Tag Archives: family leave

Mark Mother’s Day by Reforming Family Leave Laws in US

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By Janet Walsh, from Thompson Reuters: 

janet walsh

Janet Walsh, Deputy Women’s Rights Director at Human Rights Watch.

Diana T. worked full-time for a large retail store in the US when she became pregnant. Her manager was unhappy about her pregnancy and about Diana’s six-week unpaid maternity leave. Her employer refused to pay her accrued sick time during leave. Diana’s baby was born with asthma, and doctors suspected she had cystic fibrosis. Diana had severe post-partum depression.

Diana’s employer threatened to terminate her when she asked for time off for doctor visits. She barely managed to keep up with health visits for her infant daughter, and never got treatment for depression. Diana had to depend on family to help her buy food, diapers, and other basics during the time she was off work without pay.

Diana is one of millions of US workers with no paid family leave. The Family and Medical Leave Act grants workers unpaid job-protected leave for up to three months to care for parents, children and spouses with serious illnesses, to bond with new children, and to manage their own serious health conditions. But this applies only to enterprises with 50 or more employees, and eligibility requirements exclude many workers. Indeed, more than 40 percent of the American workforce has no protection under this law. Only about 12 percent of the workforce has access to paidfamily leave.

Public debate on US work-family policies ignited this year, triggered in part by Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter’s article in The Atlantic, “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All,” and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s book, “Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead.” Both Slaughter and Sandberg call for paid family leave, among other steps to reform the US work-family culture. Critics claim that Slaughter and Sandberg are out of touch with low-income women. But when it comes to paid family leave, reforms they call for would make a profound difference for low-income workers.

Just California and New Jersey guarantee six weeks of paid family leave under law—financed entirely by minimal worker payroll contributions (in New Jersey, workers will pay a maximum of $30.90 for 2013). A handful of other states guarantee temporary disability insurance to birth mothers. For all other workers, it’s up their employers whether they offer paid family leave.

I interviewed Diana and more than 60 other parents in 17 states about US work-family policies for a 2011 Human Rights Watch report. Most of the parents had no paid family leave, and were lucky if they could string together sick pay or other leave to deal with major life events or catastrophes. Parents recounted how short and unpaid leave after childbirth or adoption contributed to delaying immunizations and health visits for babies, postpartum depression, and other health problems. During unpaid leave, many went into debt, and some resorted to welfare and bankruptcy.

Many parents I interviewed said they were forced to choose between a paycheck and their family’s wellbeing. This was especially true for low-income workers, like Diana.  US Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that workers in the highest 25 percent of average wages are nearly four times more likely to have paid family leave than workers in the lowest 25 percent. Those in the highest 10 percent of wages are five times more likely to have paid family leave than workers in the lowest 10 percent.

The US lags far behind other countries when it comes to policies on reconciling work and family obligations. Every industrialized nation in the world—except the United States—guarantees paid leave for new mothers, and 81 countries do for new fathers, generally financed by social insurance systems. Countries that provide better protections for working families reap gains ineconomic competitiveness and productivity. Paid leave research in many countries has shown that such policies increase breastfeeding, immunizations, and health visits for babies; reduce infant mortality and postpartum depression; raise productivity and employee morale; and decrease employee turnover costs. Paid leave can help avert family poverty spells, which often coincide with the birth of a baby.

The California and New Jersey public paid leave insurance programs are working well for businesses and workers.  Most businesses responding to a 2011 survey on California’s program said it had either a positive effect or no noticeable effect on productivity, profitability, turnover, and employee morale. These programs do need to work harder to raise awareness among workers. The California survey, for example, found that low-wage workers, Latinos, and immigrants were the least aware of the program. But those who enrolled described positive results: breastfeeding, for example, doubled in duration for those who used the California program.

As the US marks Mother’s Day on May 12, I think of Diana and millions of other US mothers—and fathers—who just want to be good workers and good parents. It’s time for US policies to offer some basic support to help them achieve both, including paid family leave under law.

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Janet Walsh is deputy women’s rights director at Human Rights Watch and the author of “Failing its Families: Lack of Paid Leave and Work-Family Supports in the US.” Follow her on Twitter at: @JanetHRW.

Senate passes backdoor repeal of Family Leave – tell House members to protect our families!

