Gridlock in Washington DC means that we must -- for now -- turn to the states to advance progressive ideas. One of our best current opportunities is thanks to my own state senator Steve Sweeney (LD3). His Paid Family Leave Bill (S786) would allow six weeks of paid leave to care for a sick family member or newborn baby. The costs are covered by a slight increase in the Unemployment Insurance fees paid by employees. The bill says it better than I can...
But before I tell you more about the bill and the critical vote on Monday, I'm warning that we need YOU to contact your New Jersey state senator...
While the enactment of that [unemployment insurance] law has provided stable protection for New Jersey's disabled workers, very few workers are protected from income losses caused by the need to take time off from work to care for family members who are incapable of self-care, including newborn and newly-adopted children. The growing portion of middle-income families in which all adult family members work, largely due to economic necessity, points to the desperate need for replacement income when a working family member must take time to care for family members who are unable to take care of themselves. Moreover, the United States is the only industrialized nation in the world which does not have a mandatory workplace-based program for such income support. It is therefore desirable and necessary to fill the gap in existing provisions for protection against the loss of earnings caused by involuntary unemployment, by extending such protection to meet the hazard of earnings loss due to inability to work caused by nonoccupational sickness [or accident], accidents, or other disabilities of workers and members of their families. Developing systems that help families adapt to the competing interests of work and home not only benefits workers, but also benefits employers by reducing employee turnover and increasing worker productivity
The problem is that the bill was killed last session by a deluge of phone calls and e-mails arranged by the business lobby while we took the bill for granted. Watch Steve Sweeney explain to Blue Jersey's Jay Lassiter that we need public pressure to convince DEMOCRATS and REPUBLICANS to vote for the bill:
With the help of your calls, the bill got out of committee last month, but now it faces a vote of the entire senate on Monday. Listen to firstamend07 on Blue Jersey:
There are 5 key Senators who must be called and e-mailed. [Democrats] Turner and Gill are probably voting NO but they need to hear from people. Last minute changes are always possible. [Democrat] State Senator Rice, for some reason, is starting to change his mind. He REALLY must be contacted.
Two Republicans, Baroni and Haines, want to vote YES, but need some persuasion.
It appears that we have twenty, we need 21.
Whether or not your state senator is one of these key five, we need you to call him or her if you live in New Jersey -- use this handy tool to find your legislator, or this tool to e-mail them. If you've got some extra time, you can call your two Assembly members too, but they won't vote on the bill until later. And if you want to contact Rice, Baroni, or Haines, they are at:
- State Senator Ron Rice can be contacted at senrice@njleg.org and called at 973-371-5665.
- State Senator Baroni can be contacted at senbaroni@njleg.org and called at 609-631-9988.
- State Senator Haines can be contacted at senhaines@njleg.org and called at 856-234-8080.
(If you're interested in learning more about this issue, you can read more at the paid family leave tag at Blue Jersey. Jay Lassiter's work covering the legislature is partially funded by a grant from BlogPAC.)