The program is a simple and strong step forward in helping families balance work and family: six weeks’ partial wage replacement for workers when they needed to take time to bond with a new child or care for a sick family member.

This week to mark the anniversary, the Philadelphia Inquirer editorial board applauded New Jersey’s Family Leave Insurance Program, saying the “successful and cost-effective” program has “proved critics wrong.” They wisely wrote: “New Jersey’s decision to give workers a financial safety net to take care of loved ones was the right thing to do.  It will pay off in ways that cannot always be measured in dollars and cents.”

In these uncertain economic times, as more and more of us struggle to keep jobs and homes, these basic protections mean more to families than ever.

With Family Leave Insurance, working families in New Jersey don’t have to make the impossible choice between earning a paycheck and staying home to care for a loved one.

Building on the success of the FLI programs in New Jersey and California, President Obama has included in his FY 2011 budget a $50 million State Paid Leave Fund proposal, to be run from within the Department of Labor.

These funds would give states the start up costs for family leave programs  –  Washington state could finally implement their program, enacted in 2008, that has been stalled by lack of resources. In states currently considering family leave insurance programs, like Oregon, the fund would be there to get any new programs off the ground once legislation is passed. States with existing programs – New Jersey and California – would be able to do more outreach and educate more residents and working families throughout the state about how to access benefits.

This is impressive progress in just one year – in New Jersey and across the country!

Manuel drove a van for elderly and disabled passengers in Boston, MA, so they could get to doctor appointments or the grocery store. He loved his job. He also had a heart problem that sometimes caused palpitations. His doctor told him not to drive when that happened – it could be dangerous for Manuel and for his passengers. The job provided some paid sick days, but not enough. And for each one Manuel took, he got written up and suspended, and eventually he was fired.

A new study by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago demonstrates that Manuel is not alone. Nearly one in four workers without paid sick days (23%) has lost a job or been told they would lose it for taking time to care for a sick family member or a personal illness.

Lack of paid sick days also hurts public health. More than half of all workers without paid sick days (55%) have gone to work sick. And workers without paid sick days are nearly twice as likely as those with paid sick days to say they’ve sent their child to school or daycare sick.

The NORC study also confirmed that lack of access to paid sick days drives up health care costs.

Workers without access to paid sick days are twice as likely as those with access to say they have gone to the emergency room to get care for themselves because they couldn’t take time off work to get medical care. When it comes to kids or other family members, workers without paid sick days are two-and-a-half times as likely to say they used an emergency room because they couldn’t get off during business hours.

What did it cost Manuel Acevedo to lose his job? He couldn’t pay his rent and was evicted. He had to sell his car and furniture, and move with his family to a smaller place.

In a time when jobs are scarce, people strongly support a job preservation strategy like paid sick days. According to Deborah Leff, head of the Public Welfare Foundation which commissioned the NORC poll,

“a strong majority of people across every racial group, every income level, every age group, every part of the country, and both political parties see paid sick days as a basic worker’s right, just like being paid a decent wage.”

And voters said this is an issue they’ll take to the polls. By a margin of 33 points, voters said they were more likely to support a candidate who favored paid sick days.

For the full study, go to http://publicwelfare.org/NewsRoom/NewsDetails.aspx?newsid=73.

Whether we’re in a recession or economic boom, almost all employees have family obligations. From planning the birth of a new baby, to taking care of an elderly parent,  to dealing with long term medical emergencies, time away from work is sometimes required to care for yourself or your family. There’s no sane economic rationale for forcing people to risk their job to do that — but that’s the reality for many Washington workers. Just 41% earn paid sick days, and 65% earn paid vacation, which puts the economic security of tens of thousands of workers at risk for falling ill or starting a family.

Without the ability to earn paid time off at work, personal or family medical problems, or the birth or adoption of a new baby can mean falling behind on the mortgage or rent, purchasing less, and having to rely on public assistance until a new job becomes available. That’s not good for our families, our communities or our economy. A state-funded program — one that doesn’t cut benefits during lean times as many businesses do during a recession — is especially critical because it helps families maintain financial security, and ensures we keep a strong middle class intact to fuel a robust recovery.

Washington Family Leave Insurance (FLI) is an example of just such a program. It is specifically designed to help families maintain economic stability during tough times. Passed into state law in 2007, FLI was slated to provide $250 per week for up to 5 weeks to all new parents starting in October 2009; expanded coverage for care of a spouse/domestic partner or immediate family member was also in the works. By 2011, nearly 50,000 Washington families would have benefited.

