The time for paid leave for all is now.
In December of 2018 a dozen or so women, who had all spent years of work in politics and organizing and work-family policy, gathered in a living room. They came together with the shared goal of finally winning paid leave for all in the United States. Some represented workers who typically were excluded from workplace protections. Some had done deep work in the states winning paid leave programs, improving the model each time. Some had been driving reform at the federal level for years. They came together with the realization that while a federal win was overdue, and within reach, it would take a monumental effort and collaboration to get it over the finish line. And while they had been doing this work for a long time, much of it together, they recognized that there were still hurdles that they needed to confront: around racial equity to challenge assumptions and center the experiences of women of color; around trust and transparency to put aside individual organizational interests; around power and control of strategy and decision-making in favor of pursuing of a broader shared agenda. They knew that tackling these issues would be hard and require ongoing work, but they knew that they could sow the seeds needed for real partnership and a new kind of coalition.
And so they created a campaign, bringing together groups focused on economic equality, on racial justice, on gender equity, on small businesses, on disability rights; groups with grassroots, with policy expertise, with political savvy, with digital arms. Many of these organizations had worked individually and collectively on the original passage of the Family Medical Leave Act, on developing the FAMILY Act, and on paid leave victories in states across the country — but there were new voices too and they realized that they needed to create something bigger than the sum of their parts. And together, these groups developed covenants centered around equal partnership, trust, and mutual respect; agreements about how they would work together, leverage their strengths, share information and resources, and honor their values. They agreed to build a structure that was nimble and accountable, that invested in movement-building work in the field, that created a vehicle for worker activists to help develop the campaign and be visible in it, as well as a vehicle for business leaders and for policy experts. In December of 2019, Paid Leave for All was officially born, and our campaign has been growing ever since.
Just a few months later, the pandemic hit. While still getting off the ground, our campaign mobilized to work with other advocates and our allies on the Hill to meet the moment, to build out our rapid response and organize a remote war room. Many of us were caretaking around the clock, some of us dealing with the virus ourselves or in our families. But the stakes were clear: more than 30 million people in our country did not have the protection of a single paid sick day in a pandemic. Nearly 80 percent of workers did not have paid family leave through their jobs. The lack of a real social safety net meant that countless workers would fall through the cracks. Women and caretakers would be forced to give up their jobs. Frontline workers would risk their health and their lives. Families would suffer and face unimaginable choices. More of us would be exposed every day, by our families, our neighbors, our schools, our public spaces. And the burdens would be disproportionately borne by low-income workers, immigrant workers, communities of color, and women, more likely to be essential, but least likely to be protected.
We won a historic and bipartisan victory in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), our country’s first national paid leave policy of any kind. It provided two weeks of paid sick days and ten additional weeks of paid childcare leave to many workers across the country. And we’ve already seen the benefits: studies have shown that states whose workers gained new access to paid leave from the emergency law have seen 400 fewer COVID-19 cases per day. Paid leave is common sense, in a global pandemic or any time. An inclusive and comprehensive paid leave policy means there’s no uncertainty in a crisis, no scrambling; workers know they can take the time to get tested, to quarantine safely, or to recover. Consumers have confidence that businesses and public spaces are safer. Businesses of all sizes have the assurance of a fund to cover employees who need leave and the ability to cover overtime or a new employee as they need. Caregivers have peace of mind — we all have the assurance of not having to choose between our lives and our livelihoods, our jobs and our families.
And still, there is so much more to do. FFCRA left out as many as 106 million workers from its protections, many of them workers on the front lines most at risk of exposure. Families are on the brink. We’ve seen 865,000 women pushed out of the workforce in a single month. Our death toll continues to rise, and now we’re facing flu season, school reopenings, rampant job loss, and continued spikes in cases. And FFCRA is set to expire at the end of the year.
Comprehensive paid leave is a solution to many of these problems. It bolsters our public health and economic recovery, it addresses the racial and gender inequities caregivers and workers face. It provides us a measure of relief and security in the middle of a crisis, and importantly, it allows us to be there for the people we love. Every one of us will need to give or receive care in our lives; as the great Congressman John Lewis said, “Every family is different but life happens to all of us.”
Paid Leave for All is committed to passing a national and permanent paid leave policy, and one that engenders equity and inclusion from the beginning. A policy that uses the evidence we’ve gathered over years, that centers those most impacted, and one that works for all. This was our mission before the pandemic, and now it is our mandate.
Our commitment is to:
Racial Justice. Communities of color are less likely to have access to both paid and unpaid family and medical leave, which magnifies the racial wage gap and wealth gap. Workers of color are disproportionately frontline and essential workers, many without guaranteed access to emergency paid leave protections, and Black workers are three times more likely to die from COVID-19 than white workers. Currently, Latinx workers have the least access to paid leave and workplace flexibility. Paid leave is also closely tied to racial equity when you consider racial health disparities, the disproportionately high maternal mortality rate for Black and Indigenous women, and the history of care work performed by women of color in the United States.
We are committed to ensuring that all workers are covered by a paid family and medical leave program, one that is accessible to workers across income and occupation, and a policy that safeguards against retaliation or other threats to workers’ job security.
