Will you let Working Mother magazine speak for you?

September 30, 2007 | Advertising,Family,Parenting,PR,Work,Working Mother

Will you let Working Mother, Abbott, and two organizations of corporations speak to U.S. policymakers for you?

Working Mother, Abbott, Corporate Voices for Working Familes and the International Formula Council will hold a teleconference on Nov. 15 to discuss public policy, advocacy and working mothers.

An example of an issue important to them:

… some states are considering proposals to restrict the information new mothers receive about infant feeding options.

An Abbott publication called “Ensuring Optimal Infant Nutrition: A Shared Responsibility,” says that “92 percent of mothers approve of the distribution of infant formula samples,” according to an August 2002 survey conducted by Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates with Wirthlin Worldwide. It doesn’t, however, provide details of the survey. How many mothers participated in the survey? Ten? Twenty? One hundred? We have no idea, and the survey is not available online. What they intend to do with this survey is to say, hey, why all the fuss about advertising for infant formula? They want to fight laws that ban or restrict their ability to sell formula.

Does this top your list of important issues as a working mother? Or do you have other ideas about what’s important to you and your family? If you’d like to hear what these groups plan to say to policymakers on your behalf, why not register and participate in the teleconference?

Mark your calendar: Nov. 15, 2007, noon-1 p.m., Raise Your Voice: Advocating for Better Working Family Policy

Citizen journalists report from Myanmar

September 28, 2007 | Journalism,Myanmar

Most journalists have been banned from Myanmar, and a Japanese journalist, Kenji Nagai, was killed yesterday. The military fired guns into crowds of protesters, and at least 13 people have been killed since Wednesday. Authorities closed Internet cafes, shut down Internet access and cellular-telephone service, and they have beaten people caught with cell phones or video cameras.

Several newspapers in Myanmar have stopped publishing. But others have been publishing photographs, video and text messages they’ve been getting from people in Myanmar. Mizzima News in India is a Burmese news organization established in August 1998 by a group of Burmese journalists in exile. The Irrawaddy in Thailand was founded in 1992 by expatriate Burmese citizens. The Democratic Voice of Burma is in Oslo.

Meanwhile, the United States imposed sanctions on Myanmar leaders. The European Union is considering more sanctions. Japan ruled out immediate sanctions because it said most of its aid to Myanmar is humanitarian. China also ruled out sanctions.

Foreign companies, such as British engine-maker Rolls Royce, French energy company Total and U.S. oil company Chevron, are “operating normally” with “business as usual,” even though human-rights organizations have condemned them for “funding the dictatorship.”

To those who ask us to exit the country, we reply that a forced departure, far from solving Myanmar’s problems, would only see us replaced by other operators who would probably be less respectful of the ethics that underpin our operations. — Jean-Francois Lasalle, director of external relations for Total Exploration & Production

Norway’s Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and Ole Danbolt Mjøs, head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, condemned violence in Myanmar yesterday. Authorities also encouraged Norwegian companies to avoid investing in Myanmar, but shipping company Wilh Wilhelmsen says it will continue to do business there.

In addition to Chevron and Total, foreign oil companies in Myanmar include Petronas, PTTEP, South Korea’s Daewoo International Corp., Chinese state-run companies China National Offshore Oil Corp., and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp.

Demonstrations started Aug. 19 to protest the economic burden of increased fuel prices. Buddhist monks joined the demonstrations, and protests broadened to include the release of political prisoners and opposition to the ruling military junta.

This is for Arwen … cheers!

September 27, 2007 | Ethics,Family,Journalism,Parenting,PR,Work,Working Mother

From the Working Mother October 2007 issue, “You’re Cut Off,” p. 104

One day last spring, Lorie Baker walked into her home office just outside Annapolis, Md., and logged on to her computer to catch up on a bit of work. As the mother of twin daughters and a director in the advisory practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers (“I’m a type A person, and I work in a type A company”), she struggles to fit in everything she feels she needs to get done. So she’d often log in to the work system on her days off, stealing whatever moments she could.

