More Than A Magazine, A Movement
The third Thursday of each November is set aside as National Rural Health Day, an acknowledgement of the contribution rural communities and workers among these communities make to society and their pressing health needs.
We honor the millions of workers that keep America running the best way we can—continuing the drum beat for paid leave for all. No one should have to choose between their jobs and being there for those they love.
The suffrage movement that organized, picketed, fasted, spoke out and endured arrests, beatings, force feedings and other forms of torment, would not have succeeded without the leadership and engagement of many women of color.
On the heels of May Day—when we recognize the contributions of workers worldwide—we call on Congress to embed in their crisis response the seeds of a new economy founded on an infrastructure of caring, equity and respect.
What is the cost of a father dying alone? Who knows the toll when chemo is what you do on your lunch hour? How do we measure the loss of a career to care for a loved one with a disability? What’s the price tag on a child’s terror while waiting in her hospital bed for a parent to finish work and drop exhausted into the chair beside her?
We need a national paid leave program that is effective and sustainable, that will reach those who need it the most and that will not threaten other key areas of support for working families. But the recently-proposed CRADLE Act fails to meet any of those criteria.
It has been encouraging to see politicians on both sides of the aisle signal their support for a national paid parental leave plan in the days since President Trump’s State of the Union address. With any legislation, however, the devil is in the details—and the plan proposed by the administration to date is devilish indeed.
