by ALISON GREEN on MAY 13, 2021
It’s no secret that the U.S. has terrible support for workers, particularly around paid family and medical leave. No federal law requires employers to offer paid leave at all. Some states have begun to require paid sick leave, but most still don’t.

But there’s now legislation in Congress (the American Families Plan) that would provide paid family and medical leave to American workers. I spoke with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) — who has been pointing out that paid family and medical leave would have solved many of the problems families are facing during the pandemic — about paid leave and this bill in particular. Here’s our conversation.

You’ve championed universal, guaranteed paid family and medical leave for nearly a decade, first introducing the FAMILY Act in 2013. What’s your own experience with leave been throughout your career, before you were in Congress?

I had my first son just a few years before I ran for Congress, while I was working in a law firm. They didn’t have a paid leave policy before I worked there — so I wrote one, ensuring all parents who worked there could get twelve weeks of paid leave.

That was a pretty defining moment for me. I had the power to change my workplace not just for myself, but for every working parent who came after me, so we could all take care of our families without sacrificing our careers or paychecks. And when I was elected to Congress, I realized I could help do that for every family. That’s why I introduced the FAMILY Act, which would guarantee twelve weeks of paid leave for every worker across the country.

About half of all families today are dual-income families, where both parents work and earn a paycheck. In about 40% of families, moms are the sole or primary breadwinner. Our workforce has changed — but our policies aren’t changing with it. We’re the only industrialized country in the world without a paid leave program. Affordable, high-quality child care can be almost impossible to find for many families. Until we invest in paid family leave and child care, we’re going to be leaving a lot of families — especially working moms — behind.

The American Families Plan would invest $225 billion for a permanent, national paid family and medical leave program. How would the program work?

The American Families Plan would guarantee 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave. That means you could have twelve weeks of paid time off:
• After the birth or adoption of a child;
• To take care of a seriously ill loved one or to heal from your own serious illness;
• To deal with a loved one’s military deployment;
• To find safety after sexual assault, stalking, or domestic violence;
• Or to take time to deal with the death of a loved one.

The program would provide workers with up to $4,000 a month, so you could take care of yourself or your family without losing your paycheck.

One of the most significant things about this bill is that the leave would be paid. Right now the only federal leave program we have is the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which gives workers up to 12 weeks of leave a year for medical reasons or to care for an ill family member, but that leave is unpaid — which of course leaves a lot of people unable to take it. FMLA also only applies to employers with 50 employees or more, and workers are only eligible after a year of employment. With this new legislation, would all workers be eligible for the paid leave or are there exceptions and/or waiting periods like with FMLA?

The paid leave portion of the American Families Plan is modeled on my FAMILY Act, which makes all workers eligible for benefits and won’t require workers to work for a year before being able to access paid leave. Congress is actively working on the technical details of the American Families Plan and I will be pushing for these critical provisions to be included in the final package.

This program would be funded by the government, not employers, but small business owners sometimes fear it could be a burden to have employees out of work for so long. How do we address that concern?

No matter what small business you own or how many employees you have, eventually, someone will need to take time off, whether it’s because they’re having a child or they’re having a medical crisis. A national paid leave program helps support employees during that time and makes it easier for businesses to cope during their absence.

We know this because a few states already have paid leave programs, and when we’ve talked with small businesses in those states, they’ve overwhelmingly said it helped their business!

When small businesses had an employee who needed to take time off, a paid leave program helped replace their wages without putting a burden on the small business itself. Since employees remained financially secure and knew their job was safe, they were just as productive — and oftentimes more productive — when they came back from leave.

Most small businesses were able to pass that employee’s responsibilities to other employees temporarily. If they weren’t, they could hire a temporary replacement, since the state program was covering their employee’s paid leave. And thanks to those state paid leave programs, small businesses were able to retain their best employees and overall had lower turnover costs.

Many small businesses want to offer their employees paid leave, both because they know it’s good for their employees, and because it helps them compete with bigger businesses to recruit the best employees. A national paid leave program would level the playing field between small businesses and big businesses and make them more competitive!

The U.S. is the only industrialized country without mandatory paid family and medical leave. In fact, more than 30 million American workers don’t have any paid sick leave at all, not even a single day. Why do you think it’s been so hard to pass here?

It’s not for a lack of public support! Americans have overwhelmingly said they support paid leave — both Democrats and Republicans. But for a long time, Americans saw it as a personal issue, something for families to figure out on their own.

The pandemic really made it clear that this is not an issue families can figure out on their own. A lot of families were suddenly in crisis mode. Schools went virtual, child care centers closed, family members were sick, older relatives needed care, and we couldn’t rely on our usual networks of friends and families to help with caregiving any more.

A lot of families had to have someone leave their job in order to provide care — and overwhelmingly, it was women. 5.4 million women lost their jobs last year. So many of the problems that families faced during the pandemic could’ve been avoided if we had a national paid leave program — and more and more people recognize it. We know the best way to help families recover from this pandemic is to pass the American Families Plan and guarantee paid leave for every worker in America.

What kind of paid leave does Congress provide to members and staffers?

Each Congressional office sets its own paid leave policy, so it depends on which office you work for. In my office, I offer all of my staff twelve weeks of paid family and medical leave, and I’ve seen firsthand how much it means to staff and the organization as whole.

When the mother of one of my staffers became extremely ill, he was able to take paid leave to be by her side and be with his family after she passed. That shouldn’t be a special privilege available only to a few — that’s a basic decency that every worker should have.

And there’s no official leave policy for members of Congress! When my youngest son Henry was born, I was serving in the House of Representatives, and I was just the sixth woman to give birth in Congress. I was home with Henry for just three weeks before I started coming back for important votes that I didn’t want to miss.

It can be difficult for moms to run and serve in office, but every single one of us that does helps make it easier for those that follow us. My fellow New Yorker Liuba Grechen Shirley made it easier for moms with young kids to run for office. After my friend Tammy Duckworth became the first Senator to give birth while in office, we changed the rules to allow her to bring her newborn on the floor to vote.

Our voices are so important. We have a lot of moms shaping the American Families Plan right now, making sure it includes paid leave, affordable child care, and caregiving support that families like ours need. If you’re a mom, and you want to make things better for your family and families like yours, let me be the first to tell you: You should run for office.

What can people do to support this bill?

We need you to tell your stories! Would paid leave have helped your family after you had a child, while a family member was seriously ill, or during this pandemic? Go on Facebook, Twitter, or TikTok and share your story. Talk to your friends and family about how the American Families Plan would have helped you — or will help you in the future. If you’re a small business owner, talk with other small business owners about how paid leave will make your businesses stronger and more competitive. We can finally guarantee universal paid leave — but we need your help in this fight.