On this occasion, as she stared at her computer screen, something unexpected happened. An official-looking pop-up appeared, beginning with this simple declaration: “It’s the weekend.” What happened next was nothing short of an aha experience.

“I actually asked myself, ‘What am I doing on my PC? Can’t this wait until Monday?'” Lorie recalls. She turned the computer off, gathered her girls — Allison and Amanda, 7 — and headed straight for the swing set at the park. “It really was a stark wake-up call that the weekends are so valuable,” she says.

Sure. It could happen.

[pause]

Pah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

But seriously. Do these “programs” elicit such a breathless, dewy-eyed response in real life? Really?

What Working Mother magazine won’t tell you, part 1

Ethics,Family,Journalism,PR,Work,Working Mother

The Work, Family, and Equity Index, published by the Institute for Health and Social Policy at McGill University and the Project on Global Working Families. The report studied and compared 177 countries, finding that the United States does well regarding an equitable right to work and guaranteeing time-and-a-half for overtime. The United States, however, lags behind all high-income countries and even many medium- and low-income countries, especially regarding 1) leave around childbearing, 2) breastfeeding support, 3) work hours and 4) leave for illness and family care.

Of 173 countries studied for this topic, 169 countries offer guaranteed leave with income to women in connection with childbirth; 98 of these countries offer 14 or more weeks paid leave. Although in a number of countries many women work in the informal sector, where these government guarantees do not always apply, the United States guarantees no paid leave for mothers in any segment of the work force, leaving it in the company of only three other nations: Liberia, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland.

• Fathers in 66 countries get paid paternity leave or have a right to paid parental leave; 31 of these countries offer 14 or more weeks of paid leave. The United States guarantees fathers neither paid paternity nor paid parental leave.
• At least 107 countries protect working women’s right to breastfeed; in at least 73 of these the breaks are paid. The United States does not guarantee the right to breastfeed.
• At least 137 countries mandate paid annual leave; 121 countries guarantee two weeks or more each year. The United States does not.
• At least 134 countries have laws that fix the maximum length of the workweek. The United States does not have a maximum length of the workweek or a limit on mandatory overtime per week.
• While only 28 countries have restrictions or prohibitions on night work, 50 countries have government-mandated evening and night wage premiums. The United States neither restricts nor guarantees wage premiums for night work.
• At least 126 countries require employers to provide a mandatory day of rest each week. The United States does not.
• At least 145 countries provide paid sick days for short- or long-term illnesses, with 136 providing a week or more annually. More than 81 countries provide sickness benefits for at least 26 weeks or until recovery. The United States provides only unpaid leave for serious illnesses through the FMLA, which does not cover all workers.
• At least 49 countries guarantee leave for major family events such as marriage or funerals; in 40 of these countries, leave for one or both of these family events is paid.

According to its 2004 report:

• The United States is tied with Ecuador and Suriname for 39th place regarding enrollment in early childhood care and education for 3- to 5-year-olds. Almost all European countries perform better and a range of developing and transitioning countries — despite being poorer — had higher enrollment rates than the United States.
• Employer-sponsored childcare in the United States is available to only one in eight employees.

It is legal in most states for employers to discriminate against American mothers.

While illegal, American women deal with pregnancy discrimination every day. (Just in case you don’t think it happens, here’s a lawsuit filed by an employee who was fired in December 2005, two weeks after telling her employer she was pregnant.)

The only way for American women to get a chance at guaranteed affordable, high-quality child care is to join the military.

Women still earn less than men do, and mothers earn less than anyone.

Many of the “benefits” and “perks” offered by the “100 best” companies are completely voluntary and certainly not permanent. Time to slash 2,000 jobs or cut the budget? Let’s cut [insert family-friendly benefit].

