Wake-Up Call for GOP’s “Values” Hypocrites: Unions Are Pro-Family, Report Finds

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/4618/wake-up_call_for_gops_values_hypocrites_unions_are_pro-family_report_finds

Friday
July 17
10:35 am

While the latest escapades of such GOP “family values” as Sen. John Ensign and Gov. Mark Sanford continue to garner some headlines, a little-noticed new UC Berkeley study finds that unions—the GOP’s nemesis—creates dramatically pro-family results for working families.

“As more Americans struggle to raise and care for their families at the same time they’re holding down a job, workplace policies that facilitate a work-family balance are becoming increasingly important. We looked at whether unions make a difference for these families, and it turns out that unionization has a positive impact on key family-friendly policies like family health insurance, paid family leave, and child-care benefits,” said Jenifer MacGillvary of the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education. MacGillvary co-authored the new report, titled “Family-Friendly Workplaces: Do Unions Make a Difference?”

The AFL-CIO Now blog notes the report’s conclusion and key findings…

Many (perhaps most) American workers find their “work-life” to be out of balance. Yet as has been the case with virtually all other aspects of employment, labor unions are leading the way in setting new standards. Unionized workers receive more generous family-friendly benefits than their nonunionized counterparts.

Here are a few of the report’s key findings:

* Unions promote compliance with the Family and Medical Leave Act. Union members are more likely to have heard of the Family and Medical Leave Act, have fewer worries about taking leave and are more likely to receive fully paid and partially paid leaves.

* Comparing hourly workers who take family and medical leave, 46 percent of unionized workers receive full pay while on leave compared to 29 percent of nonunionized workers.

* Unionized workers are 1.3 times as likely as nonunionized workers to be allowed to use their own sick time to care for a sick child, and they are 50 percent more likely than nonunionized workers to have paid personal leave that can be used to care for sick children.

In contrast, GOP offcials, with Ensign and Sanford following the well-worn path of former president George W. Bush, have emphasized fighting gay marriage, supporting prayer in schools and banning abortion as the keys to promoting family values.

So even as Ensign scrambles to explain away various payments to his mistress, it’s worth remembering that he and other GOP leaders have built their party’s fortunes on a few key pillars, including not just “pro-family” morality and, starting in the late 1960s, veiled racism, but also, in recent years, union-bashing.

FULL story at link.

[47of74]

1. Add to that the fact that a lot of Democrats are still on their first marriages

I'm not saying the Democrats are perfect, we've had our share of screw ups over the years. Look at Al Franken - married over 32 years, and still on his first marriage. Ol' Newtie is up at his third marriage now.