City, State Policies Lag
Pregnant Workers Seek Leave Rights

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

Jennifer Ball was not sure how she would manage after she found out she was pregnant in the fall of her first semester teaching at Brooklyn College.

BARBARA BOWEN: CUNY not child-friendly.

There is no paid maternity leave policy at the City University of New York, and she and her husband could not afford to lose her income. She was relieved when her daughter arrived on April 1.

"I was very lucky, because she came during Spring Break," said Ms. Ball.

Back After Two Weeks

She paid another instructor out of her own pocket to cover her art history classes when they resumed, and then she returned to work, barely two weeks after giving birth.

"It was kind of hard," she said, remembering the spring of 2004. "But you're in that situation, and you do it because you have to."

Professors at CUNY are pushing hard for a paid parental-leave policy in their next contract, which many other public universities in states like New Jersey, California and Texas provide. Those colleges give a woman a semester off at full pay and encompass a similar number of colleges and universities throughout their vast state systems. But union activists also acknowledge that the problem is one that goes far beyond CUNY and needs to be addressed at a city, state and Federal level.

The Chief-Leader/Michel Friang DRIVE-THRU DELIVERY: City workers cannot take paid leave after they have a baby, and the Professional Staff Congress has made attaining a paid-parental leave policy a priority in its current contract negotiations. Professor Jennifer Ball managed to have her daughter during Spring Break, returning to work the week after classes resumed. 'It was kind of hard,' she said, 'but you're in that situation, and you do it because you have to.'

No other city unions have been able to negotiate a paid parental-leave policy, and city workers are left out of the state's Temporary Disability Insurance, which pays private-sector workers who are pregnant or have just given birth up to $170 per week for six weeks, or eight weeks if they have a Caesarean section birth.

City workers, male and female, are eligible for up to four years of unpaid leave for the care of a newly born or adopted child. They are guaranteed their job upon return, but they lose their health benefits after 12 weeks.

The Federal Family and Medical Leave Act, passed in 1993, mandates that workplaces with more than 50 employees grant 12 weeks of unpaid leave for the birth of a child. It covers less than half the national workforce.

A coalition of labor and community groups has been fighting for statewide paid family leave since 1999. "The unions got involved after looking at surveys of the members and finding out that even the workers who were eligible for unpaid leave couldn't afford to take it," said Donna Dolan, an international rep for the Communication Workers of America and chair of the New York State Paid Family Leave Coalition.

Studies have shown that up to 78 percent of women go back to work before 12 weeks, because they cannot afford to miss that many paychecks.

Members Prodded PSC

The Professional Staff Congress made paid parental leave a major contract demand in part because of organizing by members on several campuses. The most active was a group at Queens College that began discussing day-care options and, last spring, became a full-fledged advocacy group, filled mostly with younger women new to CUNY.

The group had trouble finding times when its members could all meet, due to child-care responsibilities and varied schedules, and instead set up a listserve that allowed them to spearhead a petition signed by 100 faculty members asking for paid parental leave to be a bargaining demand. All of the department chairs also signed letters noting that recruitment and retention were being hurt by the missing benefit.

"People have been appalled to find out it's true," said PSC President Barbara Bowen. "They are recruited from elsewhere, and they assume that an enlightened university would have paid parental leave."

CUNY: Let's Bargain It

CUNY officials would only say that discussion of such a policy was best kept at the negotiating table. "We have great respect for the collective-bargaining process," CUNY spokesman Michael Arena stated in an e-mail, "and that is where important matters should be addressed with all of our labor partners."

Ms. Bowen noted that over the past few years, CUNY has begun hiring large numbers of full-time faculty for the first time since the late 1960s and early 1970s. The new Professors are younger and include substantially more women than the previous generation, which in part has fueled the demand for paid parental leave.

Up until the early 1970s, the city required that women stop working after their seventh month of pregnancy, but provided no pay as compensation. At that time, District Council 37 gave women lump sums from its Welfare Fund to help tide them over.

Although city workers got left out of the state's Temporary Disability Insurance policy, DC 37 instituted a temporary disability benefit that mirrors it. Its Welfare Fund pays pregnant members up to $200 per week, for six or eight weeks.

Many DC 37 members say that child-care costs loom larger than maternity leave concerns, although the two are inextricably tied. "The primary issue for our members is how to make ends meet," said Moira Dolan, the assistant director of research and negotiations for DC 37. "We have 8,000 single parents, and how they're managing is beyond me."

The move to include pregnancy as a disability at the Federal level was seen as a step forward for women at the time the Pregnancy Discrimination Act was passed in 1975. Pregnancy was to be treated as any other medical condition that made it impossible to work. One side-effect, however, was that domestic partners and husbands were left out of the equation, since they were not "suffering" from the disability.

