It's 7 A.M. and you're ready for work when your child announces she's sick. Or you get the call at work that your dad is in the hospital -- he just had a stroke. Or your mom lets you know during your visit that she can't stand the convalescent home for another minute.
"Care-giving" and family used to be dismissed as "women's issues." But not anymore. Women account for the fastest-growing segment of a labor force whose shrinking number of skilled workers is worrying the nation's employers.
Reconciling the demands of work and family is now a work-force issue, a business issue, a national issue. In more than 85 percent of American households, either both parents work or a single parent supports the family. These working families are demanding the right to attend to family needs without risking their jobs. And some are winning it.
In Oregon, working families claimed a significant victory this month when Gov. Barbara Roberts, a Democrat, signed a bill providing for family medical leave.
Combined with existing laws on parental and pregnancy leaves, Oregon's family leave plan is one of the nation's most comprehensive. The new law entitles workers at companies with 50 or more employees 12 weeks of unpaid leave every two years to care for a seriously ill parent, spouse, child or parent-in-law.
To qualify, employees must work an average of 25 hours a week for at least 180 days. They may use accrued vacation time for their leave, and if it is part of their collective bargaining agreement or employer-employee agreement, they may use accumulated sick leave as well -- provisions intended to lessen the financial impact. Time off for personal illness is not included.
Nationally, the debate over family leave continues. Some of the views expressed are remarkably similar to the arguments we've heard in the past against the eight-hour day, child labor and minimum wage. Opponents say that it's hard to carry out, that it costs too much, and that employers will be forced to cut back other benefits as a result.
The success of parental leave legislation in Oregon has convinced us that these arguments are groundless. Since parental leave became law in 1988, there have been only 34 complaints by employees who were denied leave benefits, a sign that most state employers have no trouble complying.
A 1990 study of parental leave policies by the independent Work and Families Institute confirmed the program's success: only 12 percent of Oregon's employers thought the law was difficult to carry out; 88 percent reported that they didn't have to reduce worker benefits or increase their operations costs. Not surprisingly, 94 percent of the workers surveyed in Oregon also endorsed the law. If the states are laboratories for social policy, then family leave is an experiment that works.
The Republican Administrations of the last decade have been long on lip service to family values but short on delivery. In June, President Bush vetoed the Family Leave Act, which is similar to, though less sweeping than, the Oregon plan. Perhaps we should put national policy where our values are, or at least where we say they are.
The United States is the last holdout of the world's industrialized countries against making a formal, national commitment to families. Family leave is a reality in Germany and Japan, whose social policies -- far more generous than even the Oregon plan -- make our hesitant attempts at legislation look embarrassingly meager. Their experience proves, too, that accommodating the family needs of their work forces does not lead to national economic ruin.
Next month Congress will have another opportunity to vote on the Family Medical Leave Act. After the President's veto, Congressional leaders from both parties now say this legislation is one of their top priorities.
Family leave isn't utopian, it's realistic. What's now law in Oregon should be national policy as well.