Working Family Summit: Christina Hendricks Cozies Up With Obama, Biden
Christina Hendricks, star of AMC’s Mad Men, has cozied up with President Obama and Vice President Biden to get the word out about family-friendly work policies at the Working Family Summit.
According to The Washington Post, Christina Hendricks spoke yesterday at The White House Summit on Working Families in Washington, referring to her single mom character, Joan, on television: “In the 21st Century the only place for a story like Joan’s should be on TV.”
Vice President Biden opened the Working Family Summit by talking about the value of family time. “Not all of us have the flexibility I have,” Biden said with a grin.
President Obama then cut to the core of the problem in his weekly address. “Only three countries in the world report that they don’t offer paid maternity leave – three – and the United States is one of them. It’s time to change that. A few states have acted on their own to give workers paid family leave, but this should be available to everyone, because all Americans should be able to afford to care for a family member in need.”
At the Working Family Summit, Obama cited child care and a flexible work schedule as vital benefits. Executives representing Gap Inc., PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Johnson and Johnson, Goldman Sachs, Shake Shack, Cisco Systems and Intel Corp. are all participating in panel discussions at the Working Family Summit.
When President Obama took office, he instituted six weeks of paid leave for his workers when they have a child, get sick or inured or need to care for a sick family member, using his authority to set his staff’s compensation under the White House’s personnel code. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the power to give paid leave to other federal workers without congressional action.
C-Span highlighted another speaker at the Working Family Summit: First Lady Michelle Obama. She recalled one of her own experiences in dealing with family versus work after her child’s babysitter quit. “I got a call from the University of Chicago Hospital. They wanted me to interview for a job,” Michelle Obama said. “I’m going to go to this interview and I’m gonna be whoever I’m gonna be. And they’re going to have to deal with it. And who I was at the time was a breastfeeding mother of a 4 month-old. And I didn’t have a babysitter, so I promptly took Sasha to the interview with me, and I thought, ‘look, this is who I am. I’ve got a husband who’s away, I’ve got two little babies, They’re my priority. If you want me to do the job, you’ve got to pay me to do the job and you’ve got to give me flexibility. Flexibility means that I will work my tail off for you, but you’d better pay me and value my family.'”
The Working Family Summit is taking place at the Omni Hotel in Washington.
