Washington Policy Watch

With just over a year to go, Washington’s innovative Family Leave Insurance program passed another milestone early this month.

The state’s Information Services Board (ISB) recently approved the design of a computer system that will deliver checks to new parents who take time off work as part of the state’s paid family leave program.

Speaking at the ISB meeting, Karen Lee, Commissioner of the Employment Security Department (which is charged with administering the program), reiterated her department’s commitment to having benefits ready for parents on time.

Agency staff, and legislators are keeping the ground-breaking program on track to deliver the twin benefits of healthier families and more productive workplaces in October 2009.

More on the current status of Family Leave Insurance here.

From environmental protections to new work-life standards, California is a bellwether state that influences state laws and company policies across the rest of the nation.

Responding to the challenge of shrinking benefits for large numbers of American workers, California could soon become the first state to require employers to give paid sick leave to every worker. (San Francisco and Washington DC already have such laws.)

The Sacramento Bee reviews cost estimates and seeks out opinions from both supporters and opponents, and says the decision comes down to a philosophical question:

Should government require employers to provide a package of health and welfare benefits to their workers, or should the matter be left to each company to decide based on its own needs and resources?

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Whether it’s pro football or Monopoly, to play freely and fairly, everyone’s got to use the same rulebook - and play by them.

The same goes for the rules of our economy — but our nation’s patchwork of health care plans and lack of consistent work-life standards makes it too tempting for some employers to cut corners on basic health standards for workers, and too hard for good businesses to provide health insurance to their workers.

As recently noted by the L.A. Times:

As many as 43% of American workers in private industry don’t have paid sick days, according to 2007 data from the federal government. If they call in sick, they lose their pay and, sometimes, their jobs.

That number has risen over the years, part of a larger trend to cut back on sick leave. Among workers who do still have the once-venerable benefit, many have found their days reduced or lumped together as part of their vacation time. The United States — unique among industrialized countries — doesn’t mandate a minimal number of paid sick days for workers.

This decline in benefits is itself a symptom of a sick economic system - one in which businesses sacrifice long-term health and productivity in favor of short-term gains through benefits reduction.

Small business entrepreneurs not only recognize this problem, they want comprehensive health reform - with government playing a key role.

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Thanks in large part to a regressive and out-of-date tax system, the state budget is facing an estimated $2.7 billion shortfall over the next biennium.

While Gov. Chris Gregoire and gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi are sparring over where to cut essential state services, the budget gap is a prime opportunity to stimulate our economy through much-overdue tax reforms that make our state’s tax system more equitable and sustainable.

For example, the following changes would net over $2 billion in new revenue:

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Staying profitable and competitive in the business world is hard work, no two ways about that. The pressure to cut costs is relentless. That’s especially true for “high-road” employers (paying fair wages and benefits to their workers) who compete against “low-road” types.

But there are still some inspiring examples of businesses that are “doing well by doing good”, as Jodie Levin-Epstein reports in Responsive Workplaces:

• Online scheduling allows employees to request preferred work hours and swap shifts with colleagues. JetBlue and J.C. Penney are among firms using electronic “kiosk” scheduling.
• Best Buy’s new human-resource strategy “eliminating the clock” gives employees in the company’s headquarters nearly total autonomy over their workday schedules. BusinessWeek reports that the company plans to expand the strategy to its frontline retail workers this year.
• Ikea offers paid sick days, maternity/paternity leave, and time off for child adoption, also provides health insurance, tuition assistance, and a generous 401(k) match.
• Deloitte & Touche offerings include paid parental leave and a five-year sabbatical plan to extend time off for training and child rearing.
• Abbott Laboratories offers on-site child care to its Illinois headquarters staff.

But do these efforts pay off on the bottom line?

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In a potential preview of what’s to come in Washington, South Carolina’s Supreme Court recently heard arguments over the state’s responsibility to provide pre-kindergarten as part of a basic education.

There, as here, it’s a constitutional question. Both state’s constitutions (SC/WA) explicitly define education for all children as a state responsibility. At issue is exactly how far that responsibility goes - not only a legal question, but by extension also a (big) funding question.

Here’s a rundown of the current situation in both states:

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There is more to life than work, as Thomas Jefferson well knew that when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. But really - how easy is it to really pursue happiness when you can’t get a day off of work?

For example, in Washington State, 1 in 4 businesses do not offer paid vacation to their full-time employees. Most part-time workers get no paid leave at all. (Source: Washington State Employment Security Department)

Not surprisingly, a new poll finds that most Americans don’t have or don’t feel they can take time for “the Pursuit of Happiness,” and more than two-thirds support a law that would guarantee paid vacations for American workers.

The scientific telephone sample of 1,002 Americans was conducted by The Opinion Research Corporation, a leading professional pollster, during the week of June 23, 2008.

The poll found 69% of Americans saying they would support a paid vacation law, with the largest percentage of respondents favoring a law guaranteeing three weeks vacation or more.

Americans under 35 (83%), African-Americans (89%), Hispanic-Americans (82%), and low-income Americans (82%) were the strongest supporters of such a law, as were residents of the Northeast (75%) and the South (72%). 75% of women and 63% of men support a paid vacation law. 74% of families with children support such a law. Every demographic showed majority support for a law. Overall, only 27% of those polled were opposed to a paid vacation law.

Life, liberty, and a few weeks off of work a year - with pay - to recharge and spend time with loved ones. Now that’s a recipe for happiness.

Visit Take Back Your Time to learn more about the new national campaign to guarantee every American three weeks of paid vacation per year.

The Oregonian recently featured four new dads who, like many of their peers, are taking time off from work to bond with their newborns.

According to a Columbia University study, those same dads will also tend be more involved later on in their baby’s life, from dressing to nighttime feeding, because of the family leave they took early on.

Those dads also tend to have professional jobs, allowing them to stay afloat during unpaid leave or use paid vacation. In the Seattle P-I, Paul Nyhan notes:

Paid paternity leave is the exception not the rule in the United States, but a United Kingdom research paper makes a case for dads-only leave.

In this country, paid paternity leave barely budged over the last ten years, with 16 percent of men at big companies receiving paid leave after the birth of a child this year, up from 13 percent in 1998, according to the New York-based Families and Work Institute. (The change isn’t statistically significant, according to the group’s report.)

The stories of those dads (and moms) in the Oregonian are heartwarming to read, but they are the exception, not the rule. Only 8 percent of workers nationally have access to paid family leave, and 51 percent of new mothers have no access to paid maternity leave at all.

In Washington State, an estimated 1.3 million Washington workers aren’t even covered by the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which provides only unpaid time off; another 24,000 were eligible but couldn’t afford to take it.