“People often assume the law only applies to moms and babies, but the most common use is to deal with your own health issue,” says Vicki Shabo, vice president for workplace policies and strategies at the National Partnership for Women & Families.

Debra Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, said in a statement on the anniversary of the FMLA, “As a nation, we have reached an extraordinary moment of consensus and conviction in the national effort to win paid family and medical leave for all. … But the details matter tremendously and key policy principles are essential to ensuring that the national plan we adopt will be affordable, sustainable, inclusive and effective.”

“It is past time for Congress to fulfill the promise of the FMLA by passing a national paid family and medical leave plan. But not just any plan will do. Lawmakers should consider the evidence and support the Family And Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act, the leading paid leave proposal in Congress.”

“The Family and Medical Leave Act [FMLA] provides only 12 weeks of unpaid leave around the birth or adoption of a child,” says Vicki Shabo, the vice president for workplace policies and strategies at National Partnership for Women & Families. “So it’s up to employers across the country, including employers in congress like Senators [to decide] whether they offer pay during that time.”

Vicki Shabo, vice president for workplace policies and strategies for the National Partnership for Women & Families, called the paid sick leave program “an extremely welcome sign” and said in an interview that Starbucks had “essentially taken what paid sick leave policies say and extended that to their entire workforce.”

That view is shared by Vicki Shabo, vice president for workplace policies and strategies at the National Partnership for Women & Families, an advocacy group, who said it will primarily benefit workers at companies already offering paid family leave. The new tax credit “just perpetuates the boss lottery,” she added.

The movement may be divided, but there’s still progress, according to Sarah Fleisch Fink, director of workplace policy at the National Partnership for Women & Families. “I think the important thing right now is we’re having the conversation – that some of these experiences that people have faced, are being surfaced,” she said.

According to Vicki Shabo, vice president at the National Partnership, the way to fix these patchwork and uneven policies is simple: a national paid leave policy. “It’s another indication in the growing sense that it is time for the U.S. to have national paid leave,” said Shabo. “It’s obviously beneficial to workers, it’s something that is beneficial to employers, and it will be beneficial to the U.S. economy.”

Women make on average 80 cents for every dollar a man makes, says Vicki Shabo, a vice president at the advocacy group National Partnership for Women & Families. Some of that is due to women gravitating toward lower-paying careers or bouncing in and out of the workforce as they balance being caretakers. But statistical analysis says that 38 percent of those 80 cents is unaccounted for, Shabo said.

“An imbalance of power in people in two different positions is a big part of sexual harassment occurring, and I think that there’s probably nowhere that occurs more than in lower-wage jobs,” said ‎Sarah Fleisch Fink, senior counsel for the National Partnership for Women & Families.