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Mark testified in favor of Family and Medical Leave this year, speaking about how it would have helped his family when his daughter was born with serious health complications PHOTO: John Stang

Mark testified in favor of Family and Medical Leave this year, speaking about how it would have helped his family when his daughter was born with serious health complications
PHOTO: John Stang

It’s been a bad week for working families in the Washington State Legislature, as Monday the WA State Senate voted to potentially repeal our Paid Family and Medical Leave system.

Please contact your legislators in the WA State House (1-800-562-6000) and tell them one more time:

Don’t accept the Senate plan to repeal Family and Medical Leave Insurance! Washington’s working families and small businesses need expansion of paid leave protections, not rollbacks.

On Monday, the Senate passed SB 5903 by a vote of 27 to 21 (see how your Senator voted here). It would repeal the Family and Medical Leave Insurance if the legislature does not approve funding by 2015. The bill would create a taskforce of eight legislators with the assignment of recommending a funding mechanism.

What’s wrong with a taskforce? Some taskforces do good work, but this one is merely a smoke screen that will allow legislators to repeal family leave insurance without looking like they are taking an anti-family vote. Besides, we don’t need another task force! We already had one in 2007. Another will be a costly waste of time, and result in repeal of paid family leave.

The Senate repeal bill now goes to the House. Please take 5 minutes today to urge your Representatives to to do the right thing.

Action for today: Call the legislative hotline 1-800-562-6000. Tell your legislators in the House of Representatives:

  • Please support Washington working families and vote NO on SB 5903.
  • Do not support any measure that will repeal Washington’s Family and Medical Leave Insurance program.
  • Washington’s working families and small businesses need expansion of paid leave protections, not rollbacks.

Family medical leave law deserves wide support

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This article originally appeared in The Olympian

This article originally appeared in The Olympian

Editorial from The Olympian:

In response to the looting and chaos that erupted in Baghdad following the American invasion of Iraq, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said, “Democracy is messy.” To some, it was a callous remark, but not entirely an inaccurate description of how a representative democracy actually governs.

State lawmakers frequently propose legislation to raid the general fund for pet projects that serve the special interests of a constituency of voters. These measures often arise and get passed into law without regard for how they fit with the sum total of all other legislation.

Aside from the governor’s annual budget and State of the State address, there is no big picture vision for what the people of Washington want our state to become. Instead, it’s cobbled together by individual, and often competing, pieces of legislation.

Such is the case with the Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FMLI) law. The Legislature passed a law in 2007 granting workers of businesses with fewer than 50 employees up to five weeks of time off without worry of losing their jobs. It includes a small stipend. Women having babies, for example, could receive up to $250 per week – based on a formula using their rate of pay – and spend time with their newborn child.

Lawmakers have postponed implementation of the law because they considered it an undue burden on families and small businesses during the recession. A bill making its way through the Legislature would repeal the law.

At the same time, several other bills in the House and Senate acknowledge the benefits of early childhood education, and would require the Department of Early Learning to expand its education and assistance programs. Other bills call for legislative task forces on early learning, and to fund expansion of early learning programs.

Education experts agree that when parents are able to spend quality time with their children from birth to age 5, the children do better in school, are more likely to graduate and are less likely to become a burden on taxpayers through the criminal justice system.

Allowing women who work in small businesses to spend five weeks with a newborn – another bill would expand the leave to 12 weeks – is consistent with state support for our early learning goals.

The FMLI law also supports the state’s drive for economic recovery. Less than 10 percent of businesses in Washington offer paid family leave plans. Middle- and low-income workers must rely on 12 weeks of unpaid leave to recover from serious injuries or for care of a newborn.

Taking unpaid leave can lead to financial disaster for average income households with mortgages and other bills to pay. The small amount of assistance provided by FMLI can make the difference whether a parent can afford to stay home with a newborn, or is forced to leave them in child care.

The family leave law is largely self-funding, with no charge to the state’s general fund. It is financed by a payroll tax of 0.2 percent of wages, shared equally by employees and employers. For the average worker, that means about a dollar a week.

Rep. Chris Reykdal is co-sponsoring the House bill to expand and implement the 2007 FMLI law. The bill deserves support, because it strengthens families and the state’s middle-income households.