Latest / OneLegUpAlex Media / LaborPress Radio's Alex Garrett Talks WIth Stacey Hofert, Vice President of Labor for Progyny, Inc. 9-5-24

Transcript

LaborPress Radio's Alex Garrett Talks WIth Stacey Hofert, Vice President of Labor for Progyny, Inc. 9-5-24 · OneLegUpAlex Media

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: All right, back here at the Labor Press High Speed
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Rail Network conference.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: I'm Alex S. Garrett. I'm not saying the answer.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: With Stacy hoefert Al Malex Garrett, and you are the
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: vice president at Progeny.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Thanks for joining me today.
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: You're welcome.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: So what's the meaning to sponsor this event? And I've
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: been writing notes on your notepad the whole day? So
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: what's the meaning to be part of this, you know
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: conversation today?
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, we you know, we're here because we like
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: to support labor and and think this is really important
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: to creating new jobs and growing the labor movement.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Well, I see one of your main goals is to
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: attract and retain talent. So how do you help labor
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: unions do that?
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: Sure, so, as most people are aware, we uh, women's
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: health is kind of under attack these days, especially from
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: the political atmosphere, and so really, you know, the building
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: trades are trying to get more women into the trades
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: and this is a great benefit to attract and retain
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: we have. We provide infertility benefits, We provide care for
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: pregnancy and postpartum as well as menopause.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: For women's health, are you finding employers don't do that.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Is that why you guys exist there or what?
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: Well, it just depends on where we're at. In New
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: York they actually mandate fertility coverage, so so we do
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: have more reception in New York maybe than other states,
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: but it is it is a cost to the employers.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: But what we do as an organization is we help
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: mitigate those costs by providing members with support and making
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: sure that they have a safer and healthier pregnancy.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: And the stats of infertility is really drastic.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: I think people understand, Yeah, it's one in six, it's
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: one in six. Couples are effective by infertility effects their
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: job perform absolutely absolutely. As a matter of facts, sixty
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: sixty percent of people report their severely depressed that are
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: going through infertility.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: And so how do you work with employers to sort
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: of maybe relay the message, Hey, you know your employer's
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: going through, your.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: Employees going through sure.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: Sure, Well, once someone is pregnant, they're they're on the
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: plan and it doesn't matter how they got to that position.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: So really what we can do is we can help
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  Speaker 3: mitigate risk by making sure that the doctors are following
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: proper protocols. They only do single embryo transfers so you
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: don't have multiple births, so we end up saving money.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: On the nick you side, is this.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Being of saving does this also help save lives? Because
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: I feel like it could get to the point of.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: Thoughts and oh yeah, absolutely for sure. And that's why
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: we have a lot of advocacy that goes along with
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: what we do, because it's really important for that nurse
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: or doula or patient care advocate to be in contact
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: with that person to make sure that they're they're stable.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Women in the workforce, I feel like that's still a
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: fight to get more women in the work force, right, Yeah,
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: talk about that for well.
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: I believe the building trades are their goal is to
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  Speaker 3: have twenty percent women by twenty twenty five. They're very
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: far behind on that, so I think I think having
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  Speaker 3: benefits that are more women focused sure will attract those
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  Speaker 3: those members.
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  Speaker 2: And females in the unions themselves. Are we seeing an
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: increase and oh yeah, more increase.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we are seeing an increase, and I think they're
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: becoming more vocal, which is great. You know, infertility was
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: kind of a silent type of disease, and now I
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: think people are more willing to speak out about it.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: We heard a lot of that over the last couple
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: of weeks with people that you never thought had gone
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: through infertility that did.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: And one last thing, sir, since we are the has
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: to high speed rail, Yeah, women involved in building this
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: talk about that. Are you Is that encouraging time that
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: more women could join this project? Yeah?
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, I'm I mean this is obviously going to create
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: a lot of jobs in the workplace. They're always looking
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: for diversity and attracting women into that would be great.
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  Speaker 2: And what role could you see them because a lot
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: of people do want to do engineering and.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: All that stuff right right, they could do engineering, but
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  Speaker 3: you think about all the building trades that are going
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  Speaker 3: to be involved in this and their impact of and
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  Speaker 3: what they're focused on is really recruiting and retaining women
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  Speaker 3: and younger, younger folks into the work.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: For How many labor unions are you involved with that progeny?
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: Oh goodness, lots lots. What I could tell you is
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: we cover today. In the last two years, we've added
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: seven hundred and fifty thousand union lives. So it's really
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: I think something that you know, women are unions are
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: about family. You know, you think about generational. You know,
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  Speaker 3: someone goes and they're a laborer, and maybe their father
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: was a laborer, their grandfather was a laborer, so you
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: see a lot of generational So I think this is
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  Speaker 3: really important to have a family building benefit.
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  Speaker 2: Well, say we can talk about women in the union.
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: It's a conversation where you have to keep having that yeah, exactly, exactly,
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  Speaker 3: so thank you.