PAID FAMILY LEAVE BILL CLEARS ASSEMBLY PANEL

(TRENTON) - The Assembly Labor Committee today released legislation Assembly members Nelson Albano, Sheila Oliver, Linda Greenstein, and Wayne DeAngelo sponsored to provide workers across the state access to up to six weeks paid leave from their jobs to take care of pressing family needs.

"No hard-working New Jerseyan should ever be forced to decide between putting food on the table or caring for a sick family member or new baby," said Albano (D-Cumberland/Atlantic/Cape May).  "It is only proper for the state to protect a worker's ability to take precious time off to take care of their highest priority - their family."

The measure (A-873) would extend the state's existing temporary disability insurance (TDI) system to provide up to six weeks' leave to care for a family unable to care for themselves, including sick family members and newborn and newly adopted children. The maximum benefit that could be accrued by any employee over that period would be approximately $3,100.

"Paid leave is among the most family-friendly policies we can provide New Jersey's working men and women," said Oliver (D-Essex). "We cannot be so inflexible as to prevent employees facing a family crisis from having access to a modest benefit that can keep them financially stable."

An employer could require an employee wishing to take a paid family leave to first exhaust up to two weeks' unused vacation, sick, or other personal time; any personal time used would count against the maximum six weeks allowable benefit. Paid leave would run concurrently with benefits provided under the state Family Leave Act and the federal Family Medical Leave Act, which allow up to 12 weeks unpaid leave. Employees would be required to provide employers with ample notice, when possible. A worker also could take a paid leave only once in any given 12-month period.

The cost of providing the paid leave benefits would be shouldered entirely by employees through an approximately $33 per year increase in the TDI payroll deduction.

"Paid family leave simply is an issue whose time has come," said Greenstein (D-Middlesex/Mercer). "Too many New Jerseyans already find it hard to balance the needs of both their jobs and their families. This bill will ensure that when an emergency arises, family needs always will take precedence."

According to a December 2006 poll conducted by the Rutgers University/Eagleton Center poll found 78 percent of respondents supported paid family leave.

"New Jerseyans support paid family leave because they realize that their friends and neighbors should never be forced to quit their jobs and accept unemployment to tend to an urgent family need," said DeAngelo (D-Mercer/Middlesex). "Providing a paid family leave benefit is the right thing for New Jersey to do to protect hard-working families."

The New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development estimates that roughly 38,000 members of the state's 4.1 million-member workforce would take advantage of the paid family leave benefit.

California and Washington currently are the only states that offer a paid leave benefit to workers. In California, 87 percent of claims were for workers taking time off to care for a newborn; 80 percent of claimants were women.

The bill was released by a vote of 6-2 with one abstention. It now heads to the Assembly Appropriations Committee for further consideration.

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