Sometimes I’m amazed and full of pride at how far this country has come when it comes to equality among workers. But sometimes I’m anything but proud.

There was a lot of hoopla over Michelle Obama’s comments recently about American pride.

“People in this country are ready for change and hungry for a different kind of politics and … for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.”

Many people were outraged that she would say such a thing, that she hasn’t been proud all along. But those people apparently have no clue about the prejudice that still permeates throughout our society.

Today, The American Medical Association, the largest and most respected physicians’ group in the nation, is issuing an apology to African American doctors throughout the country because of decades of discrimination against them.

Today they are doing that. This is 2008 folks, not 1958.

The Washington Post writes that the AMA is “expressing regret for a litany of transgressions, including barring black physicians from its ranks for decades and remaining silent during battles on landmark legislation to end racial discrimination.”

It’s a great thing that such an organization is expressing remorse, but it should also be a wake up call to all of us that we still have a long way to go when it comes to equality in this country.

Discrimination against African Americans in the workplace is actually on the rise. If well-educated, well-off black doctors can’t get a level playing field, what hope do rank and file minority workers have?

I wrote about a rise in workplace racism for MSNBC.com a few months back:

Many of us are marveling at how seemingly far our society has come given a man with an African American heritage is being considered a serious candidate for president. But in the workplace, attitudes toward many black workers are anything but inspiring.

Racial harassment is up to record levels in offices and factories across the country, and we’re not talking just the use of the “N” word. Racist graffiti, Klu Klux Klan propaganda and even physical threats including the display of hangman’s nooses are included among the intimidation tools.

“It is shocking that such egregious and unlawful conduct toward African American employees is still occurring, even increasing, in the 21st century workplace, more than 40 years after enactment of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964,” says David Grinberg, spokesman for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, also known as the EEOC.

It’s hard to stand up and claim to be prideful when you hear this. It’s a disgrace that in this day and age we’re still dealing with such ignorance.

We should always question injustices, just as the AMA’s past president did in a publication for the group. Ronald Davis wrote that many of the organization’s questionable actions reflected the “social mores and racial discrimination” that existed for much of U.S. history. But, he added, that should not excuse them.

“The medical profession, which is based on a boundless respect for human life, had an obligation to lead society away from disrespect of so many lives,” Davis wrote. “The AMA failed to do so and has apologized for that failure.”

Failure is a fact of human life. But we shouldn’t allow failure to go unchecked and pretend everything is great when it’s not.

So don’t be surprised if someone says they are finally proud of America when it seems, as a nation, we’re trying to right the wrongs of the past.

Everyone is celebrating now that Congress passed a 13-week extension of unemployment benefits, on top of the 26 weeks already provided.

But many of you shouldn’t be breaking out the champagne.

If you get laid off tomorrow will you get an unemployment check?

Maybe not.

Have you checked your state lately to find out how long you’re supposed to be working for an employer before you’re eligible for jobless benefits?

In many states, you have to be working full time for a company for a few years and make a certain threshold income before you qualify.

“Most people who lose their jobs these days don’t qualify for any unemployment at all,” said Robert Reich, the former U.S. Labor Secretary under Clinton, on the Marketplace Morning Report this morning. Here’s an audio of the piece:

The economic world has changed a lot since the federal government encouraged states to adopt unemployment insurance in 1935, but no one seemed to notice.

The unemployment system made sense decades ago, Reich says, when people were in the same full-time job for years and one breadwinner could sustain a whole family.

But today, he adds, when people are going from job to job, and a growing number of individuals have several part time jobs or are contractors, a gigantic economic black hole is left for a huge number of working Americans to fall into.

“It’s a disgrace that most Americans that loose their jobs don’t qualify,” Reich maintains. “Congress should expand coverage in these perilous times.”

Expanding the benefits by 13 weeks was a good thing. I’m not knocking it. But it will do little to help American workers if they can’t even qualify for one day.

It’s easy to identify someone who has a disability if they’re in a wheel chair or walking around with a seeing eye dog.

