Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act Reintroduced in House and Senate
Friday, February 6, 2009(National Federation of Federal Employees)
Washington, DC -
Last week, Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA)
introduced the Federal Employees Paid Parental
Leave Act (S. 354), a bill that would amend the
1993 Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to
provide all federal employees with four weeks
of paid parental leave when caring for a newly
born or adopted child. The same
legislation was also introduced in the House by
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY). The House
version is bill number H.R. 626.
Currently, federal
employees are not offered any paid leave when
caring for a newly born or adopted child.
Under current law, new parent(s) are only
allowed up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave
and may use their annual and sick leave to
supplement the lost wages. Upon return
from such FMLA leave, an employee must be
returned to the same position or to an
“equivalent position with equivalent benefits,
pay, status, and other terms and conditions of
employment.”
“Passage of this bill is
long overdue,” said NFFE National President
Richard N. Brown. “The federal government needs
to do more to recruit the best and brightest
workforce. A paid parental leave benefit
is a simple and relatively inexpensive way to
make the federal government a much more
attractive place to work for people with or
expecting children.”
Click Here for a Printable Version of this Article
Link
to the House bill: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h626ih.txt.pdf
Link
to the Senate bill: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:s354is.txt.pdf