Clinton Expands Unpaid Leave for Federal Workers

President Clinton on Saturday granted the nation’s 1.9 million federal employees up to 24 hours of unpaid leave each year for family matters and emergencies, and he urged Congress to extend the same benefit to all American workers by expanding the popular Family and Medical Leave Act.

Clinton’s action will allow the federal workers leave time for such duties as attending parent-teacher conferences or taking a child or an elderly relative to a doctor’s appointment.

Addressing Republican congressional opponents of expanding the plan, Clinton said in his weekly radio address: “Don’t ask people to choose ever between being good workers and good parents. We can help them to do both.”

He urged Congress to act soon on the legislation, saying “families occasionally need these small pieces of time to take care of their own.”

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and other GOP leaders have opposed expansion of the 1993 act on grounds the federal government should not intrude into decisions involving businesses and their workers.

The law, the first one signed by Clinton as president, has proved highly popular, and Clinton promised during his reelection campaign last year that he would seek to expand it. More than 12 million employees have taken advantage of its provisions allowing up to 12 weeks off without pay to care for a newborn or adopted child, to attend to health needs or to care for a seriously ill parent or other family member.

The White House has said that the act is revenue neutral, having no adverse effect on efforts to balance the federal budget.

Clinton’s action in granting new unpaid leave provisions to federal workers was accomplished in a memo sent to all federal department and agency heads. Although Clinton’s action did not have the force of law, White House officials said they expected all agencies to comply. Clinton told his radio audience that expanding the act’s provisions to everyone would help Americans perform “the toughest job any person can have.”

“It’s not a job you can quit, show up late for or do just enough to get by. In every way, it’s a lifetime commitment--it’s being a parent,” he said.

The president added that “while government doesn’t raise children, it can sometimes give parents the tools they need to make their jobs easier.”

Expanding the act, he said, would ease burdens on parents in the same manner as other administration initiatives, such as combating tobacco advertising that targets children, fighting juvenile crime and giving parents more control over television programs their children watch with tools like the V-chip and a TV ratings system.

Clinton said new family leave provisions would stimulate early childhood development, a subject he said is so important that the White House is planning a conference on it at which leading authorities will express their views. It will be led by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In the Republican response to Clinton’s address, House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) said his party wants to reduce the family tax burden by abolishing the current federal income tax system. Armey said it would help “give parents the freedom to meet their responsibilities to their children.”

Along with Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), Armey last month proposed replacing the traditional graduated income tax scale with a flat 17% income tax with all deductions and credits eliminated.