Paid Family Leave Insurance approved by Legislature - Finally!

On April 7, 2008, the New Jersey Legislature finally passed Paid Family Leave Insurance legislation (S786), which now goes to Governor Corzine who has public committed to signing it into law.

New Jersey's new law will expand the state's temporary disability insurance (TDI) program to give workers up to six weeks of family leave benefits to care for a seriously ill family member or a newborn or newly adopted child. Workers will receive two-thirds of their weekly salary up to $524 per week.

"This is a great day for New Jersey's working families," said CWA Local 1034 President Carla Katz. "We no longer live in the 1950's 'Ozzie and Harriet' family with a single wage earner in each household. All working men and women deserve the right to care for a sick loved one in a time of need without losing their home or defaulting on their bills. With the passage of Family Leave Insurance, our state's policy has begun to catch up to that reality."

The campaign to pass Family Leave Insurance began almost 12 years ago when then Governor Whitman first attempted to privatize The New Jersey Temporary Disability Insurance program and raid it's trust fund. Over 200 TDI workers, members of Local 1034, were slated to lose their jobs. In coalition with the New Jersey AFL-CIO and supportive state legislators, the union made the argument that TDI was best kept in the public trust and should be expanded to cover family leave situations.

"We won the privatization battle 12 years ago and now we have finally won the family leave fight," said President Katz.

New Jersey will become the third state to provide paid family leave. California began providing family leave benefits in 2004. Washington State passed a paid family leave bill last May. New Jersey workers will began to receive benefits July of 2009.

Thank you to everyone who worked on the bill. Thank you to Sen. Richard Codey, Senate President, for posting this bill for a vote, and thank you to the sponsors in the Senate and Assembly for their consistent support for paid family leave. Finally, thank you to all who voted in favor of the bill.

How Paid Family Leave Will Work?

- The program expands NJ's existing Temporary Disability Insurance (TDI) program to include periods of absence due to temporary family disability.

- FLI is 100% employee-funded through small payroll deductions from employees (no more than 64 cents per week)

- All NJ workers who contribute to the program will be able to draw benefits starting July 1, 2009.

- Employees who utilize the program receive 2/3rds of their normal pay, for up to 6 weeks, capped at $524 for 2008, similar to NJ's TDI and Unemployment Insurance programs.

- Employees taking family leave must submit document from a doctor to their employer certifying that their family member is seriously ill.

- Small businesses with less than 50 employees are exempt from the paid family leave insurance program. NJ public employees in state and local government are included under this program and will be eligible for its benefits.

Why NJ Needs Paid Family Leave

President Carla Katz

We often define ourselves by our work but, in truth, our families and the people we love are the real engine and soul of our lives. This past February, while my union was in the midst of state worker negotiations and we were working nearly around the clock, my mother had a stroke that took her sight.

It was the night before her 71st birthday. Up until that night, my mom had worked crazy long hours at a Willingboro day care center taking care of others' children.

She'd been caring for little kids for more than thirty years at that center and she just loved it. Too suddenly, everything changed. And now we, her children, would now be taking care of her.

I spent the long drive to the Emergency Room that night with my heart in my throat worrying about my mom, thinking about how much family means and about how often it is the tipping point for crisis. Our parents, daughters, sons, spouses and partners are the marrow of the bones of our lives.

Lucky for us, my mom survived. She already lived with my sister and her family and we would all juggle her care. But far too many New Jerseyans are just a moment away from the financial disaster brought on by a partner's cancer diagnosis, a parent's stroke or a child's complicated birth. Many of us are part of the so-called "sandwich generation" delicately balancing our increasing workload with caring simultaneously for our children and our aging parents.

We need a safety net but New Jersey doesn't give us one. Far too few employers provide paid time to care for sick family members or for newborns and adopted children and currently the only leave most workers are entitled to is unpaid. And that's why people don't take it.

Family leave insurance legislation (S-2249 and A-3812) currently pending in the legislature would provide 10 weeks of paid leave at two-thirds of weekly salary with a maximum payment of $488 per week. Most notable is that the leave would be completely financed by a worker-only contribution and would cost someone about 92 cents a week.

As a state, we've recognized that workers get injured and need support and have entitled our citizens to Temporary Disability insurance payments for up to six months when that occurs. The family leave legislation simply expands that program by a 0.01 percent increase in worker's TDI. A broad coalition of labor, community, senior and health care groups support it. Governor Corzine and many legislators on both sides of the aisle have openly supported the legislation and are pushing for its enactment.

So, if NJ's family leave insurance is worker paid and people need to take it, why is the business community and its primary lobbyist, the Business and Industry Association (BIA) trying to kill the bill? The business lobby has been fighting the concept of paid family leave for more than a decade. Earlier, BIA asked businesses to send legislators real keys (as in, if you pass paid family leave, you may as well take the keys to our businesses).

That's just ridiculous. Currently, they are organizing an all-out campaign, including scaring legislators with bad information about what the program really means. The business lobby is fighting hard because they know what we know. That most working people (80%) who need to take family leave don't--because they can't afford to. And they would if they could.

The business lobby's opposition to the bill isn't about money, since it won't cost businesses one penny more. It's about control of the workforce and limiting worker flexibility. And it's wrong.

Family leave insurance will give NJ working people the freedom to care for their family and still keep their job...and not go broke. Other states, namely California and Washington, have already passed paid family leave. Governor Spitzer has a paid family leave plan in the works for New York right now, which even covers foster parents and workers who take off to care for grandchildren.

Many of us are haunted by one moment in time that someone dear to us was hurting and we could not be there with them or by memories of the day we left a tiny child with caregivers and went back to work far too soon. We no longer live in the 1950's "Ozzie and Harriet" family. We are all working and we're working longer. Our state's policy on paid family leave needs to catch up to that reality and the time is right to do it now.