And when the media acts as a conduit for delivering this message without verification, false truths spread at a rapid pace.

A new media study by two academics reviewed the use of the term “job killer” in major media outlets going back to 1984. They found the number of news stories alleging that some government reform would be a “job killer” increased by 1,156% between the first three years of the George W. Bush administration and the first three years of the Obama administration.

Not only did the media repeat the right’s rhetoric, nine out of ten of these stories (91.6%) failed to cite any evidence for the claim. The allegations were targeted at policies like paid sick days and other measures intended to safeguard consumers, protect the environment, raise wages, expand health insurance coverage, increase taxes on the wealthy, and make workplaces safer.

The study, “Job Killers” in the News:  Allegations without Verification, by Professors Peter Dreier of Occidental College and Christopher R. Martin of the University of Northern Iowa, also analyzed the sources for such allegations. In three-fifth of the stories (60.3%,), the source was a spokesperson for big business or Republican party official. Nearly another fifth (17%) used the phrase in an article or editorial without attributing it to any source at all.

“By failing to seek to verify allegations made about government policies and proposals, the news media typically act more like a transmission belt for business, Republican, and conservative sources than an objective seeker of truth when it comes to the term ‘job killer’,” Dreier and Martin reported.

The Power or Journalism

The authors cite Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel in The Elements of Journalism, who point out that verification is “the essence of journalism.” It is what separates journalism from propaganda, “which selects facts or invents them to serve the real purpose: persuasion and manipulation.”

Dreier and Martin’s study showed the “significant ripple effect” of this irresponsible practice across the news media. A single allegation of “job killer” from a prominent news source like the Associated Press can snowball into thousands of results in a Google search.

“Allegations without Verification” has already gotten lots of press coverage including on NPR, Huffington Post, ThinkProgress, Media Matters and other outlets around the country.

We need to make sure the mainstream media reads it as well – and takes stock of what we hope are inadvertent efforts to be a mouthpiece for the right.

Note to all legislators and other decision-makers:

If you care about children, you must pay attention to what is happening to their parents at work.

According to a study released today by Kristin Smith and Andrew Schaefer from the Carsey Institute, more than half of all employed parents (52 percent) have fewer than five paid days off they can use to care for a sick child. In fact, nearly half of the hard-working parents in our country don’t have any paid time off – no sick days for themselves and no paid vacation days.

Figure 1. Percent of employed parents lacking access to various forms of paid leave, 2008

Note: Includes all wage and salaried workers 18 years and older with children under 18.

Source: The 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce (NSCW) data.

Mothers are less likely than fathers to be able to take time for a sick child without losing a paycheck of a job. So are lower-wage workers and those who work part time.  Research by the Urban Institute showed that more than two in five working parents with household incomes below twice the poverty level have no form of paid time off.

In other words, the very people who are hardest hit by the loss of income or employment are the ones most in jeopardy by our outdated employment policies.

Over the years, I’ve talked to hundreds of parents across the country who work hard, but can’t afford to take time off when they’re sick.

Overwhelmingly, they say: “When I’m sick, I do everything I can to try to go in to work. But when my kids are sick, I stay home and try to figure out how we’re going to cover our bills.”

Children suffer when parents aren’t allowed to earn paid sick time.  They either have to stay at school sick because a parent can’t get off to pick them off, or their family feels the financial strain of putting food on the table or keeping the lights on.

Employers as well as public officials can learn a lot from Smith and Schaefer’s research. Not surprisingly, they found that regardless of worker and job characteristics, employed parents who have paid sick days specifically to care for sick children are twice as likely to be very satisfied with their job than those without. According to their report, “Given the link between content employees and work­place productivity and reduced turnover, it is in employers’ interest to promote policies that increase job satisfaction and reduce work-family conflict.”

In Georgia, legislators are considering a bill that would help let people use the paid sick days they have to take care of their sick children or ailing parents. The Family Care Act has bi-partisan support, as well as the backing of a broad coalition, including AARP, the League of Women Voters, 9to5 and many others.

It’s in all of our interest to promote public policies like earned sick days to increase the well-being of children and families.

Organic salad brought to you by a coughing server.

Are we really eating healthier when we don’t know what is happening Behind the Kitchen Doors?

Our friends at Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC) United have been documenting the problems for restaurant workers and the public when owners take the low road and make people choose between coming to work sick or losing a paycheck or their jobs. Lack of paid sick days, along with artificially low wages and rampant gender and race discrimination, are a hallmark of restaurant work.