While many of the companies offer six weeks of paid maternity leave here or a lactation room there, not one of the companies measures up to what’s required of employers in much of the rest of the world. While Working Mother compares the “100 best” to other U.S. companies (click on “Download a snapshot of how the 100 Best compare to all the rest”), it fails to mention that many of the “100 best” operate in Canada, Norway and Sweden — for example — and, by law, must provide employees in those countries with some of the most generous and comprehensive benefits in the world. That’s not required in the United States, though. Instead, some of the things Working Mother cites as cool “benefits” American employees might get, depending where they work:

• Yoga or exercise classes
• Meditation classes
• Knitting classes
• Surfing lessons
• Massage therapy
• Stress-management counseling or stress seminars
• Financial-planning advice and/or tax software
• Online support groups
• A diaper bag
• Event-planning service
• First-aid classes
• A parenting kit
• A pop-up window that tells employees who fire up their work computers on Saturday or Sunday that, “It’s the weekend.”

Know your Working Mother press releases

September 25, 2007 | Ethics,Family,Journalism,Parenting,PR,Work,Working Mother

Along with a media kit (for advertising in the coming year, natch), Working Mother apparently provides canned press-release text for each of the winning companies. It goes like this.

Headline: [Insert company name] Named to Working Mother ‘100 Best Companies’ List

[Insert dateline] Sept. 25 — For the [insert number] consecutive year, [insert company name] ([insert NYSE link]) has been named one of the “100 Best Companies” by Working Mother magazine, the company announced today. [Optional sentence, if applies] In 2006, [insert company name] was inducted into the Working Mother Hall of Fame in recognition of its [insert number] consecutive year on the list.

“Every year our winning companies raise the bar for what it means to be an employer of choice for working families,” said Carol Evans, CEO and President, Working Mother Media. “[Insert company name] not only offers essential benefits like flextime and telecommuting — they go above and beyond with a range of best practices and policies to ease the difficulties for working parents and their families. Their supportive culture makes a huge difference to employees who want to be great moms and great workers.”

Added Suzanne Riss, Editor-in-Chief of Working Mother magazine, “As a working mother myself, I understand how absolutely essential it is for companies to find ways to nurture the personal and professional lives of employees. I commend [insert company name here] for conceiving and effectively implementing programs and benefits that offer an inspiring paradigm for the rest of corporate America: it is possible to be both family-friendly and financially successful.”

Working Mother measures and scores companies in seven areas when compiling its list of the best companies for mothers: workforce profile, compensation, child care, flexibility, time off and leaves, family-friendly programs, and company culture. Profiled in the October issue, [insert company name] fosters an environment and culture that recognizes the professional and personal needs of all employees — including working mothers.

[Insert company name] was selected for the 2007 Working Mother 100 Best Companies based on an extensive application of 575 questions. The application included detailed questions about workforce, compensation, child-care and flexibility programs, leave policies, and more. It also checked the usage, availability and tracking of programs, as well as the accountability of managers who oversee them. Seven areas were measured and scored: workforce profile, compensation, child care, flexibility, time off and leaves, family-friendly programs, and company culture. For this year’s 100 Best, particular weight was given to flexibility and family-friendly policies.

“We are proud and honored to be included in the Working Mother ‘100 Best Companies’ list again this year,” said [insert name, title and department]. “[Insert company name] is committed to attracting, developing, and retaining talented individuals, and we are pleased that the success of our efforts is once again recognized by Working Mother.”

For example, [insert company name] offers a number of attractive options to help employees balance their professional lives with their personal responsibilities. Today, many women find it difficult to return to the workforce after having children — or staying out of the workforce longer than expected.(1) [Insert option reference.]

“At [insert company name], more than [insert percentage] of our employees are women, so we have a vested interest in encouraging them to return to work after having children — and facilitating that process,” [insert name] said. [Insert company name] has seen significant improvement in its employees’ work/life balance by offering flexible work schedules, including [insert example, such as telecommuting, job-sharing, and flextime]. In addition, employees have access to [insert another example, such as company-sponsored on- or near-site child care centers]. [Insert other examples].

