I’m having one of those mornings when little makes sense.

At a time when companies are cutting back on leave for working parents and a growing number of Americans are losing their jobs, why would intelligent men and women agree to give CEOs of major companies money after their dead.

The men and women I’m talking about are the board members of large corporations that approved so-called death benefits for top executives. The Wall Street Journal found these lavish payouts after reviewing federal filings and reported on these shocking perks yesterday.

You still can’t take it with you. But some executives have arranged for the next best thing: huge corporate payouts to their heirs if they die in office.

Take Eugene Isenberg, the 78-year-old chief executive of Nabors Industries Ltd. If Mr. Isenberg died tomorrow, Nabors would owe his estate a “severance” payment of at least $263.6 million, company filings show. That’s more than the first-quarter earnings at the Houston oil-service company.

These payouts are known as “golden coffins” and they really make you wonder whether “supply side economics” really does lift all boats.

Lately it seems the average worker is sinking when you look at stagnant wage increases among the rank and file, and continued reductions in benefits, everything from healthcare to time off.

Employees are paying more than ever for the health insurance they get from their employers, if they get any coverage at all. And paid leave benefits are few and far between. Indeed, a story in today’s Wall Street Journal talks about how maternity leave is the latest benefit to be hacked and slashed in the workplace.

At a time when many consumers are scrambling for cash, working parents face an added source of pressure: a squeeze on maternity-leave pay and time off.

Employers are cutting back on post-childbirth pay for mothers and offering shorter leaves, on average, for both moms and dads, compared with a decade ago. This comes despite research showing attentive nurturing has particular developmental power in a baby’s first year, and that longer leaves can ease postpartum depression in some mothers. The pattern heightens the need for parents to plan carefully for time off post-childbirth.

Unfortunately, if your employer doesn’t give you some paid time off to have a baby or care for a sick relative you’re on your own. The United States is one of only a few industrialized nations that does not mandate paid family leave. The other nations that join us in this distinction include Liberia, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland.

So, instead of just ranting about the lack of fairness in today’s workplace, there are things we can do if we’re employees that need help when it comes to caring for loved ones, or when we lose our jobs.

Three states, including California, New Jersey and Washington, now have paid-family- leave legislation on the books, and a host of other states are considering it. Also, federal bills are circulating right now that call for varying amounts of leave. I wrote a story about this recently for MSNBC.com. Workers who want to see this mandated should call their local and state representatives and tell them they want to see this become the law of the land.

And right now, the House Democrats are on the verge of presenting a bill to extend umemployment benefits for workers who have lost their jobs in this tough economy. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer from Maryland is pushing this extension so get on the horn to your Congressmen and women if you think this is a good idea.

Even if you think government should stay out of the mandating business and let the economic engine take care of itself, you should make your voices heard.

While I can’t help but think such benefits will really help lift all boats down the line, we always need healthy discourse in order to make the best decisions.

I’m sure the board members locked in those wood-paneled rooms at corporations deciding whether to pay out millions to dead executives missed out on healthy discourse.

Let’s just hope they don’t decide to bury some workers with the dead CEOs to accompany them into the after worklife.