And so is resistance, smartly and creatively led by ROC United, a key partner in our coalitions. The group’s Co-Director, Saru Jayaraman, has written a new book called Behind the Kitchen Doors, educating consumers on the moral, political and economic implications of eating out. The book promises to be a groundbreaking expose of working conditions in restaurants, depicted through the stories of workers across the country.

Behind the Kitchen Doors isn’t due out until 2/13/2013 – a date representing the amount of the tipped minimum wage, kept to a staggering $2.13 by lobbyists for the other NRA (the National Restaurant Association.)

But you can WATCH THE VIDEO TRAILER NOW!

What’s at stake when we choose a restaurant is not only our own health or food experience, but the health and well-being of the second-largest private sector workforce—the lives of 10 million people, many immigrants, many people of color, who bring passion, tenacity, and important insight into the American dining experience.

A high road is possible. ROC United has documented the many restaurants who value their employees by paying them a decent wage, allowing them to earn paid sick days, and treating them with dignity and respect. But too many restaurant workers have no access to such treatment — a reality that affects anyone who goes out for a meal.

CLICK HERE for more information on Behind the Kitchen Door & to sign up for updates on events/promotions.

Help ROC United grow their organizing by spreading the word to your friends.

Not everyone will be joining the party.

Angela Williamson was recently fired by Walmart. Angela’s misdeed? Following doctor’s orders and being a caring granddaughter.  The company claimed she had taken too many sick days, even though her absences for her own illness and to care for her ailing grandmother had been approved by her manager.

Without a job, Angela was evicted from her home. Her story reminds us of the consequences when workers lack paid sick time, especially in this tough economy.

Says Angela:  “While Walmart tells me that I’m being fired for taking time off to care for my sick grandmother, CEO Mike Duke and Chairman Rob Walton still have their jobs despite their role in a reported bribery scandal and an alleged high-level executive cover-up of the incident!

“Walmart executives’ disregard for the law hurts those of us who are trying to work for a living. We all need to play by the same rules – even the 1% richest Americans.”

Angela happens to be a member of OUR Walmart, (Organization United for Respect at Walmart,) a group of associates setting the agenda for how to approach Walmart as an employer and work together to create opportunities to improve their work environment and their lives.

Angela and the other leaders have a simple request of us:  Sign a letter to the Walmart Board of Directors telling them that their double standard is unacceptable.

Walmart workers are working hard to organize and be heard.

After 50 years, it’s high time the Board started listening.

Listen to Frank Knapp, president of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce, who identifies the NFIB as a “‘small-business pretender’ and ‘lapdog’ of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce” in the Reuters article.

Or take it from Freddy Castiblanco, owner of Terraza 7 Live Music, a café and music venue in Elhurst, NY. “They disguise themselves as mom and pop shops,” says Castiblanco. “But they don’t speak for me.”

Reuters details the NFIB’s record of lobbying for issues that benefit big businesses, not necessarily small ones: “Consider a widespread state tax loophole that lets big-box retailers like Wal-Mart and Home Depot transfer income to out-of-state subsidiaries. This loophole often allows the chain retailers to pay no state income tax, while small businesses do. Yet the NFIB has fought against closing such loopholes.”

Reuters also referred to New Jersey cabinetmaker J. Kelly Conklin, who in April wrote this in the Hill: “Whether we’re talking about health care or taxes (or both at the same time), NFIB always seems to side with the big fellas – big insurance, big banking, big business – not little guys like me. Why? I don’t know.”

For more information, see the piece Family Values @ Work published together with Democracy Strategies, titled: “The National Federation of Independent Business? Driving a far-right political agenda far from the needs of small business.”

As that document points out, the NFIB in 2010 received a gift of $3.7 million from Karl Rove’s group Crossroads GPS – a contribution which a Wall Street Journal opinion piece described as part of a “trial run” at what Crossroads called “funding the right,” adding that Crossroads CEO Steven Law considered the initiative “money well spent.”

The appreciation was mutual. In that same year, the NFIB reported paying more than $3 million for “advertising services” to Crossroads Media LLC, a Virginia-based firm that does media placement for American Crossroads and shares office space with a number of other Super PACs.

Figures for 2011 and 2012 are not yet public.

The NFIB has also been far from independent in its allocation of PAC money. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, nearly 94% of NFIB’s PAC contributions went to Republicans in 2010. This election cycle, the figure is closer to 98%.

NFIB leadership is deeply rooted in conservative Republican politics. The organization’s president, Dan Danner, served as deputy director in the White House Office of Public Liaison under Reagan. Chief lobbyist Susan Eckerly worked in George W. Bush’s Labor Department. And the group recently retained Mark Warren, former chief counsel of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, as a lobbyist.

