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 I am the Director of The Institute for Labor Studies, a labor education program which is a joint project of The University of Missouri-Kansas City and
Longview Community College. Since the passage of The federal Family & Medical Leave Act in 1993, I have, on a number of occasions, provided training to union members and answered questions about FMLA on numerous
phone calls from workers, both represented by unions and unorganized about the FMLA. Thus I have gained a good degree of knowledge about both how FMLA rights are being exercised and deficiencies in the law.
The Federal FMLA was the first law passed by the federal government since the Pregnancy
Discrimination Act in the 1960s which recognized that workers have responsibilities to their families which sometimes conflict with responsibilities to their employers. All too often workers have had to
choose between caring for a newborn child or aging parent and their jobs. FMLA also was the first law to limit the pervasive pressure to come to work when a worker is seriously ill. FMLA took some
of the fear out of choosing for health and family and forced employers to recognize in a small way the right of their workers to have a life.
Deficiencies of FMLA
The federal FMLA, however, has two serious deficiencies. First, the number of workers covered by
the law does not include workers at companies that employ fifty or less workers in a seventy-five mile radius. In Kansas, only 52% of workers meet this standard.
Second, FMLA is a right many cannot afford to use because it provides only for unpaid leave, so
many workers simply cannot afford to use it. I have heard from both mothers and fathers who would love to take off work to give their newborn child the crucial attention it needs, but their bills don’t take
a six or twelve week leave of absence. As those of us who are baby boomers age and get sick we will find out what our parents generation already knows, that when we get sick and need full-time
care and have only our kids to do it, we will force them into poverty if they try to be the good son or daughter. In fact nearly two-thirds of us who are under 60 already expect we will have to take off
work to care for our aging parents in the next ten years. Of course, the fact that FMLA leave is unpaid particularly impacts women workers, as they are the ones who are most likely to care for an
aging parent or to stay home with a new born baby.
Independent studies commissioned by the U.S. Department of Labor in 1995 and 2000 found that 78
% of the people who don’t use their FMLA rights do so because they can’t afford to. These studies also found that nearly one in ten FMLA users is forced to resort to public assistance during their leave.
HB 2276 Is A Giant Step Forward
House Bill 2276 is a great step toward solving the second deficiency of the FMLA. While it does not
address the first problem since it doesn’t change the number of workers eligible for leave, it will make Kansas one of a growing number of states moving toward paid leave in a nation that is one of the
most backward in the world on this issue.
The United States spends billions each year for security, but not a cent for the security of having mom
or dad at home when you’re sick. Employers spend billions on corporate security yet many spend nothing to help you take care of mom or dad when they’re dying. Our society has chosen to tell
families that no one else but them has any responsibility to help them during birth or the crises of death and illness. But we all pay. Never forget that. Our children and our sick family members are paying,
and of course the government is paying in welfare and the social problems which ensue when a society neglects its own. So the question is really who should pay and how should the burden be
shared. It’s really a question of social priorities.
And here we can learn from other nations, a high number of which have chosen to put families first.
Just last year, Canadian moms won the right to take off a full year from work after the birth of a child at 60% pay. In Italy, new moms get twenty weeks leave with 100% pay; in Norway, they get a year at 80% of pay.
I strongly urge you to put Kansas alongside the vast majority of countries in the world who provide  some form of paid leave. Paid leave will save the State of Kansas money now paid
out in public assistance. It ultimately could save employers money in reduced turnover. A study in California done shortly before it passed a paid family leave bill found that
employers would save $89 million and the State would save $25 million in TANF and food stamps if paid leave were in effect. Improved leave policies, European studies have shown, led to a significant decrease in
the death rate of children under the age of one, and improved health of children aged 1-5.
For these reasons, I strongly urge you to support House Bill 2276.
Countries which offer new parent paid leave
Of the 130 countries that have leave policies, 127, including Russia, Iraq, Libya, France, Mexico
, Georgia, Spain and Brazil, provide some pay. Only 3-- Ethiopia, Australia and the United States -- provide only unpaid leave. Note that 121 of these 130 countries only offer leave to mothers, not to fathers.
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