Obama renews push to secure paid leave for parents

President Obama is renewing his push to secure legislation that will guarantee paid leave for working parents. The move would help 40 million workers in the private sector who do not have paid sick leave.

|
Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP/FILE
In this Oct. 27, 2013, file photo, President Barack Obama, second from left, with first lady Michelle Obama, right, and their daughters Malia, left, and Sasha, walk from the White House in Washington to attend a church service.

WASHINGTON - Renewing a push for paid leave for workers, President Barack Obama on Thursday will call on Congress, states and cities to pass measures to allow millions of workers to earn up to a week of paid sick time a year, the White House said. He'll also ask Congress for more than $2 billion in new spending to encourage states to create paid family and medical leave programs.

Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said Wednesday that Obama will also take steps to provide federal employees with at least six weeks paid sick leave to care for a new child, and propose that Congress offer its employees six weeks off, too.

More than 40 million US private sector workers don't have any type of paid sick leave, Jarrett said, meaning they lose pay if they stay home when sick or to care for someone who is.

While some companies offer paid family leave to attract talent, the 1993 Family Medical Leave Act only requires that employers provide unpaid leave for medical and family reasons.

The US is also the only developed country in the world that does not offer paid maternity leave.

The Congress that expired at the end of last year did not pass legislation that has been sponsored for several years by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., to allow workers to earn up to 56 hours of paid sick leave. Under the proposal, they would earn an hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours they work. Employers that already provide paid sick time would not have to change their policies as long as their existing time can be used for the same purposes.

Both houses of the new Congress that convened this month are controlled by Republicans. But the chances that lawmakers will send the bill to Obama in the next two years appear slim to none, given that DeLauro first introduced the bill in 2005. She said Wednesday that she will reintroduce the measure soon with Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., as prime co-sponsors.

"Workplaces need to respond to the reality of family life in the 21st century, and allowing employees to have seven sick days a year is a bare minimum," the congresswoman said. "The fact that the United States is one of just a handful of countries that does not require paid family or sick leave is nothing short of shameful."

Jarrett said the announcement Obama will make Thursday follows up on a White House Summit on Working Families the president convened last June in Washington. The announcement will also be the latest in a series of near-daily previews by Obama of initiatives he plans to discuss in next week's nationally televised State of the Union address.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Obama renews push to secure paid leave for parents
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Family/2015/0114/Obama-renews-push-to-secure-paid-leave-for-parents
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe