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...

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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...

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Tara Murphy

Paid Sick Days Family Economic Security

April 24, 2013

This article originally appeared in the Huffington Post . Patricia, a home health care aide and 9to5 member from Colorado, attended to a man who is quadriplegic. When Patricia came down with food poisoning, her life unraveled. Her condition progressed to pneumonia caused from the vomit that spilled...

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Linda Meric

Paid Sick Days Family Economic Security

April 24, 2013

This article originally appeared in Family Values @ Work . Home rule – guaranteed under the Florida state constitution — is a cherished conservative principle. It ensures the right of the people to determine and implement a public purpose at the grassroots level. So when is home rule not okay with...

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