European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 08, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse Monday february 8,1993 commentary the stars and stripes Page 15 family leave Law had eight year labor pains in Goodman some things take longer than others. This time it took eight years to get 12 weeks. After All the seasons of wrangling and rewriting Vot ing and vetoing the family and medical leave act has finally actually and belatedly become Law. You May share this news with any children conceived the same year As this Bill 1985 be fore they head off to their third Grade workers May be about the last in the industrialized world to get family leave but we Are going to get it. Or a least Many of us Are. The Bill mandates up to 12weeks of unpaid leave for work ers to care for a Newborn or adopted child or a critically ill family member. they work for companies with 50 or More employees. I they worked for these companies for a year. 7f they have worked at least 1,250 hours during the year. Andi they Are not a critical worker in the top 10 percent of the company s pay scale. This Centrepiece and Center wrestling ring of family policy will cover about half the work Force and it will not be much help to those who cannot take time of without a paycheck. But do not let this heavy dose of reality rain on the Parade. It is a s a Victory for 60,000 women by modest Esti mates who would have lost their jobs this year for having babies. It s a Victory for tens of thousands of family members who have just won Job Security an peace of mind. And it s a landmark in changing attitudes about family and 1985, the family and medical leave act was first introduced by rep. Patricia Schroeder d-colo., . 2020 a number you would not want in a bakery shop. The Bill slogged through the Halls of Congress during the Reagan years the backlash Era and the Mommy wars bearing the enormous weight of arguments about and family. As Ellen Galinsky of the families and work Institute remembered anything we did to make it easier to work was made to seem like an affront to women at Home. Many in the debate Felt that if we passed parental leave All the women would run out of their houses so fast they d leave their doors flapping in the 1992, All that stood Between the Bill and passage were a couple of presidential vetoes. George bus found himself on the wrong Side of the demography. By then there were even More women in the work place More two income families More members of the Sandwich generation caring for children and the election family leave became a family value right along with the Apple Pic. In the new Congress the Bill got a new number one. It was the first Bill up for a vote and the first on the desk of the new president. In the end not even the Republican senators had the stomach or the votes to derail it. But what happens next family leave even if it i extended eventually to smaller companies Only offers Relief for the people in the tightest spots. What about the lifetime squeeze the Long running tension be tween work and family my sense is that what happens to people when the return from leave is even More important than what happens on leave said fran Rodgers of work family directions. This is especially True for those returning from parental leave. They have the rest of their Careen and the rest of their family lives ahead of them she said. There Are new mothers who suddenly find them selves shunted off to new lower positions. There Are others who would like flexible hours and cannot Fin them or afford them. The pressure on workers with families can still be summed up in one word time. These Days the aver age workweek in Large companies is Between 45 and 50hours. In the downsized streamlined shaken up econ omy there Are two classes the overworked arid the unemployed. In some ways the yearly struggle Over the leave Bill kept us stuck in old arguments while we led new lives. Finally we have won a huge fight for a modest of this Bill by its number. . 1 the first step. C the Boston glob this White House smoke screen worthy of Praise the mental picture is riveting while a four Star fete goes on within a senator an ambassador or a Captain of Industry huddles in a doorway of the White House cold and or she is losing valuable ear time with movers and shakers has missed a Hance to confab with the presi Dent and has gone head to head with the president s All because of the need for smoke. Since Hillar Rodham Clinton said she would ban smoking in the White House there has been this irresistible image of people in eve Ning clothes doing what smokers have Learned to do in recent years go out doors As though they were unruly pets. Or secret service agents wrestling a lit cigarette to the ground. Or alliances in Raveling As frazzled envoys from heavy smoking nations try to get through dinner without nicotine. It May be the president s infamous allergies. It May be mat his wife does not like her Home to smell As though there has been a fire in the basement. Or it May be that the first lady knows that since Jan. 7, the arguments against Public tobacco use have become considerably More powerful than either aesthetics or Anna Quindlen annoyance. That was the Day the environmental Protection Agency released a blistering report on secondhand smoke that Classi fied it As a group a Carcinogen As dangerous As benzene arsenic and report noted that 3,000 nonsmokers die each year from secondhand smoke lung cancer and that smoking poses Spe Cial risks to the captive audience of Chil Dren. I have to Stop Here for the warning Label on this column the tobacco Industry wants you Tot now that All of thesis poor science Ami political hysteria. And if its executives do Tot want people to smoke around thurr children you should not draw any wild conclusion from that the evolution of attitudes toward smoking in this country has been rapid and constant. In 1964, when the first sur Geon general s report linked lung cancer and smoking More than 40 percent of Al american adults smoked and could do so nearly everywhere except in an oxygen tent. Today the number is 25 percent and smoking is banned in Many offices Heaters an restaurants. No one talks much about an outright an on cigarettes for reasons ranging from the pragmatic to the political. We know from our experience with alcohol and drugs that a ban works poorly and leads inevitably to a contraband Market. We also know that there is scarcely a lobby in this country As Rich and powerful As the tobacco lobby. Making smoking expensive and Unicorn portable has become a useful Way to Deal with a health risk in an open society. Not ing that $2.6 billion was spent on health care costs related to smoking in new York state gov. Mario m. Cuomo has proposed raising the cigarette tax steeply. But the l a report gives us issues to think about that Are More difficult than keeping smokers in one Corner of a restaurant. If a Mother was found to be putting a bit of benzene in a baby s bottle the baby might wind up in a Foster Home. But Many babies live Day after Day sur rounded by cigarette smoke and Accord ing to health experts at increased risk of asthma bronchitis pneumonia and ear infections. Advocates for smokers like total about Choice a word that has be come the Clarion Call for everything from abortion to schools. But one thing the secondhand smoke report made Manifest is that parents who smoke Are making Alife threatening Choice not just for them selves but for their children. And that the risks of smoking May be contagious. C the now Yolk Timoi c
