Mother's Day
Remembering our moms and an appreciation of all
the work they do.
Today as we remember our moms and spouses who are
also the mothers of our children let us not forget all the work they do to make
our lives better. Not only did our mothers do the constant and tireless work of
running a household but many of them have and continue to work outside the
house. And as they do that work they face work rules and conditions that are
less and less family friendly.
After
gains made in the 80's and 90's with flex time, day care center's at work and a
general trend towards family friendly workplaces, now we seem to be regressing
towards harsher and harsher work sites. With the insatiable drive for profits
and greed we now have employers forcing employees to accept mandatory overtime.
This is especially true in the health care industry where employers in order to
stay profitable and also the need to be staffed 24-7 have forced more and more
folks predominately women to work overtime. It is of course cheaper to pay
someone to work 2 eight hour shifts than to pay 2 people with
benefits.
So how can this be family
friendly to take parents away from their kids by forcing them to work overtime.
Of course it isn't. But our Republican controlled legislators won't do anything,
even though they could, because their corporate masters won't let them. So they
use the rhetoric of being for families but then do nothing to help the middle
and low income families.
So what can we
do? We need to hold the politicians accountable. When they say they are for the
family, ask them to support an increased minimum wage and banning mandatory
overtime. Those would help the family. And instead of taking care of the rich by
repealing the inheritance tax, why not expand the tax break for child care and
how about a higher wage for the child care workers who take of the kids since
both parents have to work. We also need to make it easier for people to form
unions so that the workers can bargain for those things instead of having to
wait for the politicians.
Let's
celebrate with our moms and hope that next year things are a little better for
families.
Posted: Sun - May 8, 2005 at 11:50 PM