Gender Equity. The lack of a national paid leave policy in the United States has increased our gender wage gap and our gender retirement savings gap and held back women’s overall labor force participation. This spring, the share of women employed dropped below 50 percent for the first time in 35 years. This hurts not just women, but families, businesses, and the economy as a whole; even before the pandemic, workers and their families lost more than an estimated $22.5 billion in wages each year because of lack of access to paid family and medical leave. Additionally, women make up 64 percent of essential workers, at high risk of exposure to COVID-19. While women have often shouldered double shifts of work and care, many now face triple shifts of work, care, and remote schooling. Women do more caregiving and care work not just for children and parents, but also for military spouses and veterans.
We are committed to a paid family and medical leave program that is gender neutral and high in its wage replacement, in order to ensure that women and men have equal access to leave.
Economic Justice. Currently, the lowest-wage workers are the least likely to have access to paid leave through their employers. Over 95 percent of the lowest-wage workers have no access to paid family leave through their employer. In states with operational paid leave programs, workers have reported that low wage replacement rates are a barrier to using paid leave, even when they qualify. An additional barrier is a lack of job protection — if a worker doesn’t have the security of knowing they’ll have a job to return to, they may be less likely to take paid leave. All the newer state laws corrected this and the early ones have gone back to improve their programs, realizing that anything less disadvantages low-wage workers, further entrenching economic inequality and disproportionate access to care.
We are committed to ensuring that all workers — regardless of income level, whether they are full- or part-time, or whether they are traditional, gig workers, and small business owners themselves — are covered by a national paid family and medical leave program. And it is essential that wage replacement levels be progressive, so that those earning the least get the greatest percentage of their pay, and that workers are guaranteed protection of their jobs and protection against retaliation for taking leave. The policy should also allow for the continuation of employer-provided health insurance while on leave.
LGBTQIA+ Rights. Historically, LGBTQIA+ families were often excluded from both paid and unpaid leave protections based on their family formations. While the federal recognition of same-sex marriage alleviated some of these problems, paid and unpaid leave protections are far from universally accessible to those caregiving for chosen or extended family. Select state paid leave laws have expanded the definition of family. Most recently, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Oregon adopted language that reflects the reality and needs of modern family and caregiving relationships.
We are committed to a national paid family and medical leave program that follows this example. The definition of family should extend beyond those bound through blood and marriage to also include significant relationships defined through mutual care and assistance.
Disability Justice. Workers with disabilities experience persistently high unemployment rates and are subject to ongoing employment discrimination in spite of the ADA. And workers who are caregivers to children and adults with disabilities frequently experience adverse employment effects as a result of their caregiving responsibilities. While leave is considered a reasonable accommodation under the ADA, many workers are unable to utilize this option because they fear retaliation from their employer or cannot afford unpaid or low-paid leave.
We are committed to a national paid family and medical leave program that includes job protection and anti-retaliation protections, adequate wage replacement, and allows for the usage of intermittent leave.
Immigrant Rights. We value all workers and all workers need to give and receive care. Certain groups, like agricultural workers, consist mainly of immigrant workers who opponents have tried to exclude from state paid leave programs as a class of workers. Many are impeded by job tenure or earnings requirements for eligibility. Barriers still exist and many workers may fear accessing a program if they or the person they are caring for lacks documentation.
We are committed to a comprehensive national paid family and medical leave program that makes an intentional commitment to reach all workers regardless of immigration status, industry, or type of job. Eligibility criteria must be set to ensure that seasonal or temporary workers are not unfairly excluded from coverage.
Public Health. Paid leave has been proven to curb transmissions of COVID-19, as many as 400 cases a day in states whose workers gained new access to emergency paid sick leave. Paid leave is critical to our collective public health recovery. Research shows those with COVID fared better in states like CA and RI with paid leave programs. But even when there isn’t a pandemic, paid leave has extraordinary positive health impacts; it allows us the time and ability to heal and recover. Paid leave improves maternal, infant, and child health outcomes, which is markedly important in a country with some of the worst rates of maternal and infant mortality among high-income nations, particularly for Black, American Indian, and Alaska Native women. Paid family leave (for both men and women) has been linked to lower rates of postpartum depression.
We are committed to closing the glaring holes in the pandemic paid leave protections and its uses, and also to passing a national paid leave policy that safeguards against the next public or personal health crisis — a policy that is effective and sustainable. We all have a stake in ensuring that everyone can take care of their own health and be there for those they love.
Paid leave saves lives. We hope you will join us in the fight. There’s no more time to lose.
The Paid Leave for All campaign is a growing collaborative to win inclusive paid family and medical leave for all working people. Our steering committee includes: 9to5 ᐧ A Better Balance ᐧ American Sustainable Business Council ᐧ Black Women’s Roundtable ᐧ Caring Across Generations ᐧ Center for American Progress ᐧ Center for Law and Social Policy ᐧ Center for Popular Democracy ᐧ Family Values @ Work ᐧ Jobs With Justice ᐧ Labor Project for Working Families ᐧ Main Street Alliance ᐧ MomsRising ᐧ NARAL Pro-Choice America ᐧ National Partnership for Women & Families ᐧ NAACP ᐧ Poder Latinx ᐧ PL+US ᐧ ROC United ᐧ SEIU ᐧ The Arc of the United States ᐧ The Center for Economic and Policy Research ᐧ TIMES UP ᐧ United for Respect ᐧ ZERO TO THREE
