Jersey helps workers with families, finally Today, proud NJers have more to boast than Garden State and its revoltingly endearing mastermind Zach Braff. This is because on April 7, the great state of New Jersey did a great thing. On April 7, the State Senate passed Family Leave Insurance, making New Jersey the third state to let workers take paid leave from work to care for a sick relative or a newborn child. 
As devout Lattice blog readers know, federal law already allows workers in companies with at least 50 employees to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid family leave. To anyone who needs to care for a child or sick relative and still put food on the table, the federal law is, to put it kindly, completely worthless.
New Jersey’s law is the opposite of worthless. In fact, for workers who need to take leave, it is worth up to $524 per week (two-thirds of their salary) for up to six weeks. New Jersey’s law isn’t worth as much as, say, California’s law, which allows for up to $917 a week, but is worth twice as much as what Washington State will offer starting in 2009.
It has taken New Jersey over a decade to get this law passed. Interviewing people in France, where three months of paid family leave for mothers is the norm and largely taken for granted, this is fairly disheartening. On the other hand, whereas fathers in France are only entitled to two weeks of paternity leave, New Jersey’s family leave is pleasantly gender neutral. Both men and women have the option of taking part in the lives of their newborns.
Of course, just because both men and women can take paid leave doesn’t mean they will. In California, women account for 80 percent of those who take advantage of the paid leave. Despite this lingering and personally confounding inequity, I agree with Senate Majority Leader Stephen Sweeny, D-Gloucester, who says of New Jersey’s law, “It does the right thing for working men and women.”
Businesses and many NJ Senate Republicans disagree. Pointing to a slowing economy, Assemblyman Jay Webber, R-Morris, says “The ramifications of this bill on New Jersey taxpayers and businesses will be devastating. Not only will its impact harm the very people it is intended to help, but we will lose more jobs as well."
Oh, yeah? Prove it. The New Jersey law will be financed by employee payroll deductions that will cost every worker in New Jersey a maximum of 64 cents a week, or $33 a year. This seems somehow short of devastating to me. Personally, I’m getting pretty sick of American politicians and businesses immediately employing scare tactics when talk turns to providing benefits to workers. You will have to sew-up your own stiches if we allow universal health care! The economy will collapse if we offer public child-care for hardworking parents!
Actually, I just took out money from a bank in Paris, bought a delicious baguette, and pondered how the economy manages to function in a country that provides paid parental leave, child care, and health care. Thing is, it does. Isn't it time that Americans realize that it’s okay to make some demands of their employers and their government? It's okay to ask for help when you need it. Businesses do it all the time through a whole litany of tax breaks, incentives, and subsidies. Hats-off to you NJers. I may never envy your grammatical innovations (“going down the shore” anyone?), but I surely envy this. - Vetta
This legislation has not been reported on very heavily. But you can access a NYTimes article here and an article from South Jersey News Online here.
Zach Braff photo by jeffpulver on flickr.com under creative commons license.
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