Content area
Abstract
The United States does not have a national family policy and nowhere in the Constitution does it specifically protect, acknowledge, value, or address the importance of the family in our society and in sustaining economic viability. Through twenty-one semi-structured interviews with legislators and legislative staff, coalition leaders, and employer association leaders, this study provides the dynamics that successfully led the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to pass two significant workplace family policies into law in less than five years viewed through the Multiple Streams and Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice frameworks. The dynamics included the formation of a tripartite umbrella coalition that brought together community groups, a faith-based network, and unions. Second, the use of a dual strategy to advocate for workplace family policies directly to the legislature was joined with the parallel use of the Constitutionally provided ballot initiative to work around the legislature to take these highly popular issues to the people for their votes. This study provides insight into how a coalition with the use of the ballot initiative rebalances political power away from assumed corporate employer dominance and examines the role of the legislature as a convener of negotiations with worker-centric and employer association leaders to produce workplace family bills and statutes. These dynamics can inform other states and the federal government to achieve workplace family policies.