One of the themes of the October issue of Working Mother is benefit equity: at the 100 Best, benefits are available to everyone — from the top executives to hourly-wage earners. To illustrate that point, the issue features a profile of [insert carefully selected success story, title, work location].

[Insert company name] also offers a number of development programs for its female employees, including [insert program name].

In addition to recognition by Working Mother, [insert company name] has also earned [insert names of other awards].

About Working Mother

Founded in 1979, Working Mother magazine reaches nearly 3 million readers and is the only national magazine for career mothers. Its 22-year signature initiative, Working Mother 100 Best Companies, is the most important benchmark for work/life practices in corporate America. The publication also releases the annual list of the Best Companies for Multicultural Women in the June issue. Working Mother is published by Working Mother Media (WMM), which also owns the National Association for Female Executives (NAFE), NAFE Magazine, the annual 100 Best Companies WorkLife Congress, as well as the Best Companies for Multicultural Women Conference and regional Town Halls. In 2006, WMM acquired Diversity Best Practices, the preeminent organization for diversity thought leaders.

About [insert company name, information and link].

Editor’s Note: For more information on the 2007 Working Mother 100 Best Companies and for a complete list of winners, visit www.workingmother.com.

(1) McGrath M, Driscoll M, Gross M. “Back in the Game — Returning to Business After a Hiatus: Experiences and Recommendations for Women, Employers, and Universities.” Wharton Center for Leadership and Change. June 2005.

Examples

Carlson

General Mills

GlaxoSmithKline

Goldman Sachs

The McGraw-Hill Companies

Verizon Wireless

P.S. Internet search hits are up to 364 368.

Questions arise in MSM about Working Mother list

Ethics,Family,Journalism,Motherhood,MSM,Parenting,PR,Work,Working Mother

Working Mother posted its 2007 list online. Magazines probably won’t hit newsstands for a while, but press releases are out in full force. A search this morning for the magazine’s best 100 companies for 2007 got 200 hits.

TIME published an article yesterday, raising skepticism about this list.

Here’s an article I wrote about last year’s list. I haven’t read through the whole 2007 list yet, but the names look familiar, which means I probably just need to update last year’s article instead of starting from scratch.

Hat tip for the TIME article: Devra

Working Mother best 100 companies: Let the PR begin

September 24, 2007 | Ethics,Journalism,PR,Working Mother

The magazine’s best 100 companies list isn’t even out yet, but the PR machine is roaring to life. Here’s the first press release. If you miss it, don’t worry. Plenty more to come.

Blackwater: Billion-dollar cowboys in Iraq

Death,Defense industry,Dignitary visits,Ethics,Iraq

The headline says that “cowboy” aggression works for Blackwater. For Iraqis? Not so much.

But it is largely accepted that the Pentagon doesn’t have enough troops to fight both the war in Iraq and perform all the tasks contracted out to firms such as Blackwater, including protecting diplomats and other civilians in one of the world’s most dangerous places.

The Pentagon doesn’t have enough troops for protecting diplomats. Here’s a thought. For starters, why not stop the revolving-door dignitary visits by elected officials?

Books: Interesting quotes

September 23, 2007 | Books,Quotes

We interrupt this book (The Manchurian Candidate) to share a couple of my favorite quotes so far.

Raymond stood as though someone might have just opened a beach umbrella in his bowels.

Quite a picture, eh?

The conception of people acting against their own best interests should not startle us. We see it occasionally in sleepwalking and in politics, every day.

OK. Back to reading.

Audience participation: Identify this quote

Audience participation

Go ahead and search the Internet, but if you want to play, you have to guess first.

Here’s the quote:

… you’ve made terrible choices for your people. You’ve isolated your nation, you’ve taken a nation of proud and honorable people and made your country the pariah of the world.

1. Who said this?

2. About whom was it said?