In Your State
The Family Values @ Work Coalition is 27 states strong. Find your state below and join a local movement for paid sick days and paid family leave. If your state is not listed, contact us to start a movement in your city/state.
CORAZÓN (Congregations Rising Arizona Organizing Neighborhoods) is a multi-faith and diverse member-led grassroot organization building power in the East Valley and Central Phoenix. Our collective strength is in organizing congregations, schools, and individuals with shared core values. We are the Arizona federation of Faith in Action, a national community organizing network that gives people of faith the tools that they needto fight for justice and work towards a more equitable society. As a member of the Faith in Action network we are working for, with, and among our Arizonan communities towards creating a world where everyone belongs, can thrive, and has a say in the decisions that shape their lives.
Poder Latinx is a civic and social justice organization dedicated to building and strengthening the political power of the Latinx community in key battleground states and nationwide. We do this by leading a voter-integrated engagement program where all aspects of voter engagement, issue-based campaigns, leadership development, voting reform, and protection, and narrative change form a continuous cycle of political consciousness. Through our work, we empower and equip the Latinx community to become agents of change now.
The California Work & Family Coalition is a statewide alliance of community organizations unions, non-profits, and individuals. We envision a world where all people have the time, resources, and support systems to care for themselves and their families and to lead meaningful, healthy, and happy lives. We organize campaigns to realize equitable, family friendly workplaces and to expand the social safety net in California through policy, advocacy, and education.
The Colorado Healthy Families and Workplaces Coalition is a broad, diverse coalition led by 9to5 Colorado and includes of community organizations, labor groups, faith leaders, public health groups, elected officials and businesses. We are all working together to build a community full of healthy families and workplaces and a stronger economy.
The Connecticut Campaign for Paid Family Leave is a coalition led by the Connecticut Women’s Education and Legal Fund (CWEALF) of more than 70 organizations and 100 supportive businesses that led the effort to passage comprehensive paid family and medical leave legislation in 2019. Since 2012, the Campaign steadily increased its presence in the Connecticut community and raised awareness of the need for paid leave through a Story Bank and Photo Campaign, where concerned citizens share why paid leave is important to them. Now, the Campaign is focused on successful and transparent implementation of the program.
She Leads Justice has advanced women’s rights and opportunities in Connecticut since 1973. Formerly known as the Connecticut Women’s Education and Legal Fund, or CWEALF, She Leads Justice is a statewide nonprofit organization that advocates for and empowers women in Connecticut, especially those who are under-resourced or marginalized. They work to create an equitable society where women thrive. She Leads Justice uses intersectional strategies to address gender inequality and advance the rights, opportunities, and status of women through legal information and access, public policy and advocacy, and advancement and leadership initiatives.
Learn more on their website.
The Miami-Dade Coalition for Healthy Families and Workplaces Campaign is working to ensure all jobs in the county include earned sick time.
Poder Latinx is a civic and social justice organization dedicated to building and strengthening the political power of the Latinx community in key battleground states and nationwide. We do this by leading a voter-integrated engagement program where all aspects of voter engagement, issue-based campaigns, leadership development, voting reform, and protection, and narrative change form a continuous cycle of political consciousness. Through our work, we empower and equip the Latinx community to become agents of change now.
Losing a day’s wages, or worse, a job, for keeping a sick child home from school or bringing an aging parent to the doctor undermines families’ ability cover the basics like groceries and rent—spending that keep local businesses and the economy moving. In Georgia, an estimated 878,000 people do not have access to family care days, to care for a loved one in need, forcing them to make the impossible choice between taking care of a sick loved one and keeping food on the table.
Thanks to years of organizing and advocacy by dozens of member organizations of the Georgia JobFamily Collaborative, the Family Care Act was passed by the state legislature, signed into law by Gov. Deal and went into effect in July 2017.
This his law allows workers to use sick time they have earned under their employer’s policy for to care for the illness or injury of a family member.
Poder Latinx is a civic and social justice organization dedicated to building and strengthening the political power of the Latinx community in key battleground states and nationwide. We do this by leading a voter-integrated engagement program where all aspects of voter engagement, issue-based campaigns, leadership development, voting reform, and protection, and narrative change form a continuous cycle of political consciousness. Through our work, we empower and equip the Latinx community to become agents of change now.
