A groundbreaking 8-year study just released by Harvard University and McGill University researchers finds that the U.S. lags in most measures of worker accommodations as compared to most of the industrialized world.  The study is entitled, Raising the Global Floor: Dismantling the Myth that We Can't Afford Good Working Conditions for Everyone.  It offers a look at 192 United Nations member economies, including advanced and competitive economies such as Germany and Japan.  The survey finds:

• 177 nations guarantee paid leave for new mothers
• 164 nations guarantee paid annual leave
• 163 nations guarantee paid sick leave
• 157 nations guarantee workers a day of rest each week
• 74 nations guarantee paid leave for new fathers
• 48 nations guarantee paid time off to care for children's health

            The U.S., the study finds, is not on the list in any of the above categories.  At least it can be said that we join 147 other nations in offering a wage premium for mandatory overtime.

            Debra L. Ness, President of the National Partnership for Women & Families said of the study, “Health insurance isn’t the only area where protections for Americans are lacking.” The study shows that the world’s most competitive economies can afford to think differently than the U.S. about how they treat their workers in a variety of ways.  Family-friendly policies do not in themselves lead to a lesser status in terms of GNP, productivity or national wealth.  On the contrary, these policies, long-derided as “sissy policies” in the U.S., are found to enhance workplace productivity.

            As reported in a press release on the website of the National Partnership for Women & Families:

            "The world's most successful and competitive nations are providing the supports the United States lacks, without harming their competitiveness.  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."

~Jody Heymann, study co-director

We Are the Lagging Indicator

            One of the most timely findings of the survey is that 14 of the world's 15 most competitive countries provide paid sick leave.  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how those countries will remain healthier—and more productive—in the context of the H1N1 pandemic.  And the fundamentals of sane public health policies will yield enhanced quality of life in a variety of public settings.  Would you prefer that food service and restaurant workers not work sick?  How about child care providers?  These are just two of the categories of workers in the U.S. that have some of the lowest compliance with what can now be called international workplace standards.

            Eleven of the top 15 economies provide paid leave to care for children's health needs.  But of course the U.S. doesn’t.  The survey poses the question:  what are civilized workplace standards in the 21^st century?  And why is it that these standards exist in countries with robust market-based economies?  That’s right—capitalism and care for the sick.  Why are we the outliers?  But of course that’s rhetorical.  We are the outliers because our commercial culture believes these benefits are the very definition of socialism.

            It would seem that the American alternative, the shining example on the hill, constitutes lagging “far behind” then—not even in the running, not even a contender.  Anti-socialist as we are, does that really represent how we see ourselves?  Is it necessary to treat ourselves this way?  Do we really intend to, in Ms. Heymann’s words, forgo “key work protections that are crucial for working adults and their families?”

            You find women in the U.S. who are back at work six weeks after the birth of a child.  We think nothing of it.  I know we shrug off the fact that the rest of world takes actual vacations—we are too indispensable in our cubicles for that—but isn’t having a child a little more…fundamental?  After all, all but 15 of the 192 countries in the U.N. offer paid leave for child birth, and 13 of the top 15 economies offer this benefit.  Don’t we want parity with Slovenia? (Pardon me, Slovenia, for the comparison; I salute your progressive treatment of new mothers.)

            If the rest of the world can afford these benefits why can’t we?  How can it be that only U.S. competitiveness is compromised by offering what nearly everyone else already has? 

            The study, conducted by Jody Heymann, Director of the Institute for Health and Social Policy at McGill University and Alison Earle, research scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health, is published by Stanford University Press.  According to the press release, the team “examined the working conditions faced by 55,000 households in seven countries on five continents.” A new McGill Institute for Health and Social Policy website, RaisingtheGlobalFloor, offers world maps showing the disparities in easy-to-grasp graphic terms.  If it’s blue, there is a benefit, if it’s red, it is probably the U.S.  Unfortunate to see that we are in this case, in these stark times, again deep in the red.