Yet small business owners are much more diverse in their political views. According to a New York Times blog, in a poll of small-business owners commissioned by American Express OPEN, respondents were nearly evenly divided among those identifying as Republicans (33 percent,) Democrats (32 percent) and independent or unaffiliated (29 percent).

Who speaks for small business? Many voices – but not the NFIB.

My favorite Mother’s day gifts from my sons were their original stories, songs and poems. But what I needed when they were infants and toddlers was something children can’t deliver:  affordable time off when they were born and when they were sick.

So for all those candidates and elected officials interested in the women’s vote and eager to prove their support for motherhood and families, here’s a sampling of what mothers want and need, not just one day a year but every day:

The right to care for a sick child or personal illness without losing our paychecks or our jobs. Moms need leaders to actively support the right for workers to earn paid sick days and champion local, state and federal policies that would guarantee this protection. Make sure no one has to choose between being a good parent and being a good employee – and that no one has to serve you flu with your soup.

The right to coverage under the Family and Medical Leave Act. Half of private sector workforce employees aren’t covered by this law because they work for an employer with fewer than 50 workers, haven’t been on the job for at least 12 months or work less than 25 hours a week. Moms need Members of Congress to work to expand FMLA to cover all employees after 90 days of employment.

The ability to afford leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. Many who are covered under FMLA can’t afford to take the time without pay.  As a result, nearly three million eligible workers a year who need leave to care for their health or the health of a loved one don’t take it. And nearly 9 percent of those who do (including 20 percent for low-income families) are forced to rely on public assistance to keep food on the table. Moms need leaders to voice their support for policies to create family leave insurance funds like those that are working in California and New Jersey so that caring for a new or seriously ill child doesn’t trigger financial catastrophe.

The right to care for one’s partner regardless of their gender. Being able to marry who you love – and being able to care for one another in sickness as well as in health – shouldn’t be a gift, it should be a right.  Moms are glad to see more of our leaders standing up for the rights of all families by supporting marriage equality legislation and bills to expand FMLA access to same-sex partners.

The right to attend children’s school activities. Far too many children in this country never see their mom at a school play or sporting event because employers won’t let them take off work or re-arrange their schedules.  Mothers need leaders to support the right to use family leave to do what’s best for raising our children.

A recognition that men are parents, have parents and also need time to care. All the policies listed above are gender-neutral.  Moms – and dads – need leaders to end on-the-job punishment of men who want to be good fathers, sons and husbands. That will also boost women’s efforts to get men to share the work at home.

This list flows from deeply held American values: that no one should have to risk a job to be a good family member or put a loved one at risk in order to keep a job. Mothers want basic standards that guarantee these rights to everyone.

And candidates, if you don’t believe me, check the polls. More and more voters – from all political perspectives – say they’re more likely to support candidates who’ll make sure family values don’t end at the workplace door, and who understand that for the economy to recover, we need policies like these to help people stay employed and have money to spend at local businesses.

Doing the politically smart thing for moms is also doing the right thing for families and for our nation.

I love the image of conservatives hiding behind the flag of motherhood to protect themselves against charges of gender insensitivity. It’s like kids who move the couch to cover up a stain and hope no one will notice.

By all means, let’s talk about the importance of motherhood.

We can start with the right to stay home after giving birth. Rush Limbaugh recently ranted that women have much more flexibility at work than men.

Unlike Rush, I like to begin with the facts.

The United States is one of only four countries in the world that doesn’t ensure new mothers can afford to stay home even for the briefest of times after they have a baby. Not surprisingly, millions of American mothers who’ve given birth go back to work before the six weeks needed just for healing. The majority of new mothers return before 12 weeks.

Why? For many, because they’ll lose their job otherwise. We have two laws protecting new mothers. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act says an employer can’t fire someone for being pregnant but doesn’t have to hold her job for her while she recovers from birth.

Really.

The other, the Family and Medical Leave Act, does protect the jobs of mothers and fathers who take leave to care for a newborn– but it excludes half the workforce because they work for a company with fewer than 50 employees, haven’t been on the job long enough or work part time.

And did I mention the leave is unpaid?

In fact, nearly half of employed mothers receive no pay whatsoever for the time they’re out on maternity leave. Of those who do draw some pay, most are using time they’ve accrued, like vacation.

As anyone with a newborn knows, having a baby is a great joy, but it is definitely not a vacation.

And what about when a child falls ill? More than two-fifths of all workers, three-quarters of low-wage workers, don’t have a single paid sick day. Nearly half of those who do can’t use the time to care for a sick child.

