Over 2.8 million U.S. workers refrain from taking family leave due to economic concerns. The universal economic setback caused by the COVID pandemic made the lack of paid maternal and paternal leave even more serious. The recent Supreme Court Decision overturning Roe v. Wade places even more urgency on the number of newborns requiring care and parents struggling to balance work and family.  

Every individual has a universal right to an adequate standard of living for themselves and their family. The current FMLA policy in place has strict guidelines to receive work leave benefits and lacks a nationally recognized definition of parent. This can make it less obtainable for nontraditional families like same sex couples, grandparents' caregivers, adopting couples, foster families and others. The current FMLA policy requires employers to employ at least 50 or more employees. Employees must be employed for at least 12 months at almost full-time hours to qualify and even when they qualify the leave is unpaid. 

This puts tremendous pressure on new parents/guardians to care for their newborns without financial support. It also specifically violates a child’s right to be cared for and the State's obligation to provide assistance needed.  

The change needed to rectify this injustice has already been written, researched and proven. Yet, the importance of it continues to be ignored. The current FMLA policy works on a state level, but is not recognized on a federal level as a guaranteed right. Correcting the injustice that this policy contributes to requires not only providing paid leave, but redefining what that looks like. The development of a new policy called Families Matter Act will not only establish federally protected paid leave, it will extend the length of the current 12 weeks, and create a new definition of “parent”. The new FMA policy will allow 20 paid weeks of leave to one mother/father/caregiver and 12 weeks for the second mother/father/caregiver of the parental relationship.  

Facilitating this change will involve support locally and nationally in order to meet the goal of putting families first. This will require a call to action for policy makers to acknowledge the importance of this issue. Sign this petition to show support to struggling families all over the country. Visit the FMA website at https://trudymcd4.wixsite.com/families-matter-act to learn more about this issue and how you can help, write to local representatives.  

CHANGE STARTS TODAY!