'Leave a False Option'

Alex Vitale, a Professor at Brooklyn College, went back to work the week after his wife gave birth in October. Although he was entitled to unpaid leave, no male member of his department had taken time off for a birth in 20 years. "For many people, it's a false option," he said. "Even if we could have withstood it financially, I'm up for promotion in a department that's been shorthanded. If you're the only one who's exercised that option in 20 years, you kind of stick out like a sore thumb."

Pregnant city workers can also take accrued sick time while they are pregnant and after they give birth, giving longer-term workers who have saved up sick leave a paid cushion for at least a period of time. Men can take up to three days to care for a "sick" family member, or a pregnant partner. Either worker can use their vacation days.

But pregnant Teachers run into a problem since they do not have separate vacation days, due to receiving summers off. They are allowed to take up to six weeks of sick pay, if they have that much saved up, or eight weeks if they have a Caesarean birth. They can access disability benefits from the United Federation of Teachers' Welfare Fund of $350 per week for six or eight weeks.

But many times women who get pregnant are new enough to the workforce that they do not have enough days. "It's a rare woman who has six weeks' worth," said Amy Arundell, who taught at M.S. 144 in The Bronx and gave birth last May.

'U.S. Doesn't Give a Hoot'

Even for women who could make it without a paycheck for a few months, the fact that their health care gets cut off after 12 weeks unless they go back to work puts them in a bind.

"The [Department of Education] could be more humane," said Ms. Arundell, "but the broader context is that this country doesn't give a hoot. It's the ultimate irony with how much politicians talk about family values."

The United States is in the company of only Swaziland, Lesotho, and Papua New Guinea among nations that don't have some kind of paid maternity leave. For example, Mexico, Bangladesh and India give 12 weeks at full pay.

Industrialized countries also have more-generous government-insured policies. Japan guarantees 14 weeks at 60 percent pay, Italy gives five months at 80 percent pay, and Spain and Germany grant 16 and 14 weeks respectively at full pay.

National advocates argue that the drive for paid parental benefits, while stalled at the national level, has a wide constituency. The number of women in the workforce with children under three years old jumped from about 33 percent in 1975 to 55 percent in 2005, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"This is a policy proposal that is building momentum," said Cindia Cameron, the organizing director of the national women and labor advocacy group 9 to 5.

In 2004, California became the first state to enact paid family leave, which covers illnesses, parental and bereavement leave. Workers can receive six weeks of partial pay from a fund they contribute to from a payroll tax. Washington State then passed a bill granting up to $250 per week. Illinois, New York and New Jersey are all considering bills that would grant some kind of paid parental leave benefit. The bill in New Jersey for a 10-week benefit got bumped down to six last week after complaints from businesses.

Last spring the New York State Assembly passed a family leave bill, and the Senate has begun hearings around the state on it, promising its passage in 2008.

Bill's Provisions

It currently calls for 12 weeks of paid family leave at 50 percent of an employee's average weekly wage, up to $170. It would apply to fathers and domestic partners, but unlike the current state disability insurance, it would be funded primarily by employees. Workers currently pay up to 60 cents per week for the disability insurance, and the leave bill would increase that amount to a total of $1.05 per week.

"We had wanted a shared cost," said Donna Dolan, "but Spitzer was not interested in adding more costs for businesses."

Public-sector workers, however, would not be automatically included. Unions would decide whether to opt in or not, and then it would become a matter of collective bargaining.

Civil Service Employees Association officials said that they wanted the opt-in clause because of potential conflicts with some existing state contracts. "It sounds great in theory," said CSEA spokesman Steve Madarasz. "It had some mixed impact. For a lot of people, it would be very beneficial at a minimal cost. With the opt-in provision, we have no problem with it."

Current Standards

Female state workers currently can use their sick days during and after pregnancy, as long as it is medically certified as a disability. All employees can take unpaid family leave for up to seven months.

Meanwhile, workers patch together whatever they can to give them some time at home after a birth. Ms. Ball, after her Spring Break birth at Brooklyn College, managed to time her second child for the summer. She went back to work in the fall when the baby was seven weeks old.

"I used charts to make sure it would happen," she said. "I guess I was lucky a second time."

But advocates say that with doctors emphasizing breast-feeding for healthy infants and social pressures for women to be the primary caregivers, getting lucky is not an adequate policy option.

"On the one hand, they tell you to be a responsible mother, and on the other they say, 'You decided to have kids, you take care of them,''' said Ms. Cameron. "If there is going to be a genuine valuing of families, we have to enact policies that will allow that to happen."