I say “would have” because the program was initially passed without a funding source, and finding a one has been delayed by the recession and state budget shortfalls. As a result, FLI isn’t actually available when our families need it most. But while this is certainly disappointing news, there is also cause for hope:  recent action by the federal government may help Washington fund the program.

Congress is poised to include $50 million in federal grant money in its budget to help states cover family leave start-up  and implementation. With the encouragement of these federal dollars, Washington families could begin receiving benefits soon — something that would have offered welcome relief to local parents like Alexandra Fleming:

Alexandra Fleming, a 29-year-old social worker from Seattle, should have benefited from the law after the birth of her daughter, Charlotte, almost a year ago. The family was able to scrape by on her husband’s high school teacher income, but the extra cushion would have been welcome.

“When you’re a new parent, you have to stretch the budget,” Fleming said. “For us, $250 would have made a big deal.” (SeattlePI.com)

Since the start of the recession, job creation and getting people back to work has been a point of emphasis at all levels of government. Stimulus dollars, tax incentives and unemployment benefits have all been utilized to cushion the blow(s) of the recession. But getting people back to work is just one sensible goal for state economic policy.

We shouldn’t overlook an even larger group of workers: those  struggling to balance job and family, and maintain their economic security, amidst the worst recession in decades. Keeping our families healthy and people at work — especially during a recession — is a surefire way to not just slow our economic slide, but also “prime the pump” for recovery.

Unlike the Assembly version, passed last year, the Senate bill also guarantees paid time off — seven sick days, six holidays and five vacation days a year. Both versions would establish collective bargaining rights. The Senate bill also would require 14-day termination notice or pay and establish a worker’s right to sue.

If Gov. David Paterson signs the measures into law, New York will become the first state guaranteeing these rights for household workers.

Ai-jen Poo directs the National Domestic Workers Alliance, which has introduced similar legislation in California and is considering measures in other states. Ai-jen sent this message:

“On the floor, the debate was a moral one – will we as a state take measures to end the exclusions that we know are wrong, or will we make excuses for the status quo that leaves out 200,000 working women of color? After 6 years of organizing by domestic workers together with unions, employers, clergy and community organizations, the NY State Senate stood on the right side of history.

It’s not over yet – the two bills still need to be reconciled, and the Governor must sign it — all within a month’s time. So we must push through to the end. But in these times, working-class victories are sacred and we should take a moment to honor them.

Here’s to the leadership of domestic workers and the undeniable power of organizing! And thank you for the many ways you helped make it happen.”

For more information, visit: domesticworkersunited.org or the group’s facebook page here.

A new study, published in Cell Host and Microbe, confirms this— and affirms the importance of staying home when you have flu symptoms to avoid getting other germs. Immunobiologist Ruslan Medzhitov tested mice to find out the relationship between the flu and other common bacteria the body usually fights off. “Grandmother was right,” says Medzhitov.

Now if Congress (and the Massachusetts legislature and the New York City Council, which have legislation before them right now) would only listen and pass measures to guarantee paid sick days.

You can read all about it in the Yale Alumni magazine.

The Wall Street Journal

In early rounds the Chamber comes out swinging, estimating the bill cost to NYC businesses at $3 to $3.5 billion per year. Quick jabs from businesses owners like Marc Murphy, who says it would cost his company $200,000 a year, seem to put paid sick days supporters on their heels.

But they battle back, citing a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report from 2009, which estimates the average of cost of sick leave per hour in the private sector was just 23 cents. As the bell rings, they land a stinging blow to the restaurant and service industry — the group most vehemently opposed to the legislation — by noting their costs are even lower: just 8 cents per hour.

It’s a short fight with no definitive winner, so the Journal calls in a referee: the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, which also (unsuccessfully) opposed similar legislation in that city a few years ago. Their verdict: After three years of living and working with a minimum paid sick days standard, the S.F. Chamber cannot find any strong opposition among it members — even during the Great Recession.

According to S.F. Chamber Senior Vice President Jim Lazarus, the burden on business has been minimal:

“The biggest impact was on small retailers and the restaurant industry,” he says. “It has not been a huge issue that we have heard from our members about.”

The WSJ writes:

“Businesses in San Francisco are not quiet when local laws hit their bottom line. City mandates for minimum wage and health-care coverage have drawn yowls of pain from members of the business group, Lazarus says. But compliance with the sick-leave law hasn’t not galvanized a similar level of opposition from San Francisco employers. ‘I don’t think it’s quite on the minds of employers,’ he says.”

Score this bout a unanimous victory for workers and their families.

The great turnout of workers with signs and chanting inspired all as we marched into the hearing room. Panels of supporters alternated with opponent panels for a session that lasted more than five hours.

