On July 23, the Joint Economic Committee held a hearing, “Balancing Work and Family in the Recession: How Employees and Employers are Coping.”
“The value of flexibility to employers has increased because the recession has pressed all sectors of business and government to find ways to improve performance,” said Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-NY). “Workplace flexibility is an inexpensive and effective way to motivate employees by humanizing jobs at a time when so many aspects of our economy are harsh…Businesses that rigidly cling to policies created when employees had fewer family responsibilities have fallen behind the times. Managers who believe there is ‘one best way’ to get the job done, and do not listen to their employees, are missing out on valuable innovations. A lack of flexibility gives demoralized employees even less reason to help their businesses survive and thrive.”
Ranking Member Kevin Brady (R-TX) said, “Almost all businesses are under pressure, and many small businesses struggling to survive in this very challenging economic environment are unable to afford the costs of expanded employer-provided benefits. An effort to force small businesses to offer specific benefits would raise costs, especially of employment, and undermine their financial position. Small businesses historically account for much of the job creation in the United States and undermining their ability to create new jobs and opportunities in a weak economy is not good economic policy. Over the longer run an effort to mandate employee benefits will tend to reduce other forms of employee compensation, including wages.”
Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute, detailed the findings of an Institute report, “The Impact of the Recession on Employers,” saying, “Families and Work Institute’s new nationally representative study of 400 employers reveals that two thirds (66 percent) of employers have suffered declining revenues over the past year, with another 28 percent reporting that revenues have held more or less steady. Only 6 percent have experienced growth. Employers have had to respond and most (77 percent) have done so by finding ways to cut or control costs. Among those that have seen their revenues decline, nine in ten have turned to cost-cutting measures — most frequently decreasing or eliminating bonuses, eliminating salary increases, laying off employees, and instituting hiring freezes. Layoffs are, in fact, commonplace, as we know from monthly unemployment figures from the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.” Ms. Galinsky continued, “Despite this very bad news, it does appear that between 34 percent to 44 percent of employers are trying to help employees manage the recession — they help employees who have been laid-off find jobs, they help employees manage their own finances more effectively, and they connect them to publicly funded benefits and services. There has been a great deal of debate about what is happening with flexibility during the recession. Since many employers saw flexibility tied to improving retention, would they reduce the workplace flexibility they offer during times of layoffs? The answer is a resounding no. Most employers are either maintaining the workplace flexibility they offer (81 percent) or increasing it (13 percent) during the recession. Perhaps they view flexibility as affecting employee engagement, or perhaps they want to focus on retaining the key employees who remain. While more than a quarter [of employers] (28 percent) have turned to involuntary reduction in hours, a comparable percentage (29 percent) have used voluntary reductions in hours. And perhaps surprisingly, 57 percent report giving employees some or a lot of say about the schedules they now work. We know from national unemployment figures that more men than women have lost jobs in the recession, and this study similarly finds that men are more likely than women to work for employers that have laid off employees. But the differences don’t stop there — men are also more likely to work for employers that have reduced working hours, changed the scheduling of work hours, and reduced salaries.”
Cynthia Calvert, deputy director of The Center for WorkLife Law, said, “FRD [family responsibilities discrimination] is typically caused by unexamined bias about how employees with family caregiving responsibilities will or should act…Although FRD is not confined to women, a large segment of the unexamined biases that cause FRD is maternal wall bias: bias against women because they are or one day may be mothers. A common bias is that a pregnant woman will not be a good employee because she will have poor attendance or will not be as committed to her job once she is a mother, which can lead a supervisor to terminate her.” Ms. Calvert continued, “We are very encouraged by the findings of the Families and Work Institute [that] show that many work/family programs provided by employers are relatively unchanged by the recession…Unfortunately, what also has remained unchanged is the prevalence of flexible work bias. Flexible work bias mirrors and often overlaps family responsibilities bias. Employees who work flexibly often encounter unspoken and often unrecognized assumption on the part of supervisors and co-workers about their commitment, dependability, worth, ambition, competence, availability, and suitability for promotion. These assumptions affect who supervisors perceive flexible workers and their performance, which in turn affects the assignments they receive, and how their work is evaluated and rewarded. While employers may not be changing their work/family programs, employees may engage in ‘bias avoidance’ by not taking advantage of such programs for fear of being marginalized or penalized at work — behavior that may be exacerbated by today’s economic climate in which most employees have at least some fear of losing their jobs.”
Ms. Calvert explained the effect of such biases during tough economic times: “Many of [our] hotline calls suggest that some employers are targeting family caregivers and flexible workers for termination. Some of this appears to be attributable to hostile forms of bias…It should be noted, however, that many terminations not based on hostile bias may involve bias nonetheless. An equally likely, although untested reason for termination of family caregivers and flexible workers in the current economy may be the pressure supervisors feel to show good results with fewer resources as their budgets shrink. They may feel that they have to weed out underperformers and trim personnel costs to maintain their bottom line. The problem arises when supervisors assume that those employees with caregiving responsibilities or who telecommute or work flexible schedules are the ‘underperformers.’ Thus, supervisors’ response to this pressure is no less based on bias: when they take personnel actions based not on actual employee performance but on assumptions of how caregivers and flexible workers should or will perform, they are engaging in discrimination.”
Karen Nussbaum, executive director of Working America, said, “Once known as ‘cafeteria benefits,’ work and family policies such as child care or flextime were seen as options that could be chosen to fit personal needs above and beyond the basic benefits. While some employees — primarily urban professionals — were making choices at the cafeteria, the great majority of working people no longer even had meat and potatoes. Some leaders, such as former General Electric CEO Jack Welch, say that there is ‘no such thing as work-life balance,’ that working women have no choice but to sacrifice either work or family. But Ellen Galinsky’s impressive work demonstrates that work/life policies are viable and widespread, and increase productivity and personal satisfaction. Her research demonstrates that pursuing work/life policies in a recession is good for the bottom line. However, after a 30-year experiment with voluntary adoption of work/family measures in the workplace, we know that reasonable standards will not penetrate the workplace without enforcement. A small minority of professional workers will have the benefits and arrangements they require, but the majority of workers will be subject to work schedules beyond their control, minimal or no benefits, and no paid leave to care for their families. As we decide how to cope with recession, we have the perfect opportunity to take the next step and create workplace standards that are good for the bottom line and for working families.”
She continued, “The most effective and flexible way to create customized improvements at the work place is by enabling working people to talk directly with employers about what is needed — otherwise known as collective bargaining. A recent study by the Labor Project for Working Families found that, among hourly workers, 46 percent of unionized workers receive full pay while on leave compared to 29 percent of non-unionized workers, while companies with 30 percent or more unionized workers are five times as likely as companies with no unionized workers to pay the entire family health insurance premium. The Employee Free Choice Act [H.R. 1409/S. 560] would restore the right to collective bargaining, which would help create a contemporary version of work/life balance.”
