 Welcome everybody to my social distancing home office. Thank you so much for coming to the what we're calling the prices conversations live from the better life lab this we're building on the better life lab podcast that we've had for a couple seasons where we explore how we combine work and life and conflict and stress and gender equality. We just thought the coronavirus is disrupting absolutely everything about the way we work and live and love and relate to each other and expect from each other and our communities are businesses and our government. And it's all happening so fast and I was having a crisis moment at about four in the morning the other night and I thought what, you know, what can I learn from, you know, this little room here and feeling very isolated, and really wanting to understand this, this fast moving story, trying to kind of get a sense of sense making. And so we wanted to create the space where we could come together, take a deep breath and pause and reflect that's what we're doing it on Friday sort of like after the crush of the of the week and the craziness. Take a moment to pause. Let's see if we can come together create some connection, share some stories, try to get a try to get a better sense of what's going on and how this might change not only our current experience but how it might how might change things into the future. So today is our first day we're launching so we've got all sorts of if we're a little rough around the edges. We apologize or trying to figure it out if you dialed in early we're trying to figure out how to work zoom. Many of us last week didn't even know how to use zoom that was me to so bear with us. We're really excited to be able to make this interactive we want to hear from you want to hear your stories. And today, we really want to take advantage of the fact that we have Vicki Shabo who is brilliant she is one of she's a senior fellow in the better life lab. She probably introduced myself you don't know me that was a little slip up on my part. So I'm Bridget Shalty I'm a writer and a journalist, and I direct the better life lab with a work life gender quality and social policy family supportive social policy program at New America and nonpartisan think tank. And Vicki is is our senior fellow for paid leave policy and strategy or strategy and policy I'm sorry if I got that mixed up and a little nervous. And she has been just really on the front lines of so much of, you know, the public policy, making the trend to figure out how do we make work and life work for families for women for individuals who is at the National Partnership for women and families for many years and we're really lucky to have her here, because Congress has just passed and the president assigned some of the most sweeping legislation. After years and years of a really lack of movement on things like paid family leave and paid sick days. And it's all happened again so fast and there's a was changing as it was going. I just want to remind that this is a great moment for us to really take a minute to pause and reflect what is this mean what's really going on. What's good what's missing and what's next and how could this change things. So Vicki let me turn it over to you. And let me just ask you to just pause and reflect this is an enormous moment you just wrote a piece on medium that published about 10 minutes ago, and you called it historic and necessary. Let's talk a little bit about what this current moment is and what's what is it going to mean for people. Sure. Well, it's really exciting to be here on this inaugural past. Hang on. There we go. Good. It says I muted. Can you hear me. I can hear you. Yeah, can everybody here. Okay, yeah. Yes, we can hear. Thank you everybody. Cool. So it's great to be here and this I think this is a fun way to pass the time as we're social distancing. I'm actually a person who really prefers working in an office around other people so always happy to reach out and have social contact and I know a lot of people feel the same. And as, as you said, Bridget, you know, this has been a really incredible couple of weeks with respect to congressional action on AIDS, the kind of time that people need when they are sick when they need to care for a loved one. And now with so many of us dealing with kids who are out of school or childcare or adults in our lives who would otherwise be in care arrangements during the day. So we're in this really fast paced and incredible moment as we're all trying to navigate this new world of working from home and remote lobbying and remote advocacy and zoom calls at all hours to try to organize things but you know, as you said Congress did some pretty important work and their work is undone. And so before I sort of dive into that, I just want to set the stage a bit for participants that are less familiar with the US framework around access to leave, which has been laid bare as completely inadequate in this moment of crisis. So overall in the US, the law of the land as it relates to workers ability to take time off, take time away from their jobs to deal with their own health issue or a family members health issue or to welcome a new child is the family and impact that was passed in 1993, and it guarantees to workers and businesses with 50 or more employees, unpaid job protected leave for up to 12 weeks to deal with your own serious health issue to care for a parent, a child or a spouse with a serious health issue to welcome a new child or for about the last decade for military families to deal with certain military caregiving purposes. But you might have noticed that I stressed unpaid limiting factor of the FMLA and in the absence of paid leave requirements of which only a handful of states have and about two handfuls of states have with respect to sick days. Many people don't have the paid time that they need when an illness strikes or a serious family need arises. That's not true. Like if you have unpaid leave, you know, the I think the research shows that if you have, you know, white collar job or you have, you know, you work for a larger employer, you're more likely to have some kind of private