Each panel in favor of the bill featured at least one worker telling compelling stories of the consequences when paid sick days are lacking, and most included business supporters as well. One worker had to testify behind a screen to conceal her identity as she described being fired by a Brooklyn bank for taking a day off to be with her hospitalized 2-year-old, even though her supervisor had said evidence of the hospitalization would be acceptable.  

Opponents continued to promote confusion, as when they tried to argue that any bill should require workers to share the cost of the benefit as they do in New Jersey – referring to what they called that state’s paid sick leave law. Actually New Jersey has a family leave insurance program, designed to provide wage replacement when a worker is out for extended time because of a new baby or serious illness. Council questioning Kevin Miller, a researcher at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, cleared up that and other misinformation.

In addition to employers and workers from groups like Restaurant Opportunities Center and Make the Road, speakers in favor of the bill included experts from the fields of health, research, and employment law. Make the Road worker Maximino Santos, a chef, spoke in Spanish with a translator: “When the boss makes you work when you’re sick, you end up infecting the food and infecting customers. I had to buy a face mask so I wouldn’t infect the food from my coughing. After working five years, I lost my job two months ago because of missed days due to bronchitis and pneumonia.” He held up medical evidence indicating that as a 45-year-old he has the lungs of an 84-year-old man, since he delayed so long taking off work to go to the doctor.

Small business CEO Samira Rajan of Brooklyn testified that allowing staff to take time off when they’re sick “is a basic right and expectation. A sick employee is not performing their job duties, and depresses overall staff morale.” Rajan, who provides paid sick days, said an ailing employee could also pass an illness on to customers.

Sen. Chris Dodd, a lead sponsor of the federal Healthy Families Act, sent a letter of support noting that “New York has the opportunity to lead the nation by standing up for its workers and guaranteeing them paid sick days.”

Even business leaders against the bill had to agree that workers should not be fired if they have to take a sick day. But opponents are trying to delay action by saying they want to do a study to identify those bad employers. The measure has 35 sponsors – enough to overturn a mayoral veto if necessary. It’s time for Council Speaker Christine Quinn to call for a vote!

Public News Service notes the irony:

Over the weekend, working moms might have been treated to cards, flowers and even breakfast in bed. But today, life is back to normal – and for Washington women, that means earning less per hour on the job and receiving fewer workplace benefits than men.

“Washington’s Working Women 2010,” a new report by the Economic Opportunity Institute (EOI), indicates the economic progress of women in the Evergreen State has stalled. Its comparison of jobs and wages shows almost a $5-per-hour gap in median wages between women and men – largely because of the types of work they do.

However, report author Marilyn Watkins says, in the deep recession of the last two years, both sexes have been affected by businesses cutting hours and benefits.

A report from the Economic Opportunity Institute notes the gulf separating men’s and women’s earnings in Washington State has expanded over the past two decades. Women’s average monthly paychecks were just 63% of men’s in 2008, compared to 67% in 1990. And while benefits like paid sick days and paid family leave are critical for women, who are often the primary caregivers for children and elderly parents, 41% of Washington workers – 1.2 million people – can’t take a paid sick day at work.

While women have experienced fewer job losses since the start of the recession, inequality on payday has persisted – with men earning substantially higher wages than women in every industry in Washington. And lower wages lead to higher rates of poverty among women, especially for mothers with young children.

The full story from Public News Service is here; download Washington’s Working Women 2010 here.

When citizen delegates from Washington State converged in Washington DC to urge their representatives to take action on paid family leave and paid sick days, Selena Allen of Tacoma (whose story EOI has profiled before), and EOI Policy Director Marilyn Watkins were interviewed by NPR reporter Jennifer Ludden:

For millions of Americans, a major illness or family crisis means time off work with no pay. In recent years, several states have passed their own paid leave programs. Half a dozen more are trying but are largely stalled by the bad economy. Now, the Obama administration’s proposed budget aims to encourage states to push ahead.

Paid leave would help people like Selena Allen of Tacoma, Wash. When she found out she was pregnant with her second child, Allen started saving all her vacation and sick days. She hoarded away enough to take one month of maternity leave. Then her son was born a month and a half early. Allen, who worked at a nonprofit at the time, decided she simply couldn’t afford to take any more time off — time that would have been unpaid. She postponed her maternity leave and returned to work a painful four days after giving birth.

California enacted a paid family leave law in 2002, and New Jersey followed suit in 2008. And in 2007, Washington state made headlines when it passed a paid parental leave law. The law would provide new parents up to $250 a week for up to five weeks. Advocates wanted it to include other kinds of family leave, such as major illness, and still hope to broaden it eventually.

