In 1993, when the FMLA finally passed, Republican Representative John Boehner, serving his first term in Congress, predicted it would cause the “demise” of U.S. business. “People thought we were crazy, verging on communism, it was going to be the end of free enterprise,” said Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families.

“What the secretary has done has started an important conversation about leave policies,” said Vicki Shabo, vice president of the National Partnership for Women and Families, a nonprofit advocacy group in Washington D.C.

“Corporate America is beginning to step forward to adopt these policies – in Facebook’s case, by saying the company won’t be party to poverty wages and practices that force workers to choose between job and family,” Debra Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women and Families, said in a statement.

(Data provided by Childbirth Connection, a program of the National Partnership for Women & Families)

Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, called the announcement “groundbreaking.” She wrote: “The company won’t be party to poverty wages and practices that force workers to choose between job and family. This may well be what a tipping point looks like.”

Facebook’s plan “goes beyond anything we have seen,” said Debra Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, a nonprofit advocacy group. “This is corporate responsibility in the 21st century at its best.”

In a letter to Postmaster General and CEO Megan Brennan, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and the National Partnership for Women & Families called the current requirements “outdated, unfair and potentially illegal.”

In a letter to Postmaster General Megan J. Brennan, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and the National Partnership for Women & Families said, “The Postal Service continues to maintain a legally indefensible position that allows for discriminatory treatment against its own employees.”

“There’s definitely stigma that’s still involved,” said Vicki Shabo, vice president at the National Partnership for Women & Families. “Cultures where employers look less favorably, or employees think they’ll be looked on less favorably, if they take [parental] leave.”

“Those who know about it are those who disproportionately work for employers who already do it,” says Vicki Shabo, a vice president at the National Partnership for Women & Families. “That leaves out many lower-paid workers.”