Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 14, 1994 TAG: 9409140094
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Skokie, Ill.-based Fel-Pro, which makes car gaskets, sealants and lubricants, provides up to $6,500 in tuition reimbursements for children of its workers. And the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times reserves a room for nursing mothers.
Such benefits helped earn those companies a place on Working Mother magazine's ninth annual list of 100 best companies for working moms.
The list was released Tuesday at the Labor Department.
``We've discovered that quality of life is a much greater asset in securing people than high salaries,'' said George Lucas, maker of such hit movies as ``American Graffiti'' and the ``Star Wars'' Trilogy.
On-site child care facilities and flexible work schedules helped win his Lucasfilm Ltd. a place on the list for the fourth consecutive year.
Lucas, who also won the magazine's Family Champion Award, said he was being recognized for ``just doing what one should be doing.''
A single father of three, Lucas joked that by virtue of his juggling work, parent-teacher conferences and dinner, ``I guess I qualify as a working mother.''
The 100 companies ranged from the tiny to the colossal.
There was G.T. Water Products, a Moorpark, Calif., plumbing products manufacturer on the list for the seventh year in a row. The company provides 26 weeks of leave for new parents, even though with just 24 employees it is exempt from the federal Family and Medical Leave Act.
At the other end of the size scale was 358,000-worker General Motors, which returned to the list after a five-year absence. Last year the automaker added three child-care centers serving more than 600 children and introduced referral services for child care and elder care.
New Brunswick, N.J.-based Johnson & Johnson has four on-site child care facilities. It also provides up to $3,000 to help workers adopting children.
``We saw the extent to which working mothers thought about their children during the day,'' said Ralph Larsen, chairman of the company, one of the world's biggest marketers of baby products and health care supplies.
Larsen said company studies show that workers with children in on-site facilities worry less their kids than those using off-site centers.
by CNB