But what about a worker who wears a hearing aid or an employee who has epilepsy?

Can a manager fire someone with a hearing aid because they use a hearing aid? Can a boss demote a worker who has an epileptic fit?

Today, the answer is pretty much “yes.”

Under the Americans With Disabilities Act the law is pretty clear on those easy to spot disabilities. You can’t fire someone because they’re blind or unable to walk.

For all those other disabled employees out there who have what seems like less constraining physical issues or for those who are able to deal with their ailments through the use of medicines or prosthetics, for example, they are not typically covered under the ADA.

All that may change soon. The House passed a bill this week that would expand the ADA to cover disabilities that didn’t come under the really disabled umbrella.

This from the Washington Post this week:

WASHINGTON — People who take medicine to control epilepsy, diabetes or cancer or use prosthetic limbs or hearing aids could use the Americans With Disabilities Act to fight workplace discrimination under legislation the House passed Wednesday.

Lawmakers said the Supreme Court has limited the ADA’s reach since it was signed into law by the first President Bush in 1990. “For some the ADA is failing to live up to its promise,” said Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee.

The bill, passed 402-17, is designed to bring people back under the ADA’s protection. It now goes to the Senate for consideration.

Under the ADA today, a disability would have to “substantially” impact a person daily activities. Under the new legislation the wording would be changed to “materially restricts”, opening up the door for many disabled individuals who are challenged by their disability but can do many day-do-day functions we all do.

So what will this mean for the American workforce? Simply, more people will be considered disabled under the ADA.

“This means more employees will be able to ask for an accommodation even when the medication they take or the device they use (such as a hearing aid) makes them fully capable to do their job,” says David Ritter, an expert on employment law and chair of Neal Gerber Eisenberg’s Labor & Employment Group. “Employers will have to grant accommodations and engage in an interactive process with many more employees.”

It’s unfortunate that we need a law to force employers to “engage in an interactive process” with their workers.

There’s an essay in the New York Times magazine today on how the “New Deal” is never coming back.

The author, a Democrat, puts out a challenge to his party — Come up with a plan to replace the “New Deal”.

The New Deal, which spawned Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and a pact between business and government: “Business, you provide a living wage and benefits, and government, you fill in the gaps with programs to help those who fall through the gaps.”

The author, Dalton Conley, puts it more eloquently:

Government and big business had an understanding, famously embodied by the line, “What’s good for the country is good for General Motors, and vice versa.” Employers, in turn, agreed to pay their (male) employees a living wage and provide generous benefits. Men, in turn, had an obligation to provide for their dependents. To complete the sequence, the state would step in if any of these links broke down by providing a minimal level of support in the case of unemployment, death, desertion or disability.

Conley makes some good points about providing new systems where people can become part of a pool and buy affordable health insurance, and creating savings incentives.

But alas Conley does not tackle what is probably the biggest problem in our economic structure today, the demise of a living wage.

Wages in this country have been stagnant. Jobs that once paid a good wage, where workers could have a solid middle class life and send their kids to college are disappearing. All the major U.S. automakers are laying off or offering buyouts to huge chucks of their workforces so they can replace them with employees who will work for half the money. And large retailers, such as Circuit City, a recent example, are showing veteran workers the door so they can also fill their jobs with people that will take less.

Last night, I was talking with my neighbor who told us his dad — who without a college education, worked for AT&T as a telephone repair man — and his mom — who was a stay-at-home mom — where able to raise seven kids and provide for them without ever getting help from the government.

Is that possible today?

Paying someone a fair salary will go a long way in providing for the nation’s middle class. We can have endless programs to fill in the gaps, but how will they work if the gaps are like black holes able to consume a whole segment of the population that once hoped it could fend for itself if only they were paid enough.

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.

Can your boss fire you if your spouse or child is disabled and their medical bills are high, or because your employer thinks you’ll slack off at work because you’re caring for a loved one?

Under the Americans With Disabilities Act, this is a legal no no.