Our children need superheroes. Your mission: Fight for the safety, health, and education of our keiki. Be part of the movement to make Hawaiʻi a great place for all families with children. Let’s work as a community to pass laws and raise money to support our keiki. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and the only one in Hawaiʻi solely committed to advocating for children. Learn more about how you can become a hero for our children.
Women Employed leads the Illinois Paid Leave Coalition. The Coalition includes dozens of advocacy groups from across the state working to raise public awareness about the need for paid sick days and communicating with legislators about the need for the proposed Healthy Workplace Act; a bill to establish paid sick days as a new workplace standard in Illinois.
Women Employed leads the charge for paid family and medical leave in Illinois. As the head of the Sick Time Chicago Coalition, Women Employed joined partners—including Arise Chicago, Chicago Foundation for Women, the Shriver Center, and UFCW—to win earned sick time ordinances in Chicago and Cook County, impacting over half a million working people. In 2023, the coalition won the Paid Leave for All Workers Act, which went into effect on January 1, 2024. The new law provides working people across Illinois with the right to earn and use up to five days of paid time off for any reason. Women Employed is currently working to win paid family and medical leave in the state of Illinois.
Maine Women’s Lobby and Southern Maine Workers’ Center work in partnership to advocate on behalf of workers and advance policies that center their needs and advance economic, social, and community justice for all Mainers. Maine Women’s Lobby serves as the chairing organization of the Maine Paid Leave Coalition, which comprises organizations from around the state working to advance a comprehensive, universal paid family and medical leave program in the state. The Southern Maine Workers’ Center (SMWC) is a member-based organization comprised of working and poor people building grassroots movements to ensure that all of all of our basic human rights are met.
The Time to Care Coalition is a statewide coalition of advocates, businesses, service providers, unions, faith groups families, caregivers and individuals fighting to ensure Paid Family & Medical Leave for all Marylanders — so that no one has to choose between taking caring of a loved one or themselves and paying the bills.
The Massachusetts Paid Leave Coalition (MPLC) includes over 80 state and local community organizations, labor unions, businesses, doctors, researchers, policy, and data experts working together to educate the public and policy makers about the critical need for access to paid leave for all workers. Our members include diverse organizations throughout Massachusetts working to improve the lives of workers and their families. The goal of our campaign for seven paid sick days is to help low-wage workers stay employed, build assets, and enhance the well-being of their families.
Mothering Justice is shaping the conversation about workplace standards, specifically paid sick days, in Michigan. Though Michigan has a great history of creating and protecting the middle class by standing up for workers’ rights, this is Michigan’s first attempt to establish paid sick days legislation. We believe all Michigan workers should be able to take time off to get well without the fear of financially instability.
ISAIAH MN led the Paid Family and Medical Leave campaign to victory and is spear-heading implementation efforts. About ISAIAH: Throughout history, ordinary people have stood together to make long-lasting changes for the common good. ISAIAH is auto mechanics and ordained clergy, business owners and bookkeepers, homemakers and university professors. We are moved by faith to act for justice. We are called to transform the world and to establish racial and economic justice.
TakeAction Minnesota works with our 26 organizational members and 11,000 individual members to make change that matters to Minnesotans. We believe that access to paid sick leave is an essential part of our work to build a fair economy, and is working with coalition partners and members to raise awareness of the need for paid sick days in our state. We are currently engaged in a statewide public education campaign.
Montanans need and deserve the time to support themselves and their families when they they are sick.
Unfortunately, most Montana families have no access to paid leave to bond with a new baby, to take care for an aging parent, to help a family member after surgery, or to recover from their own illness or injury.
Without paid leave policies at work, Montanans must choose between taking care of loved ones and earning a paycheck. Paid leave allows people to stay in the workforce and keeps more money in the pockets of employees during leave, which helps businesses and our economy.
It is time for Montana to invest in solutions that help families balance home and work responsibilities. Paid Leave is good for moms, dads, kids, seniors, businesses, the economy, and most importantly, families.
Make It Work Nevada is a policy-driven organization that is shifting the landscape of our communities through advocacy and education to support the long term health and vitality of Black families.
