Family Economic Security

May 6, 2013

This week, Martha Roby (R-AL) will introduce the same discredited comp time bill that leaders in her party have been pushing for years. Misleadingly titled “The Working Families Flexibility Act,” HR 1406 would permit private sector employers to offer compensation time in lieu of overtime pay to...

MomsRising Together

Carol Joyner

Childcare & Early Education Environmental Health Open Flexible Work MomsVote Family Economic Security

April 28, 2013

They’ve hit a new low. Citing significant concerns about long lines at airports and flight delays caused by the furlough of air-traffic controllers, Congress is allowing the Federal Aviation Administration to override strict sequestration rules and re-direct funds within its budget. And they did so...

MomsRising Together

Jo Comerford

Family Economic Security

April 26, 2013

Last week, I joined hundreds of striking fast-food workers on the streets of Harlem, where they held signs that read "I am a Man" and "I am a Woman" and chanted: "You can't survive on $7.25." The demonstration, led by workers struggling to survive on the minimum wage, recalled the organizing that...

MomsRising Together

Benjamin Jealous

Paid Sick Days Family Economic Security

April 24, 2013

The Healthy Families Act , a federal bill that would allow workers to earn seven paid sick days a year, was just introduced by Sen. Tom Harkin and Rep. Rosa DeLauro. Portland, Ore., was the most recent city to pass an ordinance granting workers earned paid sick leave. Will New York follow suit? The...

MomsRising Together

Ruth Martin

Family Economic Security

April 24, 2013

According to the FBI, only five percent of kids who get arrested have committed a violent crime, but the other 95 percent often face the same fate. In fact, the U.S. incarcerates its kids at a rate that is at least five times the rate of any other nation. As a result, many of these kids witness...

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Mistakes Kids Make

Paid Sick Days Immigration Family Economic Security

April 24, 2013

As one of 11 kids in a migrant farm worker family, I toiled in the fields of California’s Central Valley under the bleakest of conditions in the 1950s and ‘60s, before Cesar Chavez’s movement offered us any relief. Getting sick or injured or showing symptoms of pesticide poisoning were not options...

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Maria Elena Durazo

Paid Sick Days Family Economic Security

April 24, 2013

"We must move beyond advocating for earned paid sick days, to implementing a culture of self-care in our movement. The lip service that is paid to self-care is not enough, and change can only occur if we take a people-first approach to our work." In March, the Generational Alliance brought together...

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Carmen Berkley

Paid Sick Days Family Economic Security

April 24, 2013

My name is Luz Amelia Arevalo, I am a professional domestic worker in Los Angeles California. Because of economic necessity, my own family -- my own grandchildren -- are far away. I care for the children of my employers, and I grow to love them as I do my own grandchildren. There are many women...

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Luz Amelia Arevalo

Paid Sick Days Family Economic Security

April 24, 2013

The year after I graduated from college I waited tables and worked in retail, just like my parents always wanted. Kidding! Truth be told, I had always envisioned going to law school but hesitated once it came time to send in a deposit. I hadn’t given much thought to the other options I had, and the...

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Madeline Shepherd

Paid Sick Days Family Economic Security

April 24, 2013

For nearly a year, Ariel Kempf was a server at a very busy breakfast and lunch café in Portland when, one day, while playing with her dog on the beach, she tore several tendons in her right leg. She had no health insurance, so she went to an urgent-care clinic where she was told she couldn’t put...

MomsRising Together