California’s Paid Family Leave Law Celebrates 20 Years of Implementation

by Jenya Cassidy, Director @ California Work & Family Coalition, (she/her)

On July 1, 2024, we celebrated 20 years of Californians taking Paid Family Leave to bond with a new child or care for a seriously ill family member. As part of the California Work & Family Coalition which led the campaign to pass paid leave, I couldn’t be prouder — millions of workers and families have benefitted from this program and Coalition members continue to work to improve access.

During the first campaign for paid leave, I was part of a small team organizing FMLA trainings for healthcare workers, union members, and community leaders. I learned that everyone cared about time to bond or care, but almost no one could afford unpaid time off. As a mom who took paid leave to bond with my twins 18 years ago, I know how incredibly valuable this program is to us and our families. It was wonderful to have that time to bond with my twin daughters without having to worry about how we would afford groceries or pay the rent. When I had my son almost a decade earlier, I did not have paid leave. I had to make the hard choice of returning to work before I felt ready – this is a choice too many parents around the country have to make because they don’t have adequate paid leave.

The promise of Paid Family Leave is that all workers should be able to take the time they need for important moments like welcoming a new child or being at the bedside of a loved one who is seriously ill. Since passing Paid Family Leave in the early 2000s, the Coalition has been working on changes to the law that make it real in people’s lives. We’ve expanded the definition of family, passed laws that protect workers’ jobs while on leave and, in 2022, we waged an all out campaign to pass SB 951 (Durazo) which will raise wage replacement for PFL and State Disability Leave Insurance (SDI) to 90 percent for low and middle income workers.

Being a long-standing coalition has helped us pay attention to what’s working and what isn’t, and it’s also helped us be stubborn about making changes that make paid leave accessible to all workers. We’ve come very far in 20 years, but we still have work to do. There are workers left out of Paid Family Leave including many public employees, gig economy workers, and domestic and other workers who work out of people’s homes. Too many workers face barriers at the point of application, and lack of universal job protection means that many workers face termination for taking time off. This year we are working on passing AB 518 (Wicks) a bill that would allow California workers who care for extended and chosen family members to take Paid Family Leave to care for their loved ones.

As we celebrate our progress this month and look toward the future, it’s a great time to shine a light on our work as part of a larger, national movement. We’re part of the national Family Values @ Work network. As part of this network, every successful campaign, every improvement, helps build momentum toward our shared, ultimate goal: winning an inclusive federal Paid Family and Medical Leave law that truly leaves no workers out.