In other words, when the school calls and says your child just threw up and you must come pick him up, women all over the country risk losing a day’s pay — or worse, their job — for being a good mom. Many of those women work for multi-billion dollar restaurant or nursing home chains, home health care agencies or child care centers.

Because when women do for a living the work that mothers do in the home – feeding people, taking care of the sick or the elderly or the very young – they’re usually paid very little and provided few if any benefits.

Ask those guardians of motherhood why the workers who care for our young children earn less than those who care for our cars or our pets; and why domestic workers and home health care workers are excluded from protection of most labor laws.

Conservatives oppose every policy to correct these injustices – family leave, paid sick days, expanding labor law protection, equal pay laws.

If you really want to know how conservatives feel about motherhood, take a look at what they say when women who happen to be poor want to stay home to take care of their kids. Right-wing pundits and politicians blast these mothers as lazy and irresponsible people who refuse to work and should be forced to do so, no matter what job, what pay, what shift.

“We should ask that all adults participate in work activities to their fullest ability,” Governor Romney has said.

And by “work,” he doesn’t mean feeding or cuddling or playing with their young ones.

I’m all for honoring mothers. Let’s start by making sure they’re not punished for doing that job well, and that the fathers of those children are allowed to share in the joy, and work, of caring for them.

Senator Harkin, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, is also chief Senate sponsor of the Healthy Families Act. He includes that bill in the Rebuild America Act under the category of “creating financial stability” – a recognition that lack of paid sick days cost families needed income and jobs.

Specifics of the Rebuild America Act include:

Invest in America to Create Jobs and Future Growth by modernizing our transportation and energy infrastructures, bringing our schools and community colleges into the 21st century, preparing our workers for jobs of the future, and directing the creation of a national manufacturing strategy.

Create Financial Stability and a Better Future for Middle Class Families by increasing access to quality child care, expanding time-and-a-half overtime pay, establishing a fair minimum wage, allowing all Americans to earn paid sick leave, ensuring that Americans have the right to join a union, opening new paths to the middle class for people with disabilities, and strengthening Social Security.

Restore Balance and Fairness to the Tax Code by instituting the “Buffett Rule,” adopting a Wall Street trading and speculators tax, ending tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas, and protecting pensions.

Sen. Harkin issued this statement about the proposed legislation:

“In recent years, many in Washington have been pushing not just misguided budgets, but a dangerously misguided premise – that America is broke, and that we can no longer afford the investments that make possible a strong middle class and a world-class economy.  I strongly disagree. The Rebuild America Act puts policies in place that will repair the engine that drives our nation’s economic growth: the middle class. It creates the good jobs families need now through robust investments in America and will help grow the middle class in the long term by building economic opportunity for families.  Perhaps most importantly, the bill addresses spiraling economic inequality by restoring fairness and balance to our tax code, which also fully pays for the cost of the bill.”

What gets overlooked is the cost of NOT implementing reforms.

Take the Affordable Health Care Act, which is celebrating its second anniversary. Offsetting the costs to reform our health insurance system are a multitude of benefits.

Children with pre-existing conditions are no longer frozen out of insurance plans. Families trying to cope with the pain of a dreaded illness for a child or spouse no longer have to face bankruptcy or lose a home because of running into lifetime limits on cost reimbursements. Young adults can stay insured long enough to finish college and launch a career. People all across the country will now have access to preventive care services, including life-saving mammograms and colonoscopies, without being charged a deductible or co-pay.

Women in particular benefit from the new law, including support for nursing mothers, maternity coverage, and an end to the outrageous practice of allowing insurers to consider C-sections and domestic violence “pre-existing conditions” that can be excluded from coverage.

And starting soon, women won’t be forced to pay outrageously higher amounts for health insurance just because of their gender. A new report by the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) documents the gross disparities. In states that haven’t banned the “gender rating,” women were charged more in 92 percent of the best-selling health plans.

Experts can quantify the actual costs when these reforms are not in place – costs in health outcomes, in family economics and for the economy overall when people have less disposable income. For example, the price tag for the differential in how women and men are charged? A billion dollars.

It’s harder to put a price on the stress and heartbreak that accompany the lack of basic fairness.

What’s also harder to quantify is the degree of blatant sexism behind these practices.

Take the issue of charging women higher rates. Insurers actually have a justification for this. Claims show that women ages 19 to 55 tend to use more health care services, they argue. That means women are more likely to go to the doctor, get regular checkups and take the medicine they’re prescribed.

