Author Archive
Posted April 24th, 2013 by Debra L. Ness
Susan, a single mother in Missouri, has a 10-year-old son who has pneumonia. She wants to stay home and care for him, but she cannot because her boss refuses to let her take the day off and she is terrified that, if she misses work, she will lose her job. She has no choice but [...]
Posted February 12th, 2013 by Debra L. Ness
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) – the nation’s first and only federal law that helps women and men meet their responsibilities at home and on the job. And even though the law has been a huge success, new data from the Department of Labor reveal that [...]
Posted February 5th, 2013 by Debra L. Ness
This column originally appeared in The Hill’s Congress Blog. Today is the 20th anniversary of the Family and Medical Leave Act, the first bill President Bill Clinton signed into law and the first national law ever to help workers meet the dual demands of work and family. In the two decades since that historic signing, [...]
Posted October 1st, 2012 by Debra L. Ness
This week, workers all across the country will be tweeting that question to candidates for office at all levels, asking them to support this basic workplace standard or explain why they will not. At a time when more than 40 million hardworking Americans can’t earn any paid sick time to use when they get stomach flu or [...]
Posted August 31st, 2012 by Debra L. Ness
This week, as the country prepared to celebrate Labor Day, the National Partnership released the results of an unprecedented analysis of the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Our finding: More than three in five pregnant women in the United States (62 percent) are in the labor force. In fact, in every single state in a one-year [...]
Posted August 29th, 2012 by Debra L. Ness
Back to school means a lot of things. In some families, it means shopping for school supplies, helping kids become reacquainted with their alarm clocks, and learning new school bus schedules. But for the millions of employed parents in jobs that don’t let them earn paid sick days, it means another set of worries: uncertainty [...]
Posted April 17th, 2012 by Debra L. Ness
Women’s work. Last week, when Hilary Rosen used words she quickly admitted were poorly chosen, we were all reminded that it remains a huge flashpoint in our society. But there are some truisms that will hold even after the media frenzy and politically-motivated discourse subside. First, America’s moms aren’t at war with each other. For [...]
Posted October 11th, 2011 by Debra L. Ness
When it passed, we recognized the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as the greatest advance for women’s health in a generation. This new law is already beginning to eliminate the punitive and predatory insurance practices that have penalized women and families for decades, and instead bringing us closer to the day when essential women’s services are [...]
Posted May 21st, 2009 by Debra L. Ness
In January, President Obama made the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act the first bill he signed into law, reversing the effects of a devastating Supreme Court decision in the fair pay case, Ledbetter v. Goodyear. Just four months later, we’re faced with another deeply disappointing Supreme Court ruling that forces women to pay a high [...]