But the bigger dilemma was that lawmakers couldn’t agree on how to fund the program. Unlike California and New Jersey, Washington does not have an existing disability insurance program, so it had to create a funding mechanism from scratch. The state set up a task force to do that. Then, says task force member Marilyn Watkins, of the Economic Opportunity Institute, the recession hit.

“A new program, with a new source of funding, in the face of cutting so many other programs, was just not a feasible situation,” Watkins says. Washington state’s paid leave program has been put on hold until 2012, but Watkins hopes the federal government can rescue it sooner.

Read (or listen to) the full story here.

The majority of participants – union members and business owners, immigrant rights activists and faith leaders, representatives from groups focused on low-wage women, children, seniors, economic development, domestic violence and public health – came from the 14 FVAW states. As one participant put it, “It feels like we’re everywhere!”

NPR's Maria Hinojosa with Family Values @ Work activists from Wisconsin.

The summit began with a panel that laid out the economic and public policy context for paid sick days. Speakers included pollster Celinda Lake, Department of Labor economist William Spriggs, and Letty Mederos, Deputy Chief of Staff to Rep. Rosa DeLauro.

Spriggs reminded the audience of the need for a federal solution. “It’s good for states to set the pace,” he said, “but some folks live in states like Mississippi and Alabama.” His message was that workers are also consumers and that policies like paid sick days are job protectors. “Eating the little fish means eventually there will be no fish to eat,” he said.

A second panel addressed ways to continue to build the broad-based coalitions that can win change. Panelists brainstormed ways to reach small business owners, and suggested every coalition member ask their congregation to support the campaign.

After a working lunch in which different affinity groups met to strategize, summit attendees attended workshops on campaign mobilization, story-telling, media outreach, coalition-building, and power analysis.

Energized by these learning opportunities and by the chance to meet others from around the country, the attendees were then treated to a reception. NPR’s Maria Hinojosa served as the emcee, offering a special welcome to the guest of honor, U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis. Sec. Solis told of her parents’ struggle to provide their family with economic security, her dad’s involvement in the Teamsters union, and of her own passionate commitment to women’s rights and the enactment of federal policies that allow workers to be both good employees and good family members.

Rounding out the evening were comments from Kim Chester of Cartersville, GA, and Rob Everts, co-president of Equal Exchange in West Bridgewater, MA. Kim Chester was joined by her husband and three children as she described what it meant to the well-being of their daughter, who has cerebral palsy, that both her parents have paid sick days and flexibility to use them for family members. Rob Everts talked about his company’s policy, which includes up to 12 paid sick days for their 110 employees. “We have never regretted our policy,” he said, “and believe it contributes to our growth, profitability and high retention rate of employees.”

On the second day of the gathering, more than 150 activists attended a special media event on Capitol Hill. Terrell McSweeny, Domestic Policy Advisor to the Vice President and Deputy Assistant to the President, expressed the Obama Administration’s support for paid sick days and paid family leave. She was followed by Kevin Miller of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research presenting the findings of a new study that shows that paid sick days help contain health care costs, making these policies a critical companion to national health care reform.

Workers from Oregon, Washington, Georgia, Massachusetts and Washington shared personal experiences of the consequences when the policies we’re fighting for are lacking. We also heard from business owners from New Jersey and New York, who reiterated that doing the right thing is also the smart thing.

Senator Christopher Dodd spoke to the crowd about his ongoing work to build support for the Healthy Families Act and, as he prepares for retirement, to cultivate new champions on Capitol Hill for policies that value families at work. Sen. Dodd’s speech was followed by an impromptu visit from Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, sponsor of the Balancing Act, which would enact a wide range of family-supporting workplace policies. She recalled her experiences as a single working mom and called on the activists to share their personal stories with policymakers.

After the media event, the attendees, organized in state delegations, visited the offices of their U.S. senators and representatives to share the research, stories, and best practices that they learned about at the summit and from their own experiences.

Family Values @ Work activists from Georgia bring their stories to Capitol Hill.

Many thanks to the funders who made these two days possible – the Public Welfare Foundation who funded the Paid Sick Days Summit portion, Ford Foundation, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Moriah Fund and Rockefeller Family Fund.

“Making It Work” was widely covered by the national media, including in The Nation, In These Times, McClatchy news service (stories in numerous papers and blogs, including Miami Herald, Sacramento Bee, Denver Post, Charlotte Observer, Fort Worth Star Telegram, Anchorage Daily News, Idaho Statesman, Think Progress, Daily Kos, Yahoo Daily News, UPI , and Business Insider), National Public Radio, and many local TV and radio news programs.