Speech to CLUW National Executive Board and Conference on Family Issues, (26 January 1985) San Diego, CA

Speech Text

LABOR AND FAMILY ISSUES

[1] Thirty-one months ago a regional meeting of 25 union women was held in Washington, D.C. A principal task was to decide if and how they should pursue a family benefit in their upcoming negotiations despite high unemployment. They decided to go for it, mapped their strategy and returned to their hometowns to persuade members to pass local resolutions.

[2] Thirteen months ago their international union convention adopted a parental leave resolution for the first time.

[3] And four months ago an industry-wide union contract was signed, and in it was a sleeper clause.

[4] It established a union-management committee to study the issue of parental leave and report its finding on July 1, 1985.

[5] What is the union? It is the United Mine Workers: Richard Trumka is its President. How many will this clause affect? Eighty thousand; less than two percent of whom are women.

[6] Parental leave is not only a “women’s issue,” it is a family issue. There is no other way it could have come so far in so few months.

[7] Isn’t this a great story? And it’s true!

[8] It’s a model of how one union has responded to the changing needs of today’s family.

[9] And today’s family is changing. The typical nuclear American family of yesteryear—a  breadwinning father, a mother who took care of the house and two children—is today “a distinct minority (7 percent) of America’s population…” according to John Naisbett, author of the bestseller Megatrends. He adds, “… the diversity in American households of the 1980s has become a Rubik’s cube of complexity. And like Rubik’s cube, the chances of getting it back to its original state are practically nil.”

[10] Today’s family can be a single parent (male or female) with one or more children, a two-career couple with no children, a female breadwinner with a child and househusband or a blended family that consists of a previously married couple and a combination of children from those two previous marriages.

[11] Naisbett notes that “the term family is being expanded to include important relationships between people not related by blood or marriage, but by voluntary association: unmarried couples, close friends or roommates with long-standing relationships, group houses where people living together have grown into a community.”

[12] We in the labor movement must remember these new facts of life because these new family models will be with us for a long time. Unions will be as pro-family tomorrow as they have been in the past. In fact, union bargaining and lobbying efforts have advantaged not only their members and families, but all families—rich and poor, young and old, black, hispanic and all races. For example, labor has fought against child labor; and is still fighting for the reduced work week, paid holiday, vacation leave, minimum wage, health and safety, consumer and pension rights, plant closing legislation, union and employee assistance programs, publicly funded child-care programs and anti-discrimination laws, agencies and strong enforcement. Currently, labor leads the initiatives on pay equity and VDT health legislation.

[13] When labor has not been wholly successful, it has at least pricked the social conscience and responsibility of corporations and governments. This reminds me of a story about Sojourner Truth, an outstanding black woman orator in American history. As a well-known antislavery speaker, she drew her share of hecklers. One, an Ohioan who supported slavery, said to her once, “Old woman, do you think your talk about slavery does any good? Do you suppose that people care what you say? … Why, I don’t care any more for your talk than I do for the bite of a flea.”

[14] Sojourner Truth answered him, “Perhaps not, but the good Lord willing, I’ll keep you scratching.”

[15] That’s a part of labor’s role. That’s a part of ours.

[16] In regard to the new issues raised by the changing work force and family, labor’s initiatives include the full range of activity from collective bargaining to legislative, political, educational, social service and financial efforts.

[17] Unfortunately, nowhere are they all recorded.

[18] In fact, there is no clearinghouse for the many labor union initiatives currently directed toward the family and work, any more than there is for employer policies and practices or community strategies.

[19] Nevertheless, we can and will briefly highlight two issues–child-care centers and maternity/paternity leaves.

[20] One of the exciting initiatives currently underway in Washington D.C., involves more than 30 national and international unions. Their representatives have been discussing the feasibility of establishing a child care center to serve the needs of staff members of the AFL-CIO and affiliates with headquarters or offices in Washington.

[21] The child-care center being contemplated would be organized and managed by an incorporated union parent board, legally responsible for all matters associated with the operation of the center. All staff members would be unionized, of course, and all services the center required would be union-supplied.

[22] The project is being led by the AFL-CIO Department of Occupational Safety, Health and Social Security and Department of Community Services. Child-care consultant, Dan Lazorchick, has been instrumental in the talks and the YMCA of Metropolitan Washington has offered “up-front” funds on a loan basis and its technical assistance.

[23] The latest word is that the AFL-CIO and eight unions—IUE, SEIU, AFSCME, AFT, UFCW, CWA, Painters and Bricklayers—have authorized money for this project, and the goal is no longer if, but when, it can be established.

[24] At its 1983 convention, the AFL-CIO not only reaffirmed its advocacy of a federal child-care program, but urged its national and international unions to give greater emphasis and assistance through the collective bargaining process.

[25] The Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union has pioneered in the establishment of on site quality child care centers.

[26] This past year the Bureau of National Affairs (represented by The Newspaper Guild, incidentally) published a report special well-worth reading titled “Employers and Child Care: Development of a New Employee Benefit.” (It’s available from BNA for $25, (303) 258-1033.)

[27] It highlights the bargaining programs of several unions including the following:

[28] The United Auto Workers (UAW) recently negotiated a contract with American Motors Co. providing for child care at an AMC plant in Ontario, which may be a model for future contracts in the U.S. Side letters providing for establishment of joint union-management child care study committees were included in the 1981 Master Agreement between the UAW and Rockwell International Corporation, and in 1980 and 1983 contracts between the union and Douglas Aircraft Company. However, no formal studies have yet been conducted under those provisions. According to Shirley Underwood, a UAW official representing workers at that company, workers at the Douglas plant in Long Beach, Calif., have been concerned primarily about the availability of child care during evening shifts. Workers desire the company’s cooperation in identifying providers, Underwood says, but not in operating a center: “People will not bring their child to the workplace. They want their child to stay in the community.”

