Family Leave

It is important to provide workers essential time off to care for themselves or their loved ones. However, workers should not have to lose income to fulfill their caretaking responsibilities. In a 2000 national survey, 78% of workers who did not take unpaid family leave (as provided under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act) said they could not afford to survive without their income.

  • Family Leave Insurance Act of 2008
    Representatives Pete Stark (D-CA), George Miller (D-CA), Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) have introduced legislation that will provide workers with 12 weeks of paid leave to care for a new child, a sick family member, recover from an illness, or because of an exigency arising from the deployment of a member of the armed services. The Family Leave Insurance Act of 2008 will provide these benefits through a new trust fund that is financed equally by employers and employees, who will each contribute 0.2% of the employee’s pay.
  • Family Leave Insurance Act of 2007
    Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Ted Stevens (R-AK) have introduced legislation that will provide up to 8 weeks of paid leave to workers needing time off due to the birth or adoption of a child, to care for a child, spouse or parent with a serious illness or to care for their own serious illness. The Family Leave Insurance Act of 2007 will establish a Family Leave Insurance Fund, through which employees, employers and the federal government share the cost of providing compensation during times of family crisis.
  • Family Leave in Other States
    The Multi-State Working Families Consortium, comprising of labor-community coalitions in 11 states as well as national policy and data experts, is leading a movement across the country to expand and/or adopt a range of paid leave policies including Paid Family Leave and Paid Sick Days.
  • California Paid Family Leave
    California passed a comprehensive Paid Family Leave law in 2002. This legislation helped establish a cost-effective model of self-insurance that offers unemployment compensation to workers who suffer a wage loss when they take time off work to care for a seriously ill family member or bond with a new minor child. The success of the California Paid Family Leave law was due to the concerted efforts by a broad coalition of advocacy groups (including the Labor Project for Working Families), unions and the California Labor Federation.
© 2007 Labor Project for Working Families