Alas, some employers are doing this exact thing, or at least alleged to be doing this, according to an interesting story in the Wall Street Journal today.

The number of employees filing charges against companies who are firing or in some way discriminating against non-disabled workers because they care for disabled family members is rising. This is called “association discrimination” and it’s not allowed under the ADA.

Did you guys even know this protection existed? Probably not.

But you might be hearing more about it because there are two law suits pending that deal with this little known ADA provision and the outcome of these lawsuits will likely impact many employees who now care for a disabled loved one, or who cover that family member under their employer’s insurance.

According to the article, many of these lawsuits don’t end up benefiting the employee because it’s often hard to prove an employer took some sort of job action against a worker because of his or her disabled family member.

However, the two suits now in the courts “appear to have strong circumstantial evidence” to back up worker claims of discrimination by association.

One case in particular involving Phillis Dewitt whose husband had terminal prostate cancer appears to be strong.

This from The HR Specialist:

Phillis Dewitt worked as a nurse at Proctor Hospital. She received promotions and excellent evaluations that referred to her as an “outstanding clinical manager who consistently goes the extra mile.”

While Dewitt may have gone to lengths for the hospital, the hospital didn’t seem to have returned the favor. The hospital provided health insurance for employees and their dependents through a hybrid self-insurance and catastrophic coverage plan. The hospital covered medical expenses up to $250,000 per year, after which an insurance policy covered the rest.

The HR office regularly tracked expenses and noticed that Dewitt’s husband was racking up big bills for prostate cancer. At one point, Dewitt’s supervisor pulled her aside and suggested that she put her husband into hospice care rather than undergoing chemo and other expensive treatment.

Then, after a financial crisis in which the hospital invited managers to come up with creative solutions to budgeting, Dewitt was fired. Her husband died about a year later.

She sued, alleging association disability discrimination. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals said her case should go forward. It reasoned that there was direct evidence of association discrimination. A jury will decide how much that might be worth. (Dewitt v. Proctor Hospital, No. 07-1957, 7th Cir., 2008)

Given the aging of the working population and the never-ending drumbeat in Corporate America to cut labor costs, I think it’s safe to say we’ll be seeing more of these cases…unfortunately.

I love happy endings, especially when they involve workers.

If I were a betting gal, I would have bet that this conservative Supreme Court would have sided with employers in rulings announced yesterday involving workers who were allegedly retaliated against by employers. But thankfully, I would have lost that bet.

In February, I wrote about an employee of restaurant chain Cracker Barrel who was fired for reporting to managers that another worker was being racially discriminated against. It seemed like a clear case of retaliation, which is thought to be a legal no no. Alas, the law is fuzzy in this regard, which is where the Supreme Court came in.

The high court was to decide whether Hendrick Humphries, the Cracker Barrel employee’s, claims of retaliation were indeed covered by existing labor laws, specifically an anti-discrimination statute that has no limits on filing time limits or damages.

And in another case, Myrna Gomez-Perez, a former postal worker in Puerto Rico, filed an age discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and then, she claims, her managers reduced her hours as a result. She to claimed she was retaliated against.

This case would have an ultimate impact on federal employees because the law was unclear on federal employers retaliating based on age discrimination.

In both cases, the Supreme Court decided Tuesday in the employees’ favor, giving them the green light to pursue their lawsuits.

Everyone seemed surprised by the rulings.

From the Associated Press:

An unexpected blend of liberal and conservative Supreme Court justices gave workers more leeway Tuesday to sue when they face retaliation after complaining about discrimination in the workplace.

I was also a bit dumbfounded.

In February, I wrote a blog post for The Huffington Post on how workers should be keeping an eye on the Supreme Courts agenda because the cases they were examining and their ultimate rulings would impact employees for years to come.

Maybe they knew you were all watching.

Hillary Clinton brought up a great point this week on the campaign trail. She believes the media has ignored sexism against her campaign but have played up racism against Barack Obama.

It got me thinking about attitudes in the workplace. I’ve been writing about discrimination at work for many years, and it does seem sexist remarks don’t seem to carry the same weight as racist remarks among some individuals.

