Archive for April, 2010
European Union for People who Live Alone
National Union of Activists for People who Live Alone: doesn’t that sound great? It sounds even better in French: Union Nationale des Groupes d’Action des Personnes qui Vivent Seules (UNAGRAPS). And it’s for real!
Even if you don’t read French, visit the website for the charming graphics of activists holding banners that say roughly “solo = more expensive,” “fighting for ourselves together,” etc.
UNAGRAPS has 10 local chapters, in all corners of France. It tackles issues of taxation, social security and retirement, succession rights, and some leisure costs like the single supplement. It demands recognition of solo singles as an interest group (apparently not a dirty word in Europe), and won interest group registration under the European Union in August 2009.
As Ulla Anderson, UNAGRAPS’s President, emailed me in English (several communications excerpted and compiled here):
Our pursuit pertains to the difference between single without children (one person household) and married people without children.
French tax is calculated according to number of persons in a household. A one person household has one “part”; a couple without children has two parts. In a majority of situations this leads to higher tax for the single person than for each member of the couple.
It is widely accepted that the French system is particularly unfavourable for single persons as most countries tax couples separately.
[Nonetheless, in] Europe there are [similar singles' rights] associations in … Norway, Finland and Holland. There may be more that I haven’t found yet.
We recently read about singles rights organizations in India. We’re often asked if there are any in Canada, but we haven’t found one. Do you know any other international (or U.S.) organizations working to make laws and economics more fair for singles and unmarried households? Please click Comments to help us get connected!
Share: 
international, taxes
Comments 2
Apr 27th, 2010 by Nicky
Hospital visitation rights for everyone? (updated)
Appropriately for National Healthcare Decisions Day, today’s big news is that President Obama issued an executive order instructing hospitals that participate in Medicare or Medicaid to make
clear that designated visitors, including individuals designated by legally valid advance directives (such as durable powers of attorney and health care proxies), should enjoy visitation privileges that are no more restrictive than those that immediate family members enjoy. [And] that participating hospitals may not deny visitation privileges on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.
Wait, where’s marital / relationship status? Does Obama really mean to say that a close friend or unmarried partner can be kept from a patient’s bedside, if the patient hasn’t completed a legal advance directive (or otherwise designated that person in advance) and as long as the hospital can prove the exclusion wasn’t motivated by race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability?
Have you or anyone you know been kept from visiting a loved one in the hospital because of martial status? Your story must be told! Click here to send your story confidentially to AtMP, or post it for the public to read in the comments section below.
NEW! Read AtMP’s comments on the regulation, and add your support!
Share:
health care
Comments 4
Apr 16th, 2010 by Nicky
Did you get time off to care for your new child?
AtMP has heard from many people who were denied leave from work to care for their ill unmarried partner or to attend the funeral of their unmarried partner’s parent. Now we’re helping our colleagues collect stories about workers who were denied parental leave.
Have you been denied paid parental leave due to your marital status, or for any other reason? If so, please consider sharing your story with Human Rights Watch. This is how they describe their project:
Parental leave with pay when a new child joins the home is an important support for working families, yet most U.S. private sector workers do not have this benefit. In the United States, the national Family and Medical Leave Act requires only unpaid leave. Only two states (California and New Jersey) currently offer paid parental leave, and a handful of others offer temporary disability insurance to birth mothers after childbirth. States that do offer such paid leave generally fund their programs through small payroll deductions into a state-wide insurance fund, minimizing the impact on any particular business.
For the most part, it is up to employers to decide whether to offer this benefit. Some employers, especially larger ones, do so with good results. Other employers would like to, but can’t without the help of a social insurance fund. As of 2008, only 9 percent of civilian U.S. workers had paid family (including parental) leave, and among the lowest-income workers, only 3 percent had such leave. Some workers can apply other paid leave when they have children, such as sick or vacation leave, but such leave is far from universal, especially among low-wage employees. Non-biological parents face additional hurdles in accessing any parental or family leave, even unpaid leave.
Human Rights Watch, a nongovernmental human rights group, is interviewing parents in the U.S., including LGBT parents, about their experiences with unpaid parental leave, and the impact on their families. The interviews will be used for a report (using pseudonyms, not actual names of interviewees) and for making recommendations on U.S. law and policy. Interviews last about 25-30 minutes.
HRW’s Janet Walsh is coordinating the interviews. To spare her email account from being massively spammed, AtMP will forward your information to her. Please click here if you have experienced parental leave with limited or no pay and are willing to be interviewed.
Share:
health care
Comments 0
Apr 5th, 2010 by Nicky
