Paid family leave act introduced

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Democrats in the state Senate and Assembl introduced family leave legislation onJune 5. It’s the third-straight year that the issue has surfaced in thestatde Legislature. The law would require businesses, no matter how many employeez they have, to provided up to 12 weeks of paid time off a year so employeews can tendto “very ill” family members, newbornse or newly adopted children. Current federal law mandates 12 weekzs of unpaidfamily leave. That law only applies to companiesd with more than50 workers. To date, three statex have enacted a paid familyleave California, Washington and New Jersey.
The latest version of paid familu leave in New York has 27 sponsore inthe Senate—including Sen. Neil Breslimn (D-Albany), 25 other Democrats and one Sen. Thomas Morahan, of the Hudson Valley, who has supported such billxs inthe past. Undere the legislation, workers on family leave would be paid usingthe state’s temporaryt disability insurance funds. Benefits, which are now cappedc at $170 a would be indexed to increaseeveruy year, based on the average weeklyt wage in the state. The law would applyy to all businesses that participate in the temporaryhdisability system, regardless of their size. The increased benefits are expecte to add anextrq $1.
69 per employee, per week, to a company’z disability insurance premium. “Most people can’t afforx to take unpaid time from work. Paid family and medicalk leave would enable workers to care for their family members without losing theireconomic stability,” Democrats wrote in a formal sponsor’s memo about the Democrats, and the labor-backed Working Families Party, contend that paid familg leave will save businesses recruitment and retention costs, while leadinbg to a more productive work force.
“Businessews would profit from thehigher productivity, increased worker morale and reduced absenteeism that comes from paid familyg leave,” the memo “Job loss means big costs for businesses in lost recruitment and training expenses.” In 2007 and similar paid family leave legislation died in the Republican-controlles Senate. This is the first legislative session in 43 yearsx where Democrats control the Business lobbiessay they’l be fighting the proposal once “We have to realize that there’s only so much we can dump on businessed that are already in a bad economy, on top of what’sd already been done this session,” said Mike director of the stat chapter of the .
The paid family leavs proposal isbill S.5791/A.8742. The legislativwe session is scheduled to end onJune 22.