For those of you with access to Times Select, there is another excellent essay from Judith Warner letting us know that the Department of Labor is evaluating proposals to reconsider the Family and Medical Leave Act.
If you think there is a chance that the review will be nothing but cover to gut it, and Warner certainly is in that camp, you can contact the Department of Labor through February 16 through this page. This was an extension from the original request that would have ended on February 2. There was a diary about this back in December by shirah, but this is the last week to comment. If you haven't yet encouraged the Department of Labor to expand FMLA, to support American families, now is the time to do it.
Warner is concerned, as am I that this will be nothing but an excuse to undo the tiny pro-family efforts that were made with FMLA:
Many of you may already be rolling your eyes. The United States, after all, ranks as one of the world’s most backward nations when it comes to family and medical leave benefits. A recent study from the McGill University Institute for Health and Social Policy in Montreal found that of 173 countries surveyed, 168 guaranteed women paid maternity leave. The United States – along with Lesotho, Liberia, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland – was not one of them. Eighty-six million working Americans have no paid sick days to use to care for ill children, and nearly one in two workers – 59 million in all – has no paid sick leave at all. (For more sad statistics, see the McGill study [Work, Family and Equity Index: How does the US Measure Up?].)
Don't be put off by the fact that the McGill study is from a university. It's a fairly quick read, a simple paper with the sad conclusion that labor law in the United States is not pro-family. This is one area where the normally Republican-leaning religious conservatives can be pulled away from the Wall Street corner of the Republicans. Gutting FMLA can hurt families.
Remember also, that every attempt to delegitimize the rights of employees will also have a negative effect on quality health care coverage and other employee rights. FMLA isn't sufficiently established -- businesses that don't care about their employees think that they have a last chance to destroy it. Let them know otherwise.