We accomplished a lot in 2012!
Here’s a smattering of our great work together:
Workplace Flexibility: We hosted our second annual Great Ideas @ Work luncheon, where we honored 25 Oregon employers for modernizing their workplaces to make work work in today’s economy, for today’s families. We also awarded the second annual Family Forward Leadership Award to a true leader in workplace flexibility. We believe that flexibility works better for today’s employers and employees alike.
Paid Sick Days: We put our community’s paid sick days problem on the radar of elected officials at the state and local level. And we attracted plenty of press coverage, too. Our goal is to ensure that all workers in Portland can earn paid sick time when they work.
To succeed, we brought together a broad coalition of non-profit, union, and business supporters and are actively working with our elected officials to solve this community problem. We believe that all workers deserve to know that if they or a loved one get sick (we all do!), they have the time it takes to care for their own and their family’s health.
Family-friendly Faces in Salem: Our political action committee, The Mother PAC, successfully channeled our voices into support for key family-friendly candidates in this fall’s election. A whopping 87% of our endorsed candidates won, creating a more supportive legislature for the policies today’s families need. Without more “yes” votes, our broken, outdated policies will remain broken and outdated. And that simply won’t do. We believe that it’s time for our state’s lawmakers to start prioritizing today’s families.
Can Mothers Have It All? We jumped right into this explosive national conversation when Anne-Marie Slaughter’s article in The Atlantic was first published. On Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Think Out Loud radio show we shared our expertise on work-family issues, especially as they affect mothers, and brought in the much-needed perspective of everyday working Oregon mothers (people who worry more about losing it all than having it all).
We also hosted a conversation in Portland that brought people together for a passionate discussion about their own experiences combining work and motherhood. We believe that motherhood is political and that mothers — and fathers — need modern workplace and public policies to successfully provide and care for themselves and their families.
A Growing Voice for Change: More and more Oregonians – parents, grandparents, employers, employees, volunteers, policy-makers, activists, donors, foundations, and others – are fueling the movement toward a, well, family-forward Oregon! We believe that together we are powerful.
These accomplishments and activities are but a sampling of the exciting things we’ve been doing – together – to make our state a great place to raise and care for a family. There is simply no other organization in Oregon leading the charge to modernize the policies that shape the way we care for our families.
Click here to become a member of Family Forward Oregon to keep us on the fast track to making Oregon an even greater place for families. 2013, here we come!