[29] The Newspaper Guild’s collective bargaining program requires that locals present contract proposals including a provision for employer-paid preschool and after-school care. Bargaining recommendations call for such centers to be under employee-parent control and for employee participation to be voluntary. Such a provision has not been adopted in any Guild contract. However, several Guild contracts have included provisions for feasibility studies for on-site care or other types of assistance. Newspaper Guild bargaining with a publisher in Washington, D.C., led to a joint union-management study committee, which ultimately spearheaded formation of the Metropolitan Washington Child Care Network, a coordinating umbrella for child care information and referral agencies in nearly a dozen area localities, supported by 11 area employers. A recent Canadian contract requires the employer to pay for child care while employees are on out-of-town assignments.

[30] Service Employees International Union Local 399 and Kaiser-Permanente Medical Care Program of Los Angeles agreed in 1980 to a feasibility study of child care. The study led to production of a booklet on available services. SEIU does not recommend specific contract language to locals, but in general supports establishment of joint labor-management committees on child care.

[31] The Communications Workers of America recommended prior to 1983 contract negotiations with the Bell System that the company set up, maintain, and staff child care centers for employees if there were a demand by 10 or more employees for such centers. The union also recommended that the centers be near work locations, to enable parent-child interaction during lunch or breaks. The proposal was not adopted during bargaining. John D. Abraham, associate director of the CWA’s Development and Research Department, says membership interest in child care is weak. “We’ve made a number of proposals to our delegates about it; we’ve held conferences, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of interest on the part of the rank-and-file,” he says. “We haven’t gotten rank-and-file support for the proposals, to everyone’s surprise, because of our large female membership.”

[32] The American Federation of Government Employees Local 12 in Washington, D.C., agreed with the U.S. Department of Labor to maintain a child care center at Labor Department headquarters. The agreement provides that children whose parents are not Department of Labor employees may be admitted to the center only if no employees’ children are available to fill vacancies. Each parent is allowed up to two hours of administrative leave per month to attend child care center meetings; members of the center’s governing board are permitted an additional two hours of leave monthly to attend board meetings.

[33] Another real problem that families face is the lack of leave policies in this society—described by Ellen Galinsky, Project Director of the Work and Family Life Study, at Bank Street College, as a condition that has “created a pressure-cooker situation for many parents and prospective parents.”

[34] A nationwide study of leave policies by Sheila B. Kamerman, Alfred J. Kahn, and Paul Kingston in 1983 found that only 40 percent of American women have maternity coverage and that the average leave is six to eight weeks.

[35] Another survey, however, of 253 employers concluded in June 1983 by the Bureau of National Affair’s Personnel Policies Forum, found that the most common length of maternity leave was six months; about half of the employers counted unpaid leave toward employees’ seniority and 86 percent of the 253 employers guaranteed the employees the same or a comparable job upon return from leave.

[36] It is well known that benefits in general tend to be more extensive in unionized companies than in non-unionized companies.

[37] But when one looks at what unions have achieved, again, no fully accurate picture of the availability of maternity-related benefits is available for unions.

[38] However, in my own union I know of several gains bargained in the last 18 months.

[39] Maternity leave negotiated by the Wire Service Guild for employees at the Associated Press was extended from 12 months to 18. The Cincinnati Guild bargained six months unpaid maternity leave and extended it to adoptive parents at the Cincinnati and Kentucky Post. The San Jose Guild extended its six-month unpaid maternity leave to include female adoptive parents and single male adoptive parents in a contract with the Mercury and News. The maternity and paternity provisions in the Washington Post contract with the Guild now include employees adopting children.

[40] The Guild contract at the AFL-CIO Food and Allied Services Trades Department provides for three weeks of paid maternity leave after hospitalization and an unpaid leave of up to six months, without loss of seniority of course.

[41] And as a final example, the new contract with the CWA State Worker in Pennsylvania grants employees the right to a two-year maternity or paternity leave without pay upon request.

[42] The examples cited from this union are not to suggest that it has achieved more or less than any other union. It indicates the kind of information readily available to me and more important, it exemplifies the kind of efforts being made and achieved through the power of a collectively bargained contract between the representatives of employees and their managements.

[43] I know you can think of others.

[44] And I know it is time to move on to our discussion. Perhaps you will want to also consider the three resolutions adopted at the 10th annual CLUW Convention, March 1984: that CLUW develop and print a booklet on successful union efforts to address family and work issues; sponsor a national conference; and that CLUW encourage the labor movement to develop and negotiate, through collective bargaining, benefit packages that address the needs of working parents.

[45] To these goals, CLUW is committed.

[46] There is much to discuss.

[47] There is much to share.

[48] There is much work to do.

[49] Let the recent, true story of our coal mining sisters and brothers inspire us.

[50] Let our full appreciation of the issues guide us.

[51] Let no one question the role unions will play.

[52] Labor has historically played an integral role and willingly accepted its responsibility in forging workplace practices, policies and benefits to accommodate the family. It is no less today.

[53] However, to ensure the success of labor’s and CLUW’s initiatives in meeting the challenges of a changing workplace and family, there is one vital element required. That vital element is you.

[54] Thank you for this opportunity.