US companies found to be family unfriendly
Compared to the rest of developed nations, U.S. companies offer less family friendly options than many nations. I’m torn on what to think of this, though.
For example, one of the areas where the United States was accused of being un-family friendly is in the area of breastfeeding. There is no federal legislation guaranteeing the right of a woman to breast-feed at work. But there are state laws on the books about breastfeeding. I don’t know how many of them (if any) protect the woman’s right to breast-feed at work. But I also don’t know many women who are bringing their infants to work with them. Do these laws include pumping? How much of a problem is this in the nation’s work places?
I also don’t know how much I really want the federal government really mandating a lot of what companies do. If they’d mandate caps on how much they can pay their CEO’s compared to their lowest paid workers, that might be an initiative I could get behind, but how many sick days employers are required to give. I don’t know. Would there be exemptions for companies under a certain size?
As it stands, every time the federal government does something to “protect” the people, it seems to have negative effects. Wouldn’t it be nice if companies would just create a family friendly environment without it being legislated?
