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Bargaining in the Shadow of Social Institutions: Competing Discourses and Social Change in Workplace Mobilization of Civil Rights

The Family and Medical Leave Act requires employers to provide job-protected leave, but little is known about how these leave rights operate in practice or how they interact with other normative systems to construct the meaning of leave. Drawing on interviews with workers who negotiated contested leaves, this study examines how social institutions influence workplace mobilization of these rights. I find that leave rights remain embedded within institutionalized conceptions of work, gender, and disability that shape workers’ perceptions, preferences, and choices about mobilizing their rights. I also find, however, that workers can draw on law as a culture discourse to challenge these assumptions, to build coalitions, and to renegotiate the meaning of leave. Until recently, the United States was virtually the only major industrialized country without a family leave policy. Employers could legally fire workers who needed time off to care for seriously ill children, ill or injured spouses, or aging and dying parents. Employers could also legally fire workers unable to work due to temporary serious illnesses or injuries. And employers could legally fire women who needed time off for pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions so long as they also denied time off to nonpregnant employees who were unable to work. Time off after the birth of a child remained a benefit provided at employers’ discretion, a benefit primarily available to well-paid professional or management workers (Kamerman, Kahn, & Kingston 1983).