[The Pennsylvania Health Action Network] sees many people each year who, though insured, cite barriers to getting care, including difficulty getting paid time off from employers to see their doctors when they are ill. This is a public health crisis, and it’s one that is disproportionately affecting women, African American and Latino workers, all of whom are overrepresented among low-wage workers and among part-time workers.
Future mothers and fathers, currently pregnant women and soon-to-be dads, new moms and dads, seasoned parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents, friends and coworkers: We all need to speak up. Our voices can effect change for the next generation of working parents. Here’s how to get informed and fight for paid leave.
With every other developed country except the United States guaranteeing workers paid leave, the feasibility of paid leave has been well-tested across the world. But nevertheless, there still remains an underlying fear that it’ll somehow be bad for businesses in this country.
Failing to provide paid leave has especially devastating consequences for people of color that compound and exacerbate deep-seated and longstanding discrimination, institutionalized racism and vast income and wealth disparities.
[Trustee Muriel] Collison has previously said that since the board’s decision to opt out, the issue has been on her mind. A number of full-time workers in Northbrook told Collison that not only do they not receive paid sick days, but that if they miss work for more than three days in a year, for whatever reason, they would be fired, she said.
[Implementing the paid sick days ordinance] will be worth it for Austin workers, including financially independent students who work in Austin and stand to benefit from the ordinance.
Before I became a parent, it never once registered that “paid leave” was about so much more than new parenthood.
“You shouldn’t have to rely on the generosity of your co-workers to meet the needs of your family and protect your job,” [Tiffany Joekel, policy and research director for the Women’s Fund of Omaha] said.
[O]ne small business owner in Yonkers tells News 12 he has been giving employees five to six paid sick days a year for the past 15 years. “I think people should have some personal days off, paid if you can afford it, I think it’s the right thing to do, it also makes everybody happy,” says Rich Angelori, owner of Midway Electric.
“November will be an important time for change,” said Vicki Shabo, vice president at the National Partnership for Women & Families, in regards to the upcoming midterm elections next month.
After Flake announced his surprise move to tie an FBI probe to his final vote on the nominee, Amalya Smith, with the National Partnership for Women and Families, who was addressing the crowd, announced that Flake is “manning up,” triggering wild cheering. Then she added, “or, womaning up.”
Statement of Debra L. Ness, President, National Partnership for Women & Families
Researchers say Hoosiers are ready for a government program that ensures all workers have access to paid family and medical leave.
Statement of Debra L. Ness, President, National Partnership for Women & Families
Another contributor, Carol Sakala, the project’s standard practices could rein in the hospitals that perform too many C-sections. But she worries about the focus on hospitals.
A split is growing between cities that want to require private companies to give workers paid sick days and states that are determined to stop them.
“I think as a country we value hard work, supporting our family and being there for them, yet the policies to do both are not there,” Vasu Reddy, senior policy counsel for workplace programs at the National Partnership for Women & Families, said.
Statement of Debra L. Ness, President, National Partnership for Women & Families
The woman, we all know, was Anita Hill. And I was there as her story unfolded. Twenty-seven years ago, on Yom Kippur eve, I testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in my role as President of the Women’s Legal Defense Fund, which became the National Partnership for Women & Families.
The [American Enterprise Institute/Brookings Institution] working group’s shortcoming is especially disappointing because there are so few issues today upon which policymakers on both sides of the political aisle in Washington can agree. Paid family leave to care for a seriously ill loved one should be among them.
