CONGRESS : Vetoed Family Leave Bill May Meet Same Fate on Second Try

Democratic leaders are planning to confront President Bush early in the next Congress by reviving the Family and Medical Leave Act that he successfully vetoed last summer.

Its widespread, bipartisan popularity--along with the support of churches, women’s groups and labor unions--assures its passage again next year in much the same form as when it sailed through the 101st Congress.

But another veto is likely. The President says he favors family leave, but only if businesses implement it voluntarily. That stand contrasts with his support for a new law that imposes sweeping requirements on businesses to provide greater access for disabled people to stores, offices, transportation and communication services.

BACKGROUND: Culminating a five-year campaign for passage, the House approved the landmark legislation last May by a vote of 237 to 187, and the Senate endorsed it by voice vote in June without a single dissent. The House sustained Bush’s veto, however, with more than 50 votes to spare.

Unlike most new legislation, the family leave proposal would cost the federal government practically nothing. It would require firms with 50 or more workers, as well as state and local governments, to allow workers to take up to three months of unpaid leave each year for family reasons--a new baby, a sick spouse or personal illness.

Employers would have to continue any health insurance coverage during the leave and guarantee that workers would get back comparable jobs when they returned. Key workers would be exempt from the provisions, and employees would have to provide adequate notice and use up any paid vacation time before going on unpaid absences.

A study by the General Accounting Office indicated that 95% of all businesses would be exempted from the proposed law, but it would cover 44% of all employees.

Advocates contend that the legislation is a modest, long-overdue recognition of enormous changes in America’s work force, including the increasing number of two-earner families and the high percentage of working mothers with small children.

They argue that the federal government should establish a minimum standard that would allow workers to take time off to care for newborn babies or deal with family illness.

Opponents assert that the bill would raise costs for employers and set a bad precedent for government involvement in determining job conditions that should be left for employers and workers to resolve on their own.

Led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business, opponents warned that the family leave policy would be only the first step in a long series of “mandated benefits” that would be inflationary and drive some firms out of business.

In addition, congressional foes maintain that requiring employers to provide family leave would deny workers other benefits that were not “on the political agenda” of the bill’s proponents, even though the benefits might be preferred by employees.

OUTLOOK: Essentially the same legislation that Bush vetoed will be approved again in the House and Senate, probably as one of the first items of business in February or early March.

Although the President is expected to veto a family leave bill the second time around, House Republicans who favor the measure plan to appeal to him to let it become law. If he does use his veto power, the House probably will be the battleground for an override attempt.

Although it will be difficult, if not impossible, to get a two-thirds majority to pass the bill despite Bush’s objections, Democrats have gained 10 seats in the House and the President’s popularity has taken a sharp drop in recent months. In addition, lawmakers will be aware that the issue will come up again in 1992, a presidential election year, if the bill is blocked by a second veto.