When Will It Pay to Take Family and Medical Leave?

When Will It Pay to Take Family and Medical Leave?
by Helene Jorgensen

What does the United States have in common with the countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Samoa, and Papua New Guinea? Not much, other than being the only six countries in the world that do not mandate paid maternity leave. In fact, the Unites States does not provide for paid leave to employees who become sick with a serious illness either, nor to parents to care for a sick child or adult children tending to an ailing parent.

In 2012, 2.5 million private-sector workers did not take needed leave for family and medical reasons because they did not have access to paid leave and therefore could not afford to do so. Employees who do take unpaid leave can experience serious financial hardship as result of their leave, and about one in three workers incur debt as result of taking leave without receiving any pay.

The United States lags far behind other high-income countries in terms of workers’ access to leave, duration of leave and pay during leave. After a decade of political wrangling, Congress passed the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) in 1993 to provide job-protected leave for up to 12 weeks. However, the law does not require leave to be paid, and fully 44 percent of all private-sector employees are not even eligible for FMLA leave because they work for a firm with less than 50 employees, have been with their current employer for less than a year, or did not work a sufficient number of hours over the past year.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/06/21-3