As a nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit, Jean Stone knows what it really means to live in a country with no paid parental leave. She’s watched this scene play out so many times it’s almost the norm: Once their babies stabilize in the NICU, parents often return to work to preserve whatever parental leave they have left for when their babies come home. Stone calls the parents in the middle of the day to update them — starting each call with, “Everything is OK” — and watch them come in at the end of their workday, their faces reflecting the relief of reunion.
Five months ago, she and the other nurses at Magee, who are in the middle of negotiating a union contract, decided to do something about it. They came together with a coalition of working parents, advocates and some elected leaders to draft a proposal for a paid leave program in Allegheny County. They launched their campaign on Mother’s Day, May 10.
The Allegheny County Council voted 11 to 4 to pass 12 weeks of paid parental leave — the first county-level paid leave policy in the nation. Under the policy, both birthing and non-birthing parents would receive three months of paid parental leave within the first year of childbirth, adoption, foster placement or a stillbirth. Parents would have their jobs and health benefits protected while on leave, but to qualify they need to be full-time employees for at least six months or part-time workers with a minimum of 625 logged work hours.
All businesses with 15 or more employees would be required to offer the benefit. The chamber Tuesday night was packed by supporters of the proposal. They spent hours testifying about their personal experiences giving birth without the aid of paid leave, including one mother who had a stillbirth at 41 weeks gestation and said her husband took three weeks off to care for her but had no paternity leave.
Council Vice President John Palmiere said he had had his doubts about where he landed on the issue, but the stories shared moved him. He was a “yes.” When the final vote was tallied, the crowd broke into an applause punctuated by shouts of “thank you!” The passage was a decisive step forward for a movement that has won every victory inch by inch. The United States is the only industrialized nation without a federal paid leave policy.
Workers here have access to unpaid leave only through the Family and Medical Leave Act. In lieu of a federal policy, 14 states and Washington, D.C., have passed their own state-level paid leave programs over the past 20 years. Pennsylvania isn’t one of them.
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