Parental Leave Is No Luxury

In some companies a woman may take a three- or four-month maternity leave, knowing that her job or its equivalent will be available when she returns. But too often maternity-leave guarantees do not exist in smaller companies.

California Assemblywoman Gwen Moore (D-Los Angeles) has introduced a bill that would require companies with more than 25 workers to offer full-time employees up to four months of unpaid parental leave after the birth or adoption of a baby or during a child’s serious illness. This is a reasonable measure that deserves the solid support of the Legislature and the governor.

Opponents say that temporary-labor costs and continued health benefits for an increasing number of absent employees would debilitate smaller businesses. But such leave would be unpaid, and new parents, faced with new medical expenses, would not likely skip any paychecks unless it was absolutely necessary.

Nor would the bill, AB 268, guarantee employer-paid health benefits. It would require that companies already providing health benefits for military or sabbatical leaves extend the same policy to employees on parental leave. But in cases in which company-paid health benefits are not generally extended to absent employees, the employee would be required to pay this expense.

Temporary help might be needed. But few employers extend health benefits or high incomes to temporary workers, and the Moore bill probably would not change that reality. It would appropriately require parental leave to be extended only to employees of one or more years, and would allow such leave only once in a 24-month period.

This measure would allow parents to care for children during a critical time when child care is both extraordinarily expensive and difficult to obtain. For families faced with these problems, parental leave is not a luxury, it is a necessity.