The NWLC report challenges the insurers’ rationale because of the range of disparities among insurers. In Arkansas, for example, NWLC co-president Marcia Greenberger pointed out that one health plan charges 25-year-old women 81 percent more than men, while another plan in the same state charges only 10 percent more.

But even if we take the insurers at their word, isn’t this behavior what we want everyone to practice?

You don’t have to be an expert to know that getting regular check-ups and following through on what the doctor prescribes helps keep you healthy or recover more quickly. Aside from helping people feel better, these are the practices that cut down on health care costs! Stopping high cholesterol, for instance, is much less expensive than hospitalization, surgery and follow-up care for someone who has a heart attack.

In just the same way, allowing workers to earn paid sick days will help people get well faster, prevent more serious illness, and detect problems earlier – steps that will help cut down on the insupportably high cost of health care in our country.  These cost savings, estimated by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, amount to upwards of $1 billion a year in healthcare costs, including more than $500 million in tax-dollars!

We should care about costs. But let’s make sure the definition includes the high cost to families, the economy and our nation of failure to bring the workplace into the twenty-first century.

This blog is part of the #HERvotes blog carnival

Ever wonder what happens to a worker who becomes disabled for weeks from injuries in a car accident? Or the worker who has a baby but no maternity leave? Or the worker whose parent, suffering from Alzheimer’s, falls and hits his head and can no longer live alone?

Here’s what happens, and neither option is appealing:

One, they stay home, a necessity in such cases as an auto accident or giving birth. It risks losing pay, and, sometimes, the job. In either case, it can set off a downward spiral. A 2001 Harvard Law School study found that a quarter of two-income couples who filed for bankruptcy did so after one of them missed work to recover from an illness or to care for a family member suffering an illness.

Or, two, they can work through the illness or injury, or they can return to work before recovery is complete. Neither is ideal — for the health of the worker or for the affected family member. Workers who return too soon often relapse, causing more lost productivity; and in the case of sick kids, The American Academy of Pediatrics says “family-centered care” is a key contributor to better health outcomes but for kids whose parents can’t stay home their health suffers.

Whichever the choice, workers are left to fend for themselves with no protections against lost income. It happens every day across America, and in each instance, it’s neither right for the family nor smart for businesses or the economy.

Slowly, that’s changing. While partisan rancor in Congress undermines the possibility of passing legislation any time soon that would require employers to offer a minimum number of paid sick days, or create a national insurance program for paid family and medical leave, a handful of cities and states have enacted programs that safeguard workers and their families, and others are considering them.

Connecticut along with San Francisco, the District of Columbia, and Seattle now all require at least some employers to offer a minimum level of paid sick days. California and New Jersey now offer paid family and medical leave insurance, allowing workers to take up to six weeks of leave for the birth of a child or to care for a seriously ill family member and longer to recover from one’s own illness.

Now, it’s Washington state’s turn.

Recently, I had the privilege of testifying before a joint session of its House and Senate labor committees on two important measures under consideration. One would provide funding for a program enacted in 2007 yet never implemented that would allow workers to take up to 6 weeks of paid parental leave. The other would expand that law to allow leave for family care and for a worker’s own medical needs. Lawmakers have yet to identify funding streams.

Despite the urgent need in a changed world, where we no longer have stay-at-home moms to care for ailing family members and the obvious medical, economic and social benefits of paid leave, some committee members seemed unconvinced. They expressed concerns about the impact on the state budget and on businesses.

Those concerns are misplaced.

Administrative costs would be minimal because Washington state, like all states, has an agency already processing unemployment insurance claims. Adding paid family leave would take a little time but not a lot of additional money.

The business argument doesn’t wash either. In California, where paid family leave is funded entirely through a payroll tax on employees, a new study by researchers Ruth Milkman and Eileen Appelbaum found that 89 percent of state businesses viewed paid family leave as positive or having no effect, 87 percent said it generates no additional costs and 9 percent said it actually saved money.

Families are struggling today and the economic costs of being ill, having a baby or taking care of a sick family member only make families and children more vulnerable.

But it’s not only families who lose — employers lose valuable employees who must choose care over work, and the economy loses income that is reinvested in the community.

The question before lawmakers in Washington state and else where isn’t whether workers should be able to take time off to care for ill family members or to recover, without losing pay. The real question is why all states aren’t following California, New Jersey, and Connecticut with a smarter economic policy that protects families against these risks, reduces the shock on business and the economy and preserves the health and well-being of America’s next generation.

Posted originally in Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ann-oleary/worker-protections-parents_b_1319750.html