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The New Jersey Time to Care Coalition, a broad-based group of over 100 community, advocacy, union, religious, research, policy organizations and more, fighting for working families to have paid time to care. The Coalition won statewide Earned Sick and Safe Leave in 2018 and the next year, they won legislation to expand and improve the state’s paid leave program, NJ Family Leave Insurance program. Thanks to the Coalition’s hard work over the years, more New Jerseyans are able to access paid time off to recover from injury or illness, or when a loved one is sick, seriously ill or needs care.
Strong Families New Mexico (SFNM), a state based action site of Forward Together, works to shift culture and create new policies that recognize the many kinds of families in our state. SFNM is a network of over 20 partner organizations and thousands of individuals working in alignment to build a better life for all our families and generations to come. SFNM is working in partnership to advance earned sick days for Albuquerque workers and is deeply rooted in ensuring an inclusive definition of family is included in work leave policies in New Mexico.
The Public Policy and Education Fund of New York (PPEF ) is the New York state anchor organization working with Family Values @ Work to promote family friendly workplace policies and to improve the economic status of women in our state and around the nation. PPEF facilitates and helps lead the New York Statewide Paid Leave Coalition, a statewide group of labor, health, faith, business, women’s rights, and community advocacy organizations formed during our successful campaign to pass the New York Paid Family Leave Insurance Act, one of the strongest Paid Family Leave laws in the nation. PPEF also provides key leadership for the Albany County Paid Sick Coalition and participates with the Empire State Campaign for Child Care. PPEF was founded in 1986 to address critical social, economic, racial and environmental issues facing low and moderate income New York State residents. PPEF works to educate and empower low wage workers and working families to fight for better wages, benefits and work/life balance. PPEF uses many tools in its work, including grassroots organizing, research and policy development, public education on a wide range of policy issues, and community outreach. PPEF is the not-for-profit research and public education affiliate of Citizen Action of New York, a grassroots organization dedicated to economic, environmental and racial justice.
The North Carolina Families Care Campaign is a growing statewide coalition of organizations and individuals who are leading the effort to make North Carolina more family-friendly. Working together, community, religious, labor, healthcare, professional, and family groups are advocating for state policy change that ensure that no workers have to make the difficult choice of caring for an ill family member or risking a day’s pay or even a job.
Family Forward Oregon is building an intersectional racial and gender justice movement centered on care and caregiving to fight for economic and reproductive justice for all mothers and caregivers in Oregon. We are organizing mamas and other caregivers across a range of identities, building community, providing leadership development opportunities, and supporting anti-oppression learning. We’re supporting our members as they take meaningful action to change our systems, so that the systems support caregivers and our families. We have led or helped to lead fights on paid sick time, paid family and medical leave, increasing wages, extending greater protections to caregivers in the workplace, strengthening reproductive and health care access, and more.
We believe in the power of community and in bringing our collective and diverse voices together to create lasting social change that leaves no community behind. For example, our Time To Care coalition fought for and won the most inclusive paid family and medical leave law in the country to date in 2019. Meaningful change can only be made when we work together and all have a seat at the table.
In Pennsylvania, PathWays PA and the Women and Girls Foundation lead a statewide campaign to secure paid family leave for all workers in the Commonwealth. PathWays PA also leads the Coalition for Healthy Families and Workplaces, which supports paid sick days at the local, state, and national level. Our partners include labor leaders, religious organizations, LGBTQ advocates, businesses, and other advocacy groups. As a Coalition, we believe that no one should be forced by illness to choose between the job they need and the family they love.
Pennsylvania’s three state anchors (Professionals Empowering Advocating for Change, Opportunity, Change and Knowledge; Restaurant Opportunities Center of Pennsylvania; and the Women and Girls Foundation of Southwestern Pennsylvania) co-lead the Family Care Act Campaign, a statewide campaign to to make Paid Family and Medical Leave available and accessible to all Pennsylvanians and all employers. You can learn more on their website.
