Paid Leave 101

  Every day, millions of Americans are forced to juggle work and family responsibilities. At the same time, U.S. policies have not kept pace with the needs of modern workers. Without family-friendly workplace policies such as paid sick days and paid family and medical leave, employees often find achieving a work-life balance to be a herculean task—and in many cases, a myth. Employees deserve protections that enable them to take care of themselves and their families as they strive to do their best work for their employers.

Sally Steenland: Family values versus the corporate bottom line

  Two recent stories in the news have put a spotlight on the ways in which blind corporate allegiance to the bottom line can harm working families. The first story concerns the multibillion-dollar supermarket chain Whole Foods, which fired a female worker for taking a day off to care for her special-needs child during a snowstorm that closed Chicago schools. Forced to choose between going to work and leaving her child alone, Rhiannon Broschat did what any good parent would do—and lost her job.