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Sixteen hours. Sixteen hours a year. Sixteen hours a year and you'd think he was asking for the world.
Organized business's reaction to Gov. James E. McGreevey's almost embarrassingly modest proposal to allow workers 16 hours off a year to take care of their kids was as shrill as it was swift.
"Paid leave of any length sets a damaging precedent for intervention in the workplace," said the New Jersey Business and Industry Association.
There's "no evidence that a problem exists to the extent that would require a statewide mandate," declared the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce.
Okay, some of you out there have just read those quotes and you're thinking they sound pretty reasonable. Please, think again.
Juggling work and family today is a difficult, stressful thing for working people-many of whom know they are one big illness or one corporate decision to outsource overseas away from unemployment. Sixteen hours doesn't seem like a lot to tell business to provide.
Unless you think it is in your interests to exhibit knee-jerk negativity any time someone comes up with a proposal that might shift the balance of employer-employee relationships just a hair toward the worker. Businesses' position is like that of the National Rifle Association when it comes to gun control: oppose everything. Ban cop-killer bullets or assault weapons? Nope, says the NRA. Can't give government a foot in the door; next thing you know they'll want to make sure there's a better way to trace guns used in street crimes or terrorist attacks.
The track record of business is equally puzzling. Today we consider the eight-hour day, 40-hour week, unemployment insurance, Social Security and child labor laws to be mainstream protections that even the most menial of laborers deserves. And yet business lobbyists in Washington and state capitals vocally opposed every one of them. Just to take one example, the National Association of Manufacturers labeled unemployment insurance "ultimate socialistic control of life and industry."
And in the case with McGreevey's Kids Time proposal, business is so lathered up that it can't even get its arguments straight. On the same web site where the Chamber says there's little need for 16 hours off, it also argues that 475,000 employees would be affected at what the Chamber sees as the outrageously high cost of $138 million a year. Well, which is it? No one needs it, or it costs too much?
Even more baffling, the Chamber derides the proposal as discriminating against workers who don't have school-age kids. That's like saying sick leave discriminates against people who don't get sick. Then again, sick leave didn't come about because business thought it would nice to give you a break when you're ill. It was to make sure you'd stay home and not infect other workers. It was all about productivity, not compassion.
The truth is we need a lot more than what the Governor proposes. Legislation has been introduced-legislation that NJBIA boasts of keeping bottled up-that would use the existing Unemployment Insurance or Temporary Disability Insurance systems in New Jersey to provide meaningful paid leave time for people caring not only for kids but parents and other family members too. Employers and employees would both contribute to the cost. When business comes to its senses we might have an honest debate over the merits of such policies. Until then, we will listen to the doomsday ranting and shake our heads.
There was a time in American history when the word "weekend" didn't exist. That's because for workers the week never ended. We like to think we've come a long way since those days. Then we find out that Wal Mart locks cleaning crews in its stores overnight. And that the ratio of CEO pay to rank-and-file workers is at an all time high.
Yes, running a business is hard. But so is running a family. What we need here is more cooperation and less "attitude" from the folks who make the rules and write the checks. It is a legitimate, desirable function of government to look for ways to solve this problem. The way things stand now, workers lack the clout and businesses lack the will to do it themselves.
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