Paid Time Off MattersA (slow) progress report

Passing paid family leave in Washington State: Is your State Rep in favor or against?

A message from Working Washington:

We have a real chance to pass paid family leave in Washington State this year. We have momentum — but we need your help.

A strong paid family leave proposal (HB 1116) has already passed out of the House Labor committee and the House Appropriations committee. The next step is to secure majority support for the bill so it can pass on the floor of the House.

It takes 50 votes to get a majority in the State House, and we’re not there yet. Help us get it done: contact your State Representatives and ask them to support statewide paid family leave by passing HB 1116.

Then when you hear back from your representatives, tell us what they say, and we'll add it to our public vote count. We're going to track where every member of the State House stands on paid family leave, because we think every voter should know where their representatives stand on this issue — and every representative should know they’re accountable for their vote.

CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES TODAY

Another project to support paid family leave, from a conservative perspective (although Brookings is more liberal than AEI)

AEI, the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution have joined forces to publish a series of blog posts under the title: "Paid family leave: an issue whose time have come?" The main authors are Aparna Mathur (AEI) and Isabel Sawhill (Brookings) but they have reached out for contributions by other 'experts'. As of today I have seen 7 such posts. Interesting but with what impact and where does it go? A few furious comments by people who see paid family leave as discriminatory for people who don't have children. Amazing. (see at the bottom of the extended entry).

More details about Pivotal ventures and paid leave

In the Seattle Times, Sandi Doughton gives some details about how Melinda Gates Pivotal Ventures is supporting paid leave projects: she began to think about inequities that persist even in the United States. "It made me realize that there are issues we need to look at"... 

Another cause Gates is tackling through Pivotal Ventures is paid family leave. The Gates Foundation offers its employees up to a year of paid leave to care for new children, and the city of Seattle recently bumped up its benefit to 12 weeks.

Programs like those are common in most other rich countries, but rare in the United States.

Gates said she’s been investing in public policy analyses to identify ways to create and fund family-leave programs.

“Ultimately, it’s up to governments to decide, but what I want to put out there are several different options,” she said.

 

When Mark Zuckerberg mentions unions as 'supportive communities'

In his recent post about Building global community Mark Zuckerberg mentions unions as 'supportive communities': 

Building a global community that works for everyone starts with the millions of smaller communities and intimate social structures we turn to for our personal, emotional and spiritual needs.

Whether they're churches, sports teams, unions or other local groups, they all share important roles as social infrastructure for our communities. They provide all of us with a sense of purpose and hope; moral validation that we are needed and part of something bigger than ourselves; comfort that we are not alone and a community is looking out for us; mentorship, guidance and personal development; a safety net; values, cultural norms and accountability; social gatherings, rituals and a way to meet new people; and a way to pass time.

Working Washington: Sorry Starbucks, but that’s not ok.

Starbucks new paid parental leave policy

	Corporate employees (i.e. public relations, executives)	Store employees (i.e. baristas, shift supervisors)
Birth mother	18 weeks paid	6 weeks paid
Other new parent	12 weeks paid	0 weeks paid

Source: History of Partner Benefits, news.starbucks.com (at the very end).

 

Starbucks recently announced a new paid parental leave policy that provides 18 weeks paid time off for birth moms who are corporate employees... but only 6 weeks paid for birth moms who are baristas. Other new parents would get 12 weeks paid time off if they work in corporate... but no paid time at all if they work in a store. Tell Starbucks you love that they’re providing parental leave — but they need to explain why their policy seems to say that baristas' kids are worth less. >>>

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Sorry Starbucks, but that’s not ok.

Do baristas need less time at home with a new child? Are their kids worth less than the children of corporate executives?

We're not sure how Starbucks can possibly explain this policy — so we figured we should ask. Click to send a letter to the Starbucks public relations department asking them to explain why baristas deserve less parental leave than corporate employees get.

The thought counts for a lot. So does the policy.

Thanks,

Working Washington

A second team focusing on promoting paid leave: Pay+Leave - They protest the new policy offered by Starbucks that does not include dads

We just discovered the existence of Pay+Leave. See their strategy and their campaign targeting Starbucks. Starbucks announced improved paid parental leave but apparently left out many employees. A story reminiscent of what happened at Netflix a while ago. Anybody with Starbucks stock? Sign the petition started on change.org to ask Starbucks to include dads.

Why paid leave is good for business - by Panorama Global and the Boston Consulting Group

Gabrielle Fitzgerald of Panorama Global partnered with the Boston Consulting Group to produce a study titled: 'Why paid leave is good for business".
She writes : We worked alongside the Boston Consulting Group to analyze the costs and benefits of offering inclusive paid family and medical leave programs, and will use that evidence to persuade American companies that adopting such policies is better for business and the wellbeing of employees. While it remains to be seen how persuasive such evidence can be, it cannot hurt to have it collected, analyzed and largely shared. In the absence of unions, pushing for paid leave will require other tools for the workers presently left out without paid leaves: like shareholder advocacy.