February 12, 2021

After 28 Years, Pandemic Makes Federal Paid Family Leave a Possibility

As a recent story in the Washington Post reminded us, the last time family leave provisions were expanded in the US was mere weeks after Bill Clinton was inaugurated in 1993. The Family and Medical Leave Act provided unpaid leave for certain employees for family and medical reasons. And then, nothing. For 28 years. 

As we’ve pointed out often during the pandemic, the US remains the only OECD country without federal paid family and medical leave legislation, leaving employees to the caprice of employers and state laws for any job protection and ability to take time off to care for oneself or one’s family. The FFCRA provided temporary relief, but it has since expired, leaving parents and those caring for families out in the cold again. According to PL+US, strong federal paid leave laws would strengthen the economy while protecting employees from job loss during unexpected events, such as a global pandemic.

So, in early February Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York reintroduced Gillibrand’s legislation, long overdue, to strengthen the false dawn of the Clinton-era FMLA. In addition to Gillibrand’s FAMILY Act, DeLauro, no stranger to putting issues of social reproduction at the forefront, is also pushing for an expansion to the child tax credit.

Under the FAMILY Act’s language, paid leave would provide 66% of a worker’s monthly salary, ranging from a minimum $250 to a maximum of $4,000, to be covered by a small, 0.2% wage tax. Such job protections would go a long way to ensuring workforce stability and reducing unemployment during periods of uncertainty. It would also contribute to protecting expectant and new mothers, who are often unfairly pushed out of the workforce because they need to care for their children.

We will be eagerly following along to see how Congress addresses this critical issue.

The Week in FFCRA Cases Includes Multiple Worker Complaints in the Food Supply Sector

July 17, 2020
Disability Discrimination
The three cases highlighted in this weeks’ FFCRA complaint roundup include two filed by plaintiffs working in restaurants and another from a plaintiff employed in food distribution. Because the entire food supply chain has been deemed essential, workers in the industry have little ability to leave work to care for sick family members or children since the childcare industry cratered.

Berke-Weiss Law Writes About Free Speech in the Workplace for Law360

July 15, 2020
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Berke-Weiss Law answers some questions on many New Yorkers’ minds right now in Law360: can I be fired for protesting or posting about politics on social media? Am I entitled to take time off to protest? Can my employer force me to take a Covid-19 test after protesting but before returning to my workplace?

New Study Finds Sexual Harassment Pervasive in the Legal Professions

July 15, 2020
Sexual Harassment
Taking a break from the wall-to-wall imperative that is coronavirus, we wanted to highlight a new study about workplace cultures in the legal practice. Conducted by the Women Lawyers on Guard, the study Still Broken: Sexual Harassment and Misconduct in the Legal Profession shows that sexual harassment plagues women at all levels of the legal profession, from early-career lawyers to judges, and everyone in between.

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