Southern California Job Market : FITTING IN FAMILY : TUG OF WAR OVER PARENTAL LEAVE
When Courtney Lockwood’s baby was born in December she was assured of four months off from her job as a public relations professional. She had taken similar leaves following the births of her two older children. In each case, Lockwood took leave without detriment to her career.
“If you have anything less than four months, you’re really not ready to return to work,” said the Santa Monica resident.
The consideration that Lockwood’s employer voluntarily granted her is something many other Americans want to become a matter of law. Mandatory parental leave is an issue that won’t go away, even in the face of vigorous opposition from business groups who are contesting measures introduced in Congress and various state legislatures. And not all businesses resist the idea of granting parental leave. Some large corporations, such as Phillip Morris Cos. and American Express, already have such a policy, but others oppose such a law because they believe that benefits should be negotiated between employers and employees. Small businesses, in particular, say that mandatory leaves would be disruptive and costly.
Proponents argue that some kind of parental leave law is necessary because not only are women in the work force to stay, but the national economy will become increasingly dependent upon their skills. At the same time, they argue, society should accommodate the family needs of workers.
Proponents note that the United States and South Africa are the only major industrialized countries without maternal leave laws. Canada, for example, provides a minimum of 17 weeks’ leave, with 15 weeks paid at 60% of the worker’s salary. U.S. federal law requires only that employers treat pregnancy the same as a major medical disability.
While Congress has wrangled over the issue for years, some 15 states have already approved some kind of leave law. In California, Assemblywoman Gwen Moore (D-Los Angeles) recently won a 7-2 Assembly Labor and Employment Committee vote on her parental leave proposal. Her bill would require certain employers to grant up to four months of unpaid leave for the birth of a child, legal adoption, care of a seriously ill child or a parent with a serious ailment. The bill would apply to companies with 25 or more workers employed in the same location. Also, employers wouldn’t have to grant leaves to workers who had not been on the job for at least a year.
“We believe this bill is good not only for workers, but for employers in terms of increased production,” Moore told the Assembly committee. She said surveys show that three-fourths of workplace absenteeism is the result of family problems such as sick or troubled children and aging parents.
Moore has been trying to get the bill passed for several years. She came closest in 1987 when Gov. George Deukmejian vetoed a measure approved by the assembly. Last year, her bill died on the Assembly floor awaiting final action on the last day of the legislative session.
Moore was aided this year by the testimony of U.S. Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.), who with Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) has been the leading proponent of mandated parental leave in Congress. Both have reintroduced bills that failed in the 100th Congress last year, with some minor adjustments.
A key lobbyist against mandated parental leave at both the federal and state level has been the National Federation of Independent Business, the nation’s largest small business organization. “We still feel that this is something between the employer and the employee,” said Martyn Hopper, California state director. He sees California as a key state in the battle, he explained, because “whatever virus we get here seems to spread elsewhere.”
Moore’s proposal will prove costly and unworkable for people who own small businesses, said David Redfern, the owner of Redwood General Tire Services in Redwood City. In an area where the unemployment rate is low, it would be hard to find competent people willing to fill in on a job for only four months.
“Qualified mechanics are extremely difficult to find. We are constantly running ads. If one of them were gone, we would have to turn away work,” Redfern said.
In a small business, “almost every employee is a key employee,” said Philip Toomey, a partner in the seven-lawyer Toomey, Artiano & Wohn firm in Redondo Beach. When one person is missing for a long time, he said, “you lose the productivity of the team.”
Temporary employees are expensive, Toomey said, adding that some mandatory leave proposals would require the employer to maintain the benefit package for the employee on leave. “Benefit packages cost more for small businesses,” he said.
Toomey asserts that government mandates take “a cavalier attitude” toward the reality that small-business people usually have everything they own at stake in their businesses. “It gets very disheartening to small-business people.”
Instead of mandates, Toomey said he advocates a policy of “reasonable accommodation” as adopted by his firm and many of his business clients. Such policies “can go a long way toward balancing the needs of the employee and the businesses,” he said. Companies are in fact often better off if they give employees with small babies some time off, he said. The law firm has also provided a “quiet room” where employees who need to can bring children to the office, he said.
The concept of reasonable accommodation has worked very well for Courtney Lockwood, but she said she believes governments will have to require some kind of mandatory leave. “Businesses have to adapt to the needs of their employees, which include the need to have a family,” she said, explaining that she has viewed the problem as a mother, a manager and as someone about to start her own business.
“Government should mandate that companies treat people humanely, but you can’t do that. So we have to do these types of things in bits and pieces,” Lockwood said.