paid leave but that for a lot of people, if you're an hourly worker, or, you know, if you're, you know, even a public, you know, you work for a public, sorry, organization, you really don't have access to any kind of paid leave, and then you can't afford to take time off and you know, that's where you get these horrific statistics that one in four mothers returned to work within two weeks in the United States, which is just outrageous. So like you're saying we've got this really inadequate system. And people like you have been working for decades to try to get that fixed to say we are the only advanced economy without paid maternity leave how can that be in the 21st century. We are one of two advanced economies with no paid sick days. And so we're actually asking people to take a lot of risk on themselves, and it leaves them with so little choice we have to choose between either going to work or paying your bills which just is an untenable choice so what does this, you know, this this sweeping emergency legislation what is this going to do. Right. So in this moment where it's clear that as a matter of public health, it's imperative that workers are sick, be able to stay home. Congress took a first step. So the bill that was passed and enacted into law last week, the family's first corona virus response act. It mandates employers to provide up to 10 paid sick days for workers who work full time, who are quarantined or isolated on the guidance of a health official or a public official who are experiencing system symptoms of COVID, who are caring for another person who needs help or whose child's school is closed. Again, 10 paid sick days in this emergency these sick days are being reimbursed by the government. Key difference with how the states and cities that have put paid sick days laws in place have structured them it's certainly different than how we would structure it in a normal time. There are some key limitations with this provision. The other thing that Congress did was enact extended leave for school closures. So, you know, millions of children are out of school right now. Parents need to be able to take care of them. And so what Congress said was if you can't work or telework and your child is home you can take extended paid leave. Again, there are limitations. So for both of these provisions, the paid sick days bucket and this extended school leave bucket, it only applies to people in businesses with under 500 employees or to public agencies. So, yeah, who does that leave out that's that's enormous. Yeah, leaves out half the workforce. Other employers often provide paid sick time to their employees but they don't always provide that paid sick time to their hourly workers, similar to the disparities you talked about before. So in practical terms, what this means right now at this moment, as we think about the businesses that are still open. We're thinking about large grocery store chains, our chains, big box retail stores, warehouses which are staffing up in this moment, and other large companies where fast food chains for example that are still open because people can carry the food out. There are others that are literally on the front lines of serving all of the rest of us, and they may not have access to paid sick time, even in this crisis, when they feel sick when they know that a family member or someone in their household has been exposed, or when their child is now out of school and they need to be able to care for that child. So this is a huge gap in what Congress did and it's something that needs to be addressed ASAP. Unfortunately, Congress didn't do that in this package that's about to be passed today or tomorrow, and it means that we need to come back to keep demanding these changes going forward. So let me ask you because, you know, there are some places that you'd mentioned just just talking about paid sick days. There are some states or are some cities that have paid sick days laws. Research shows that actually people are healthier there. You know, there isn't as much infection because then workers don't have to make that choice about coming to work or being able to pay a bill, which is huge. You know, and you would think in a pandemic that that's something that lawmakers would take into account that this actually is good for public health. So the other thing I found really striking the CDC has done a report that in a previous norovirus outbreak, you still had people come like one in five restaurant workers still coming into work with symptoms like vomiting and diarrhea because they were afraid they wouldn't be able to pay their bills or they'd lose their jobs. So it sounds like you're saying that the way the bill has passed all the people that we are now relying on in our isolated bubbles, the delivery workers, the restaurant workers. They may not be covered so they may have to be making these really horrific decisions that now are life and death. So when you say we need to take action, how likely is it, you know, where are we politically, like, where's the resistance to doing this. Well, traditionally, businesses have stood in the way of policies like this. So every, you know, you mentioned the states there are now about 12 states that have some type of paid sick days or paid time off. Well, in place, some of them do have carve outs, similar to not as big as this but for smaller businesses, some of them are more comprehensive about two dozen cities there are also longer term paid family and medical leave insurance programs in place in in five states. And so, you know, the resistance has traditionally come from the organized business community. In this particular case, what's really interesting is that businesses are being fully rebated for this for this cost reimbursed for this cost. The legislation that is currently before Congress that passed the Senate the other night and it's going through the house actually includes provisions that allow advanced credits. Again, sick leave so that businesses can be reimbursed more quickly and includes a provision for small business loans that can be used to pay for payroll and sick leave. So, the resistance here maybe it's