It’s this model that advocacy organizations tend to favor. “Tax credits in our view fall short,” Vicki Shabo, Vice President at the National Partnership for Women & Families, tells Fast Company, “because they are entirely dependent on the employer…and there’s no evidence that they change or incentivize employer behaviors . . . [so] you end up perpetuating the inequality that already exists in terms of access to paid leave.”

And pregnancy discrimination charges are increasing, with the number of allegations rising by about one-third during the past decade, according to the National Partnership for Women & Families.

Some states now give paid time off, including California and New Jersey, according to the National Partnership for Women & Families, a nonpartisan organization. “Everybody, no matter who they work for, what job they have, or what their circumstance, needs access to paid leave,” said Vicki Shabo of the National Partnership for Women & Families.

That’s why the National Partnership for Women & Families, the advocacy organization that authored the original FMLA law, as well as other groups, has continually worked to improve and expand it.

 “The top reason why people don’t use the FMLA when they need it is because they can’t afford an unpaid leave,” says Vicki Shabo, vice president of National Partnership for Women and Families. Meanwhile, workers have even more limited access to the unicorn of work-family accommodations, paid family leave. According to National Partnership, “Only 13 percent of workers in the United States have access to paid family leave through their employers.”

“We’ve seen incredible momentum on the issue of paid leave,” said Vicki Shabo, vice president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, a District-based nonprofit. “Private sector companies are adopting new policies, and although two weeks falls way short of what working parents need, it’s a great start.”

More than 43 million Americans don’t have paid sick time, according to the National Partnership for Women and Families.

This NPR interview features National Partnership Vice President Vicki Shabo.

Individual families sharing their stories is the most important part of all of this—more important, even, than these companies’ policies. It’s these stories that are going to make a difference. You can start by sharing your story here with the National Partnership for Women & Families, a nonprofit fighting to make paid family and medical leave available for all working families.

In fact, employees have no legal requirement to tell their boss that they’re pregnant at all – although their changing bodies might eventually betray the news, says Sarah Fleisch Fink, senior policy counsel for workplace programs at the National Partnership for Women & Families, a nonprofit, nonpartisan activist group.

According to a 2008 survey by the National Partnership for Women & Families, only 16 percent do — which just goes to show we’ve got a lot of work to do.