Paid Family Leave in California: All is not well
Posted October 2nd, 2013 by Susan RoseUpdate: On September 24, 2013, Governor Brown signed SB 770, which will take effect of July 1, 2014. This bill will expand the definition of family for the California Paid Family Leave Act.
On Jan. 9, 2012, Women’s eNews published my article, “Paid Family Leave Pays-Let’s Buy in This Year.”
I wrote it in response to a Human Rights Watch report written by Janet Walsh and published in 2011 describing the lack of paid family leave programs in the United States.
Their report showed that a lack of paid leave can increase sickness and poverty for families, as well as job discrimination.
My job after reading the report seemed to be hailing California’s Paid Family Leave Act, PFLA, and the positive reaction from the business community. I concluded it was time we elected more representatives who would support legislation like the California law that would improve women’s work lives.
Passed in 2002 and implemented in 2004, the law provides unemployment disability compensation to employees who take time off from work to “care for a seriously ill child, spouse, parent, domestic partner or bond with a newborn baby, adopted or foster.”
It turns out all is not so well with paid family leave in California.
In reaction to my article, the Labor Project for Working Families directed me to recent research that revealed pot holes in how the California law was being used.
Although awareness has increased over the years, research in 2011 by the California Field Poll showed less than 45 percent of workers in our state have adequate knowledge of the program.
In Los Angeles County, the largest metropolitan area in the state, workers have an awareness of less than 35 percent. For those with “lower household incomes and limited education” the figure is below 30 percent.
Among aware respondents, less than 14 percent of women and 7 percent of men had taken advantage of it. Fears of job loss and retaliation were key reasons.
Read more: http://www.momsrising.org/blog/paid-family-leave-in-california-all-is-not-well/#ixzz2gbfJe7vg