also ideological where conservatives Republicans traditionally don't want government to grow. But I think what we're going to see over the past over the next several weeks as Congress is gearing up to pass this other package is the importance of journalists who are amplifying the stories of workers on the front lines the important of importance of activist groups that are organizing those workers to make sure that their stories and their experiences are being heard. As well as work, you know, for professional advocates who are really then aggregating those stories and helping to make sure that lawmakers are seeing those stories and to document the harms that are being caused in the health system in businesses when workers are forced to go to work sick. So, a lot to be done and just one one quick thing to say I was really encouraged yesterday, one speaker Pelosi did a press conference on the work that she thinks needs to be needs to be done in the next package. And one other thing she specifically called out was expanding the paid family and medical leave component to be not just the school leave that that piece got whittled down to at the 11th hour in the last package. But actually, to be able to make sure that people who need to be quarantined for more than 10 days, which is what the recommendation is people who need to be able to care for an adult family member who's out of care to be able to make sure that somebody who's caring for a child or a family member who is sick and then get sick themselves is able to take that extra time. So I think it's great that it's on the speaker's radar screen me to make sure that it's on every member of Congress is radar screen for this next package when we're spending $2 trillion. It's crazy to think that we can't afford this to you. Absolutely. You know, we've got Linda. So what what we'd love to do now is open it up. If people have stories or reflections they want to share if they've got questions. You know, this is a great opportunity to have a conversation. We're going to, you know, we're going to try to do this as unwieldy as it is on zoom. Linda, can we unmute you you had, you made a really important point and, you know, and Vicki maybe you can address this as well is that not only large employers were exempted but also love them love the cat, nurses and health professionals and people who are literally putting their lives on the line. Linda, can you can you share your story. Well, thank you so much for organizing this so I'm sort of speaking on behalf of conversations I've had with my brother who is the doctor in Boston and my mom who's retired nurse in Boston was actually going to be coming into the hospital to help out because there are shortages of nurses. But there was discussion about how nurses are paying an hourly basis. So if they're not working then they're not receiving their pay. And there's also been discussion that COVID-19 is may not allow having COVID-19 may not allow you to receive sick paid leave. That's a discussion that they've been having. Yeah, one of the other outrageous carve outs or potential carve outs in the bill that Congress passed and another one of its big imperfections is that both employers of health providers and the Secretary of Labor can determine that health providers can be carved out of the right to sick leave under this act, which if you think about these are literally the heroes of this pandemic, the people who are caring for everybody else who are risking their own lives with protective gear that's inadequate. And the idea that we would both have them risk their own personal health but also have them then be exposed to more people who may have come to the hospital for a different reason is really nonsensical. And so Linda I'm so glad that you pointed that out. It's another area that really needs to be fixed in this next wave of legislation. So, Vicki, we also have a question from Trudy. She was, she's wanting a little bit more clarity and that there is it's so much confusion. She's talking about like where, you know, the coronavirus families, you know, what is that, what was this big $2 trillion package where are, where are all of these pieces how does this all fit together. It's a great question and it's a bit mind boggling. So the first package dealt with health and health providers. And it was the smallest of the packages and the most limited. The second one was much more expansive and included some unemployment protections mostly to shore up state systems included food nutrition health other health care purposes. That was the family's first coronavirus response. I'm sorry. I love your cat. I'm sorry. And, and then, sorry, I got distracted there. And then this third package is the $2 trillion stimulus bill it includes rebates to lots of American families so direct cash. It included something we didn't talk about which is pandemic unemployment assistance, which actually includes for the first time ways for workers who are eligible for state unemployment insurance and who have family and medical leave type circumstances as well as other circumstances directly related to COVID to really to receive payments if they're unemployed, partially employed or unable to work. But, but there is a lot left undone and so what we're hearing house leadership and speaker Pelosi in particular talk about is a fourth package that they will be thinking about over the coming weeks and could take up later in April when the Senate is expected to come back. So, I think it's exciting from an advocacy perspective there's so much that's been left undone you know we've talked about paid leave. Childcare is another huge piece of this puzzle. You know, not only are there the workers that we've talked about who are still on the front lines who are showing up to place big based workplaces, but their childcare is maybe shut down. On the childcare provider side they to our businesses who are being forced into dire circumstances and in some cases forced to close, because they don't have resources coming in anymore. So childcare is a huge problem that has to be addressed in that next package. And then there's more increases in SNAP