People seem to get more outraged when someone attacks a coworker for the color of their skin than their gender. I’m not basing this on scientific evidence, it is just what I’ve seen as an employee and in the stories workers have shared with me.

Here’s what Clinton had to say in a Washington Post article this week:

“There should be equal treatment of the sexism and the racism when it raises its ugly head. It does seem as though the press at least is not as bothered by the incredible vitriol that has been engendered by the comments by people who are nothing but misogynists.”

Geraldine Ferraro, a Clinton supporter, recently made an interesting point. She was referring to the “Iron My Shirt” t-shirt that an idiot displayed at a Clinton rally:

“Suppose somebody at that Barack Obama rally said ‘Shine my shoes,’” Ferraro said. “The person would have been swamped by the media saying, ‘what, are you a racist?’ Hillary barely saw press on this. It is not only the Obama campaign. It is how the press has handled this.”

I have to take issue with Ferraro on one part of this. The press did indeed pick up the story, but I can’t help but think there would have been more outrage if a “shine my shoes” shirt was making the rounds.

What I have found is there still is a lot of racism in the workplace but that tends to be more discreet, where sexism is often overt.

Many of the high level executive women I’ve interviewed for my book “From the Sandbox to the Corner Office” told me about public displays of sexism.

One CEO had a guy put his hand on her knee in a restaurant as he talked about how she probably slept her way to the top. And so many women in power have told me how they were asked if they were secretaries during meetings. If they had been black males, I’m assuming that would never have happened.

Why? We don’t think of women in authority roles.

My husband has an even more interesting theory. He says it’s all about the fear of getting beat up that’s ingrained in boys from a young age. They take that fear into their adults lives. Basically, they’re not afraid women will beat them up. They most fear other men so they’re not as inclined to get in the face of another male no matter what race.

That doesn’t mean they won’t discriminate behind the scenes, keeping other men down by not advancing them or paying them less. But with women, they not only hit a glass ceiling because of forces behind the scene, they are also being deriding face-to-face.

Now I think I’m pretty strong and can take on many men at Fight Club, aka, the workplace. But alas it’s not just about getting gals to lift weights.

Women still make up a small minority of top executives in Corporate America, and the numbers have actually been declining. We have to start seeing women, and I’m talking to women here as well, as leaders.

“All through my career I underestimated what I could do, until the last few years,” a high level, female executive from Wal-Mart told me. “You build a perception of your potential based on what you see, the people who break out of a mold. I grew up in a blue-collar town in the 1960s where the most successful women I saw were beauticians and administrative assistants.”

How did the women CEOs I got to know handle the blatant sexism?

They confronted the sexist individuals head on, and they also often let stupid comments slide. And they had to get to a point where they believed in themselves.

Clinton’s battle for the White House has been eye opening. Whether you support her or not, it has sparked an important national conversation.

I think she has moved us all closer to visualizing a woman as a leader. We just need to translate some of that to our offices and factories.

While the nation marvels at California’s Supreme Court’s decision to allow gay marriage, I thought it was a good time to bring up a past ground-breaking achievement by the Golden State — paid family leave.

In 2002, California was the first state to approve paid family leave, and since Washington State and New Jersey have followed suit. No other states have mandated paid family leave.

There are so many workers in this country that can’t take off, or suffer economic hardship, when they need to be away from work to care for a new born, or an ailing parent. And we’re not talking about employees who decide they want to take months off, but those that just need a few weeks to deal with a family situation.

Most of the laws now on the books in these progressive states call for up to six weeks of paid time off, and in most cases, these programs are funded by the employees themselves that pay into a pot to cover the leave, just like they chip in for unemployment insurance.

Many people I talk to think paid family leave will end up benefitting only women who take time off right after they give birth or who typically end up having to care for sick family members. But I’m here to tell you that many of the individuals I’ve interviewed recently, which I’ll be profiling in my column on MSNBC.com in the coming weeks, have been men.

