One Sick Child Away From Being Fired: When "Opting Out" Is Not an Option

Professional women are not the only Americans whose jobs are in jeopardy because of work/family conflict. This report discusses a study of 99 union arbitrations that provide a unique window into how work and family responsibilities clash in the lives of bus drivers, telephone workers,construction linemen, nurses aides, carpenters, welders, janitors, and others -- men as well as women -- in working-class jobs.The media tends to cover work/family conflict as the story of professional mothers "opting out" of fast-track careers. Surveys confirm that working class Americans feel work/family conflict acutely: two-thirds of unionized fathers said they were unhappy with the amount of time they dedicated to their children; half of the mothers agreed.The arbitrations communicate the stories of Americans caught between inflexible jobs,lack of resources,and their commitment to do right by their families. The report resulted in six major findings

Today’s Schedules for Today’s Workforce: Hourly Employees and Work-Life Fit

[Excerpt] This paper provides employers with the tools they need to match today’s workplace to today’s workforce. First, the paper describes “just-in-time” schedules – schedules which create instability and unpredictability for hourly workers. It then suggests several means by which employers can reduce such instability in the just-in-time sector, providing increased scheduling effectiveness. Next, the paper discusses scheduling rigidity and provides employers with a variety of means for easing this rigidity by creating a more flexible workplace. The ultimate goal of this paper is to create a win-win outcome for hourly workers and their employers by synchronizing today’s workplace with today’s workforce. We seek to accomplish this goal by helping employers understand the needs of hourly employees with family responsibilities and demonstrating that accommodating these needs does not result in increased labor costs. To the contrary, introducing flexible scheduling and/or predictable scheduling can in fact reduce labor costs

Gravitational Waves and Time Domain Astronomy

The gravitational wave window onto the universe will open in roughly five years, when Advanced LIGO and Virgo achieve the first detections of high frequency gravitational waves, most likely coming from compact binary mergers. Electromagnetic follow-up of these triggers, using radio, optical, and high energy telescopes, promises exciting opportunities in multi-messenger time domain astronomy. In the next decade, space-based observations of low frequency gravitational waves from massive black hole mergers, and their electromagnetic counterparts, will open up further vistas for discovery. This two-part workshop at featured brief presentations and stimulating discussions on the challenges and opportunities presented by gravitational wave astronomy. Highlights from the workshop, with the emphasis on strategies for electromagnetic follow-up, are presented in this report.Comment: Submitted to Proc. IAU 285, "New Horizons in Transient Astronomy", Oxford, Sept. 201

From Difference to Dominance to Domesticity: Care as Work, Gender as Tradition

This Article introduces the notion of gender not as difference or as dominance, but as tradition. The work of Pierre Bourdieu and Judith Butler are tapped for insights into the cultural system that defines the relationship of market work to family work; the term domesticity is used to describe that system. Domesticity is presented as an important, if partial, model that offers crucial insights into the work/family axis of gender—and into the strengths and limitations of conceptualizing work/family issues in terms of care. This Article argues that care is work, and distinguishes seven distinct types of care work

The Future of Tenants’ Rights in Assisted Housing Under a Reagan Voucher Plan: An Analysis of Section 8 Existing Housing Cases

After a brief synopsis of assisted housing programs, including the proposed voucher scheme, this Article engages in a two-part analysis of the future of tenants\u27 rights in assisted housing. First, it examines the cases involving admissions and evictions in the Section 8 existing housing program, and relates those cases to decisions involving the earlier housing production programs. The article then applies the legal principles developed in the Section 8 existing housing cases to the Reagan administration\u27s proposed housing voucher plan

From Difference to Dominance to Domesticity: Care as Work, Gender as Tradition

This Article introduces the notion of gender not as difference or as dominance, but as tradition. The work of Pierre Bourdieu and Judith Butler are tapped for insights into the cultural system that defines the relationship of market work to family work; the term domesticity is used to describe that system. Domesticity is presented as an important, if partial, model that offers crucial insights into the work/family axis of gender—and into the strengths and limitations of conceptualizing work/family issues in terms of care. This Article argues that care is work, and distinguishes seven distinct types of care work