time arrangements give to busy and stressed workers and their families.

America needs policies that work for people who work. American women – and all American workers — need flexibility, portability, and security in labor law and the provision of benefits.

Such reforms would be worth celebrating, in the grand tradition of our foremothers and forefathers. For a more perfect union, it's past time for comp time. 

Printed in the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram Friday, May 23, 2008

Neese: It's time for U.S. labor law to enter the 21st century

By TERRY NEESE
Special to the Star-Telegram

Work is good. The satisfaction that comes after a good day's work — and seeing a tangible result — is at the center of our identities.

But for women who work outside the home — an unusual circumstance in the 1930s, when most labor laws were written — that satisfaction can be complicated.

Rigid labor laws function in ways that can deny working women the opportunity to attend a child's soccer game or take a parent to the doctor one week and make up the hours the following week. Women need the ability to bend schedules in order to care for aging parents or, increasingly, an aging spouse. Our old-fashioned labor laws will not allow women to have this reasonable flexibility.

There's no reason to leave laws or policies in place when they impede our economic choices. Many changes are needed to bring aging institutions into sync with 21st-century life. We need to get started in making those sensible and overdue changes.

Rep. Kay Granger and other Republican members of Congress recently unveiled the American Families Agenda, which includes ideas that can help ease the regulatory burdens facing America's working people. They're not a moment too soon.

I've been blessed by the dynamism and vibrancy of the American dream. But these days, that dream is fading for some women.

In Leaving Women Behind – written by John Goodman and Celeste Colgan of the National Center for Policy Analysis and Kimberley Strassel of The Wall Street Journal – the authors confirm that current policies don't fit the common practices and practical needs of millions of American women. Our nation's employee benefit system needs to be reformed to meet the needs of women in the 21st century.

The Goodman book put an exclamation point on this. Women today, as he wrote, "sit behind more desks, drive more cranes and build more computer chips. They do these jobs for longer hours. Yet women also continue to be the primary caregivers for their families. Working mothers are 83 percent more likely to take time off to care for a child than working fathers. And home life, with its soccer practices, doctors' visits, gymnastics lessons and home repair and maintenance, is more hectic than at any time in the past."

We already know how to work hard. The question is now: How can we work smarter and still meet the needs of our families?

The answer is compensatory time, better known to federal workers as "comp time."

In 1995, a poll from the Employment Policy Foundation and Penn, Schoen & Berland and Associates found that, if given the choice, three out of every four American workers would choose compensatory time instead of overtime wages. It's not surprising that support for comp time reaches 81 percent among working women.

Many lawmakers have opposed making such changes in the private sector. However, in 1978, they changed the rules to allow this flexibility for federal workers. Such policies are common in state governments, including in my home state of Oklahoma (at least for supervisors).

Part of the American Families Agenda includes the Family-Friendly Workplace Act, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash. She wanted to make it easier for parents with young children, and/or those who are caregivers for elderly parents, to accrue "flexible credit hours" — allowing workers to bank any hours in excess of 40 in one week to use toward paid leave.

Federal workers already enjoy this benefit, just as they have their own retirement system and more healthcare options than typical private-sector workers.

Another idea in the American Families Agenda would change income tax law to permit each married partner to file income tax returns separately, without causing the lower earner to be taxed in the higher-earning partner's bracket.

I'm also enthusiastic about two other ideas that are incorporated in the agenda, as they have long been advocated by my colleagues at NCPA. One would remove current time limits on access to continuing health insurance coverage. The second would create incentives for small businesses to join forces to buy good health insurance for employees.

The thoughts featured in the American Families Agenda provide a brand-new opportunity to create a national impetus for serious reform of our current crippling laws. Even in a presidential election year, I hope that at least some of these will be a source of unity in support of working women, and all working Americans.

Terry Neese is a businesswoman in Oklahoma City and a Distinguished Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, based in Dallas.