food, food benefits and other vital services where appropriations were provided as part of the pat the stimulus the $2 trillion package but it's not going to be And all of this really underscores the structural changes that need to be made to a number of these different programs in order to ensure that we're not in this position again. If something unexpected strikes. You know, Haley has just who's our deputy director at the better life lab she has just put in something in the chat box. Can we unmute Haley so you can make that point to the group. Haley and Roslyn also the better life lab have in, you know, in addition I've done some work on it and Vicki's been instrumental as well. I'm thinking what the large companies are actually doing saying that they're going to do and then what the journalists are reporting what that's what's actually happening on the ground Haley. Can we unmute you and can you make the point that you just made in the chat box and talk a little bit more about about what's happening on the ground. So as Vicki said already, these companies that have more than 500 employee employees are carved out of the family's first bill, which means that they're left to voluntarily offer emergency paid sick policies to their workers. And we saw a big rush of companies kind of do this right at first to try to get ahead of it. Walmart put out what seemed like a good policy on paper, for example, and got some props for that in the media. But what we're sort of seeing in the next wave of reporting is that most workers are finding these policies aren't working in practice. They're being pushed back from managers when they try to use them, and they're really worried that they're going to be punished if they use these policies. Whatever they whatever they say in in their sort of written policy, whether they can actually take them and what what I'm finding as we've been tracking this we have about 90 companies listed now online and you can check out. I think in here in just a second you can check out what their policies have said, but we're really finding that this is an issue, and in my mind and I'm wondering what Vicki seeing on this, it really seems that only something like federal legislation would actually be able to enforce these policies right now, so workers can actually use them. Yeah, that's a great point Haley and thank you so much for your work tracking down all of these policies and keeping your great resource updated. I mean this is the case in general companies will often take a lead and do really important work establishing, you know establishing their own policies and some companies do a fantastic job of that and are very thoughtful about how they not only put a policy in place but also have that policy trickle down to their managers so that frontline workers get the benefit of what's on paper. Sometimes it doesn't work that way. And, unfortunately, in a circumstance like this we're seeing the consequences of that. As you said, you know the benefit of a statue is that companies have a legal obligation to follow the law. The federal agencies or in the case of state law or local law state or local agencies have the have the authority to enforce those laws, and that's really what's needed. It's not the only thing that's needed we know even where laws are in place. Sometimes enforcement is lax or people don't know their rights, but having that statutory protection as a safeguard is critical to making sure that that the structures are in place for people to be able to take the time that they need without retribution. Next we want to, I think we've got Cindy Murray, who's a worker from Wall Street Wall Street, sorry, who Walmart on on the phone line sorry that was a little slip. So we're going to try to figure out which phone line it is so we can unmute you so if you so bear with us, but while we're doing that, Amy Hilbert Davis made a really great point in the chat so Amy I think you're on on mute can you come on into the conversation and make sure we can share in the discussion. Of course, hi Bridget and Vicki it's a it's a real pleasure. It's, it's a thrill to watch you both work together and to bring this audience together about just an amazingly important topic and you know what is what I keep thinking day in and day out as I work within corporations right and I speak to family success and I work with employees to help them feel more successful at home so this work of home right. It's immense we all know it, especially if you've raised children, Bridget and I have had discussions about this. And now all of a sudden, the work of home is out there for everyone it's on Facebook it's on Instagram people are talking about how am I going to make dinner and manage remote learning and do my this and it. What's so crazy is this is the work of home it's been happening for centuries, and now I love that the cameras are going home and seeing this work and I'm just so interested in and what you, what you sort of can forecast Vicki about. Is this going to change this work and done in the margins. What do you think it's a fantastic question I've been thinking a lot about that as I've just seen my own friends who are, you know, stay at home parents who aren't used to homeschooling and work out of the home parents who are now. Man at work and their kids school and yeah I think that this moment is one that really could catalyze if we play it right and help people remember the emotions that they felt during this time that could really catalyze a transformational change around the value of care, and whether that's the value of care that teachers in classrooms do for kids every day whether that's the value of care that caregivers provide to the people that they're taking care of. And whether it's the or the value of care that parents whose work is in the home have and and provide to their families and to society so yeah I mean I think we're all getting a taste of the value of care and how unappreciated it is and that's hopefully a wake up call to many people. That's great. Well thank you so much for all of that. We're going to go to Cindy now Cindy thank you so much for being for waiting