When It Comes to Paid Parental Leave, Even the Best Could Be Better

Kristina Gupta, Policy Fellow
National Women’s Law Center

Working Mother magazine just released their annual list of the 100 Best Companies in the United States. The companies on the list are honored for offering family-friendly benefits, including paid leave, flextime, on-site childcare, domestic partner benefits, retirement plans, and healthcare.

Some of the top companies on the 2007 list offer a wide range of family friendly-policies. For example, investment banking giant Goldman Sachs offers flexible scheduling, childcare, up to 16 weeks of paid maternity leave, 4 weeks of paid paternity leave, and 8 weeks of paid leave for adoptive parents. In addition, the company offers a mentoring program for pregnant women and a program designed to bring women who have left the workforce back into the firm.

Yet, much remains to be done. For example, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), many of the top 100 companies fail to offer sufficient paid parental leave. In 2006, 7% of the top 100 companies offered no paid maternity leave, and 7% provided only one to two weeks. Nearly half of the top companies in 2006 offered no paid paternity leave, and no company provided more than 6 weeks of paid paternity leave.

If even the top companies fail to offer adequate paid parental leave, it should come as no surprise to learn that most workers have no access at all to paid family leave. According to the IWPR, only 8% of private sector workers have access to paid family leave. And the rate of access is much less for part-time workers and workers earning less than $15 per hour.

Currently, no federal law requires companies to offer paid parental leave, although California has enacted a state law to guarantee partially-paid family leave for all workers. This summer two bills were introduced in Congress to provide paid parental leave. The Family Leave Insurance Act (S 1681) would offer up to eight weeks of paid parental and medical leave. The Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act (HR 3158) would offer federal employees up to eight weeks of paid parental leave. However, both bills are stalled. HR 3158 was introduced in a previous session of Congress and never passed. Without a sustained effort by activists and policy makers to pass these bills and others, most workers will continue to lack access to paid parental leave. For a country that claims to honor family values, it’s a national shame that workers are denied paid leave to care for their newborns. We can and must do better.

Comments

[Becky]

That's just it. The benefits offered by the "100 best" companies are window dressing. And there's nothing permanent about them. Say the company decides to cut 2,000 jobs or cut costs. Whoops. There goes [insert "family-friendly" policy].