One journalist in California told me he needed to take time off to help care for his father with Alzheimer’s. Another worker there decided he needed a few weeks to attend to his fatherly duties when his daughter was born.

Oregon and New York will be considering the passage of their own paid family leave laws next year. Every state needs to follow California’s lead.

Folks, this is about all of us. It’s about being an enlightened society that understands the importance of family and the curve balls that life too often throws at us.

This just doesn’t sound right no matter how you slice it: Unions striking secret deals with employers.

When it comes to workers, there’s plenty of secrecy to go around at the companies they work for. So, you’d figure a union would be all about transparency.

Not today. Two of the nation’s biggest unions, the Service Employees International Union, known as SEIU, and Unite Here, have been engaged in striking back-room deals with employers. I’m serious folks. You can’t make this stuff up.

There was a great article in the Wall Street Journal looking at the secret pacts.

Two of the nation’s largest labor unions have struck confidential agreements with large employers that give the companies the right to designate which of their locations, and how many workers, the unions can seek to organize.Two of the nation’s largest labor unions have struck confidential agreements with large employers that give the companies the right to designate which of their locations, and how many workers, the unions can seek to organize.

The agreements are raising questions about union transparency and workers’ rights. A summary document put together by the unions says it is critical to the success of the partnership “that we honor the confidentiality and not publicly disclose the existence of these agreements.” That includes not disclosing them to union members.

I don’t know about you, but if a union were representing me I’d want everything disclosed.

This move seems like the last gasp of a dying labor movement in this country that has seen membership plummet.

One union, the SEIU, has actually been gaining members. I write about that often. But if this is the way they are swelling their ranks then maybe they should rethink their tactics.

Some labor experts also see it as an unnerving development:

The secret deals, says Gary Chaison, professor of Industrial Relations at Clark University, “are very worrisome and some unions, particularly SEIU, seem to specialize in them. What I see are unions attempting to strike a balance between organizing new members and representing them. Often, unions find that they have to do special deals with employers in order to gain neutrality and special arrangements, like membership card counts instead of elections, as a way to prove majority support and achieve status as bargaining agent. But here’s the conflict. Secret deals to gain status as bargaining agent runs counter to the unions’ roles as bargaining agent, when they have to be open and transparent organizations.”

This seems obvious, no? What are we missing here?

In the Journal piece the unions defend their tactics:

The SEIU’s president, Andy Stern, said the unions sought the agreements after realizing that traditional organizing campaigns at individual sites were proving ineffective. “The old ways aren’t working, and we’re trying to find different relationships with employers that guarantee workers a voice,” he said. He dismissed the idea that the new agreements are undemocratic. “These workers have no unions; that’s where we start from,” he said.

and…

The agreements have “resulted in tens of thousands of workers getting unions” and been a major advance for the labor movement, said the president of Unite Here, Bruce Raynor.

He defended keeping them confidential, saying the companies involved insisted on that for competitive reasons.

This excuse has been used again and again by executives in the business world. Having a union official using it as a reason to keep deals secret from workers makes me feel like I’m in an episode of the Twilight Zone.

Chaison offers a gloomy scenario:

“Is this the beginning of the end of the labor movement? I think a strong case could be made that secret deals (along with the loss of political clout and the concessionary bargaining (wage cuts and freezes) that has become some common for example in the auto and airline industries, does mark a beginning of an end….that unions have loss so much influence and power in the world of work in which they recruit members and bargaining, that they find themselves moving apart from the members and making special deals with employers. The final decline of American labor unions will be marked not only by intense opposition from employers but a workers’ loss of faith in need for and effectiveness of unionism and in their unions as organizations controlled by workers. Once workers see unions as making special secret deals, workers’ will no longer feel attached to their unions, and the rejection of unionism at nonunion workplaces will increase and fewer workers will be willing to strike or participate in union administration and governance. Hence, unions will lose their greatest resource…the energy and support of their members.”

It’s something unions have been losing for years. But are these desperate measures for desperate times too desperate?