patiently we weren't sure which number was yours, we weren't sure which one to unmute. So Cindy I understand you are on a break sitting in your car and very appreciative that you've taken a break where you work in a big box store and we really want to hear you're kind of on the front lines you're out there. You know, helping people get their groceries and you know, even in the social distancing we still need to to eat and survive and what's that like for you and what is it that you need. You know, in terms of feeling supported and having paid sick days and and time, you know, pay time off, you know, in case you get sick or family gets sick can you can you tuck up. We have just about a minute or two left but we started a little late we're going to try to finish up but we'd love to kind of have thoughts from you and hearing your story. Well thank you so much for having me this is such an important time. I worked for Walmart been here 20 years. I we started an organization you refer united for respect. It's really rough here on the front lines and tell us that we can self quarantine if we needed to. But the point about that is, you know, in my state we have five, five sick days that we can have right. But so I'm a 19 year associate in order to get those hours. They pay us one hour for every 30 hours that I work. So it's hard for workers here. To take the time to even self quarantine even if they're sick. That's why they come to work set. Because if you look at it, even though our state says we can have five, six days, we don't get those. We Walmart went through what was called PTO hours. So they were taking those now. Mind I'm a 19 year associate. I get one hour for 30 hours I work and that's 19 years. I go by the length of years that you've been here to decide how much time like me, it's one hour for 30 hours, which is about that. If I could just tell her that. Yeah, so if I could jump in Cindy so you know what's it like for you when when all of us we're here, you know, on on zoom out of you know we're social distancing we're all stuck at home. You're going out to work every day. You know this pandemic is, you know, the United States just yesterday was, you know, we now have the most confirmed cases in the world. What is that like for you going to work every day. It's scary. I worry about taking this virus home. I worry about the workers that are in the store. I worry about myself whether or not I will become. I will get this. The only thing I can do because I can't afford to stay home. Workers, not just me, other workers cannot afford the fact that's why we want Walmart to step off to the plate and maybe you know at this time, maybe pay your workers a better sick time. Maybe give us better medical because I mean like if I get sick, unless I can prove that I got the coronavirus, will we be paid anything really from Walmart. So at this point it's really rough on all workers and they are scared. I mean I look at the customers that are here. They're also scared. You can see the fear in their face is actually really airy. But I have to continue to work. So when I go home, I know you guys think this is crazy but I carried ice all with me. So I wear a mask. I wear gloves. We spoke out on Tuesday at a press conference about how Walmart needed to step up to the plate and disinfect their stores. And so now they're doing that. I work in the fitting room. They asked them yesterday to shut the rooms down and allow no one to try clothes on. Due to that, you know, it could be, it's too contagious for everyone. But the fact still lies for workers and I mean we're so low paid, I don't make $15 an hour and I've been here 19 years. So if I go home and stay home and get one hour every 30 hours, I don't have no PTO time. I don't have sick time. And I think this is a time in our country that we need to hold these companies that are billion-dollar industries. They need to be held accountable. They need to step up to the plate. They need to give, and my state is five sick days. Why can't Walmart give these workers five sick days that are paid? You know, give them the hours for their five days. It's not happening at Walmart. Cindy, you've made, you know, you have just made such chillingly important points. Thank you so much for sharing your story. You know, and when you're talking about Walmart stepping up to the plate, that's what this legislation has basically. That's where we are. We're sort of relying on companies, sort of in their, in the goodness of their hearts to take action. And, you know, that's what we're tracking and not all of them are. And is that really the right place to leave it? Is this really something that we really need the government to take and, you know, that we need our policies to be much more comprehensive. So with that, you know, it's 1.34. I want to be very respectful of everyone's time. We said we'd take about 30 minutes. So I just want to take a minute to thank everybody for coming. Cindy, thank you so much for sharing your story. Vicki, thank you so much for sharing your expertise. I want to thank my Better Life Lab team who is just the best in the world. Thank you for supporting this. The New America team. David Shulman, who is just the best producer in the world. Thank you all for joining with us today. We will be doing this every Friday at one, these crisis conversations. You're all invited. Vicki, you too to come next week. Next week we'll have Ian Brodsky, who is the, she's the author of the New York Times bestseller fair play. And to some of your points that you made, Amy, we're going to be talking about how the coronavirus might be really shifting things at home. The, the unfair division of labor at home. So we'll be talking about that. In the chats, please, if you have other ideas, if there are things that you want to talk about, or there are experts that you think would be good to have our stories to share, please let us know either in the chat or send me an email. Direct DM me send me a Twitter or whatever we really want these to be very much of the moment and useful for people. So thank you all for coming today and wash your hands stay safe and I'll see you next week.