On "CBS This Morning" today I heard a discussion going on about ideas to make corporations responsible to encourage more women having better work-life balance so they can raise families while having successful careers. However not once did these commentators talk about the fact that we're in a global economy where we have "free" trade which means that corporations will "freely" move jobs/operations overseas in order to avoid any inconvenient labor, environment, etc. laws they don't like. Thus we'll create more rules to just put more Americans on food stamps & unemployment instead of being taxpaying contributors. I'm all in favor of decent labor and environment standards; but I recognize that the realities are that GATT/WTO and NAFTA have changed everything for the USA. Will these people ever think about the big picture?

Well, even if they (corporations) DID like the legislation, the public wouldn't buy the item they were producing if it can be produced overseas at a cheaper cost and sold at a discount. I have not seen any recognition of this fact out of commentators or politicians or union officials.

The big kahuna, though, is power costs.

About 70% of my company's cost is labor. Is power the majority of most businesses costs?

As a woman, I detest this kind of legislation. It is, and has always been, the only "glass ceiling" that has ever stood in my way. It has been a lifetime struggle to separate myself from all of the half-committed female workers with "issues" who want special treatment because they made choices incompatible with a full-blown career.

Ironically, as a single person I've often born the burden of the "flexibility" extended by businesses (either voluntarily or involuntarily) to women with "child care issues." They've caused me to spend more 16-hour days, and more Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, at the office than I care to think about.

The fact is that we will not have employment growth in this country until the federal government gets out of the way small business. They regulate small business to death, forcing them to cover half the SS and medicare taxes, pay unemployment, healthcare etc etc and then small business has to contend with all the anti discrimatory laws that threaten them every day. Who wants to hire anyone of color or considered a minority when they know they have a target on thier back.
It's time to remove these obstacles from business and get jobs flowing again. Everything the feds have done in the past 20 years has put a substantial burden on business and hiring. It's time they quit trying to be politically correct and fix this mess. There is no way for a business in the US to compete with labor costs over seas. Either charge a sur-tax on employers goods manufactured overseas or fix the problem over here and make it less competitive to hire over there.
Without eliminating these burdens, the country will never have the opportunity to grow again. Too bad the morons writing the laws don't get this........

Tickerfan nailed it above. I've spent a lot of extra hours covering for folks 'family choices' as well.

Quote:

Will these people ever think about the big picture?

Yes...


"You are here..."

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As a woman, I detest this kind of legislation. It is, and has always been, the only "glass ceiling" that has ever stood in my way. It has been a lifetime struggle to separate myself from all of the half-committed female workers with "issues" who want special treatment because they made choices incompatible with a full-blown career.

Ironically, as a single person I've often born the burden of the "flexibility" extended by businesses (either voluntarily or involuntarily) to women with "child care issues." They've caused me to spend more 16-hour days, and more Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, at the office than I care to think about.

This. And I've had a formal complaint lodged against me with the state BOLI because I asked a pregnant employee to try whenever possible to schedule doctor's appointments before or at the start of her shift (which began at 11am) and I asked her to give me an approximate time when she would return to the office after said appointments and just give me a call when she knew she would be late. Apparently she felt I was discriminating against her because she was pregnant. Of course the complaint went nowhere, but not after a tremendous amount of time HR staff and I spent on the matter. Oh, and her rampant, lying gossip developed me a reputation for being an "unfair supervisor" that's followed me where I work for years.

It's amazing to me that people really expect that they can get everything they have ever wanted out of life without having to compromise about certain things.