Paid Family Leave:
Rhode Island was a leader in creating one of the nation’s first paid leave programs – Temporary Caregiver Insurance (TCI). The program started in January 2014. TCI paid leave helps an employee afford to take time off from work so she/he can: care for a seriously ill child, spouse, domestic partner, parent, parent-in-law, or grandparent; bond with a newborn child, adopted child, or foster child. TCI provides up to four weeks of partial wage replacement and protects the employee’s job and seniority while she/he is on leave.
Legislation will be introduced this year to expand TCI so an employee can take more than 4 weeks and to make this benefit more accessible for lower-wage workers.
Paid Sick Leave:
Starting July 1, 2018 Rhode Island’s many full and part-time workers can start to accrue time off under the Healthy and Safe Families and Workplaces Act. Workers earn 1 hour of time for every 35 hours they work. Paid time workers in larger companies (18 or more employers) are entitled to paid time off. Unpaid time workers in smaller companies (less than 18 employees) are not entitled to paid time but the employer may not take adverse action against an employee for taking unpaid time off for sick or safe time and must allow employees to take leave, without fear of retribution.
The maximum amount of time that can be accrued is:
- 32 hours in calendar year 2019
- 40 hours calendar year 2020 and thereafter
Workers can take time off when they are sick or to take care of a family member. Addressing needs as a result of domestic violence also qualifies.
Work Strong Austin and Working Texans for Paid Sick Time are broad coalitions of Texas-based community and labor organizations working together to win paid sick policies across Texas. To date, they have waged successful policy campaigns in Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas, bringing new access to paid sick and safe days to nearly 750,000 workers.
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Contact:
Ana Gonzalez,
Policy Director, Workers Defense Project
Paid Sick and Safe Days
The Vermont Paid Sick Days Coalition worked to pass Vermont’s Healthy Workplaces Law in 2016. The law permits employees in Vermont to earn up to 3 days of sick leave per year, increasing to 5 days per year by 2019. Since the law’s passage, Main Street Alliance of Vermont has been working to provide support to Vermont small businesses for implementation of the new law.
Paid Family and Medical Leave
Main Street Alliance of Vermont is leading the VT Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FaMLI) Campaign, which is working to create a statewide insurance program that would cover up to 12 weeks of family or medical leave. More than 25 statewide advocacy organizations comprise the VT FaMLI Coalition, and a coalition-supported bill is making its way through Vermont’s House of Representatives with tri-partisan support and more than 50 cosponsors. A statewide family and medical leave insurance program will enable Vermont’s families to take the time they need, and it will help Vermont small business better compete in attracting and retaining employees, which will grow a healthy Vermont economy.
The Washington Work and Family Coalition is a coalition made up of small business owners, unions, community, faith, senior, and women’s groups and other grassroots organizations working to promote family economic security issues through public policies and advocacy. The Coalition is convened and staffed by the Economic Opportunity Institute.
The Coalition has been instrumental in the passage of Washington’s statewide Sick and Safe Leave (2016), Paid Family and Medical Leave (2017), and the newly updated Equal Pay Act (2018).
Currently the Coalition and its business allies are jointly working with the Employment Security Department (ESD) toward the implementation the Paid Family and Medical Leave program. Premium contributions for the program will began January 1, 2019, and benefits will commence in 2020. Learn more here.
In 2019 the Coalition will continue to advocate for a strong foundation that will allow individuals, families, and businesses an opportunity to flourish and thrive. Working people and families are struggling across our state. Despite low unemployment, lucrative industries, and great wealth, it’s getting harder for the majority of Washingtonians to get by and plan for a strong future, while the legacies of racial and gender injustice continue to stifle dreams for too many.
We can come together to repair the building blocks of a vibrant middle class, stop poverty spirals in their tracks, and blow open the doors to opportunity.
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The Paid Sick Days for All coalition is a collaborative of community groups and unions working to ensure that all workers in the District of Columbia can take a day off to care for themselves and their loved ones when they get sick. We believe that no one should have to choose between their health and their jobs.
Keep Families First (KFF) is a diverse statewide coalition formed to protect Wisconsin’s current Family and Medical Leave Act and create Family and Medical Leave Insurance. Keep Families First is a broad partnership of families, workers, and their advocates created out of the critical necessity to provide economic security for Wisconsin families. Nobody should be forced to abandon their new babies or sick family members at the risk of losing a pay check or their job all together, because they are being denied time to care for their family.