As part of a national tour to promote the idea of paid family leave, U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez spoke on the steps of St. Petersburg’s City Hall about why allowing workers to, you know, take care of their children when they need to, is a good thing for everyone.
He was joined by Mayor Rick Kriseman and other city officials as well as Brian Auld, president of the Tampa Bay Rays, and Trevor Burgess, CEO of C1 Bank, both of whom offer paid parental and sick leave for their employees, among other benefits.
Perez called for a federal policy that would grant every worker time off, if, say, they give birth (or their partner does) or have to take care of a sick parent.
“This issue of federal paid leave, I am certain, is a ‘when’ question, not an ‘if’ question. Because it’s the right thing to do, and it’s the smart thing to do,” Perez said. “These benefits should be available everywhere, plain and simple, end of story.”
On Mother’s Day this past Sunday, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver featured a segment on the impact of not requiring companies to let their employees take paid family leave time if they need it. It’s hilarious and depressing at the same time. Check it out here.
While the federal Family and Medical Leave Act requires employers to allow workers to take a 12-week max leave of absence, it doesn’t have to be paid time off. The U.S. is the only industrialized nation in the world to not have such a policy.
“We are the only industrialized nation on earth with no national paid leave law of any kind. And every day, around this country, parents are putting sick children on the school bus because they can’t afford to miss work,” Perez said.
“People are going to work as a waiter or waitress in a restaurant even though they’re sick. And even though they know that it’s probably not a good idea from a public health perspective for someone who’s sick to be serving food, or someone who’s sick to be nurse or another medical profession at a hospital, [they] have no choice.”
Perez chose St. Pete in part because of the city’s generous policies toward city workers, including six weeks of paid family leave, which he called “a staple of middle class economics.”
A poster child for why it’s a good idea was Jessica Eilerman, the city’s small business liaison.
The new mother, whose baby was born in January, said the decision between missing work to care for her newborn child and missing out on spending time with the new baby was torturous for she and her husband.
“Taking twelve weeks of unpaid time off seemed impossible to conquer,” Eilerman said. “Just about as impossible as the thought of spending these essential first weeks with my newborn, and for my own healing.”
In December, Kriseman announced a new policy granting city employees six weeks of paid family leave time.
“We did it because, number one, it’s the right thing to do for people who work so hard,” Kriseman said today. “It allows for parents and their babies to spend stress-free quality time together during the most important time of their lives. We also did it because it makes it more attractive place to work.”
“What an honor it is to work with someone who doesn’t just talk the talk, but walks the walk,” Eilerman said, a little choked up as she spoke.
Perez said whether or not one gets this benefit shouldn’t hinge on whether or not he or she happens to have a cool boss.
“You shouldn’t have to win the boss lottery to take care of a sick kid,” he said. “And you shouldn’t have to win the boss lottery, or the geographic lottery to take care of a sick parent as they age so that they age with dignity.”
Judging by laws the state legislature has passed, not everyone agrees. In 2013, they passed a bill barring cities and counties from asking local businesses to provide paid leave for workers, and Gov. Rick Scott signed it into law. That year, they also passed a bill (and the governor signed it) prohibiting municipalities from enacting a citywide or countywide minimum wage. And so on and so on.
For Perez, to allow businesses to treat their employees like they’re expendable and not worthy of comfort is not good for anyone. He mentioned the Healthy Families Act, a bill in Congress that would require certain businesses that employ 15 or more people to provide seven days of paid sick time to workers. But judging by the gridlock in Congress as well as the fact that similar bills have been unsuccessfully filed at least twice before, it seems that odds aren’t good for the law this time around, which Perez, and the entire Obama Administration, must find infuriating.
“We’re in this modern family world, but we’ve got these Leave it to Beaver rules in place, and we’ve got to understand that it’s time to change,” he said. “It’s a matter of enlightened self interest. Companies that offer family friendly policies benefit from greater worker morale and productivity.”
This article appears in May 7-13, 2015.
