Hot off the Press Release: Family-Friendly Workplace Policies Enhance Competitiveness

A US org sent me this:

Raising the Global Floor: Unprecedented New Study Finds that Family-Friendly Workplace Policies and Protections Support Jobs, Enhance Competitiveness

Eight-Year Worldwide Study Finds U.S. Lacking Compared to Other Nations on Paid Sick Days, Paid Paternal Leave, Breastfeeding, Other Worker Supports

WASHINGTON, DC – A major new study by researchers at Harvard and McGill Universities – the largest ever to look at working conditions worldwide – finds the United States far behind other economically successful nations in terms of adopting policies that support workers and families. The new study finds that 14 of the world’s 15 most competitive countries provide paid sick leave, 13 guarantee paid leave for new mothers, 12 provide paid leave for new fathers, 11 provide paid leave to care for children’s health needs, eight provide paid leave to care for adult family members, and seven guarantee breastfeeding breaks to nursing mothers on the job. At the federal level, the United States offers its workers none of those supports.
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“The world’s most successful and competitive nations are providing the supports the United States lacks, without harming their competitiveness,” Heymann said. “Globally, we found that none of these working conditions are linked with lower levels of economic competitiveness or employment. There simply is no negative relationship at all between decent working conditions and competitiveness or job creation. In fact, we found that a number of these guarantees are associated with increased competitiveness. Ensuring a floor of decent working conditions is crucial for the majority of Americans. The United States lags far behind most of the 190 countries whose labor laws we examined.”
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The McGill Institute for Health and Social Policy has created a new website, www.RaisingtheGlobalFloor.org, which serves as a gateway to international labor and work policy data, and provides the means to measure, compare and map this new data.

Read the press release in full over at the http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/www.nationalpartnership.org“>National Partnership for Women and Families