Will Federal Employee Paid Leave Lead to a National Private Sector Mandate?

By James Venable, JD, SPHR

VP, Employment Law, Absence & Accommodation Compliance
ReedGroup

Effective October 2020, civilian federal employees will be entitled to 12 weeks of paid parental leave. With this development, could similar legislation be around the corner for the rest of the U.S. workforce? Presently, the United States is one of only a few major industrialized countries that doesn’t mandate paid family leave for employees. However, supporters of paid leave are optimistic. More than ever before, Congress appears to have growing bipartisan support for paid family leave legislation.

Presently, the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) mandates 12 weeks of unpaid leave for an employee’s own illness or to care for a sick relative or new child. However, many middle- and lower-class workers, especially those in the so-called sandwich generation (those simultaneously caring for both their children and elderly parents), find they cannot meet their financial obligations if they take unpaid leave.

Because of the inaction at the federal level to require paid family leave, states have stepped in and passed their own paid family leave programs. New York, California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Washington already have comprehensive paid leave programs in place covering most of the employees in their states, with the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Oregon in various stages of implementing their own. This is a positive development for employees but can be an administrative burden for multi-state employers.

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