A strong advocate for paid family leave, Terrence Walker has even spoken to the Virginia General Assembly to ask for a statewide leave plan to be passed. Now, he’s taking his advocacy one step further, he wants to be one of those state legislators in the Assembly.
Terrence knows the issue of family leave all too well and for all the wrong reasons. His wife, Tracy, was diagnosed with cancer in 2013. For the next six years he was her primary caregiver while working full time and caring for their son.
As a state employee, Walker had 200 hours of paid time off that he could use each year for personal and sick leave. Every time Tracy had a surgery or chemotherapy treatment, he had to balance caring for her against the available time he had to take off. The Walker family received its health insurance through his job, and when Tracy became too sick to work, Walker became the sole earner.
When something unexpected would come up, like when Walker needed to call an ambulance in the middle of the night for Tracy, he’d try to find family members to stay with her, or a neighbor to take his son to school, so that he could still make it to work and keep his job and health insurance.
When Tracy Walker passed away from colon cancer in July 2019, Walker’s colleagues donated leave so that he could take time off for the funeral and care for his son in the immediate aftermath of her death. www.washingtonpost.com/...
Terrence knows that it would have been much worse if he didn’t have the great job he has. He gets that he is privileged. What about people who work two jobs? What do they do in a family crisis?
Virginia is the first southern state to take up the issue of leave, and it seems that it will pass... eventually. Five states and DC already have paid leave. Even the Chamber of Commerce has weighed in which says a lot; change is coming, and they want in on it.
The US ranks last in paid time off and paid leave!
The worst countries for paid leave are:
- Nigeria – 6 days per year
- Mexico – 6 days per year
- Philippines – 5 days per year
- China – 5 days per year
- Tanzania – 3 days per year
- Palau – 1 day per year
- Nauru – 0 days per year
- Micronesia – 0 days per year
- Kiribati – 0 days per year
- United States of America – 0 days per year
www.fatherly.com/...
(And Mexico recently doubled their paid leave to 12 days per year.)
There is a political party that is all about family values and women having babies, but where are they on any kind of Family Leave? We know where Terrence Walker stands. The fact that his colleagues donated their leave to Terrence says a lot about what kind of person he is. The kind of person who should be in the Virginia Legislature.
