Federal Employees Paid Paternal Leave Act Of 2009

Floor Speech

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Mr. POLIS. Madam Chair, I rise in support of H.R. 626, the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act of 2009. Let me thank my friend from New York, Mrs. MALONEY for her continued dedication to this issue. I also applaud Chairman TOWNS and my colleagues on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee for championing the cause of paid parental leave for federal employees.

This legislation helps families employed by the government, offering up to four weeks of paid leave for parents to care for a new child. It recognizes a fundamental and basic need of new parents, namely, the importance of caring for and spending time with their young children.

As Americans workers struggle to weather the economic storms that have beset our nation, we need to ensure that our primary safety net--the American family--remains strong and intact. In doing so, this bill establishes the federal government--as an employer--as a champion for the American family, making it a model for the rest of the country to follow.

The Federal government is one of the country's largest employers, with over 1.8 million civilian employees. According to the Department of Health and Human Services 18,000 women and 24,000 men will qualify for parental leave this coming year.

Under existing law, federal employees are allowed to take unpaid parental leave. Sadly, in 2000, it was reported that as many as 78 percent of these eligible employees did not take leave, simply because they could not afford it. Under present economic conditions, the desire to remain at work and forgo unpaid leave is even stronger. With the government playing such a significant role in the American workforce, we can no longer afford to punish such a large portion of our workforce for taking a few weeks leave to help raise a child.

Economic loss affects not just the worker, but all those who rely on the head wage-earner for support, and oftentimes the hardest hit group is the American family.

Today, in the midst of a recession, it is essential that working parents have the resources to care for and support both themselves and their families. This bill provides a necessary lifeline for new parents who must simultaneously provide round-the-clock care for their young children and keep their jobs in an increasingly competitive and shrinking economy.

Too often, families are forced into a bind, having to choose between earning enough to survive and caring for a child. No parent wants to decide between a child and work, but under current conditions, many federal employees must.

Families are helpless in this situation, and it is both the employer and employees that suffer for it. Federal employers have a high turnover rate, due to families searching for employers with better benefits or leaving the workforce to care for a child.

Even more importantly, this bill encourages parents to provide care during a period of crucial development for children. The education of children starts from day one, and in many ways, it is the earliest experiences of a child that will set the course for the rest of their life. The care children receive in their earliest days can provide them with the necessary building blocks to succeed in school and the workforce later on.

This bill also takes steps to accommodate the changing and often varied types of households that make up the American family, which current law does not take into account. Many families today don't have a stay-at-home member, making it all the more difficult for working parents to accommodate their family needs. Stay-at-home dads, friends, partners, siblings, aunts, uncles, or grandparents are all assuming the role of primary care-giver. Federal employee benefits need to take these new family dynamics into account.

This legislation will provide a gain to federal employers as well as the economy. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), this legislation accrues no extra cost for taxpayers. Federal employers can save losses from turnover rates and improve retention of some of its most reliable and adept employees.

In times of economic turmoil we must keep families strong. By strengthening the family, in turn we strengthen our workforce. Healthy families make productive employees and raise engaging and innovative children, giving an extra boost to the economy and the current and future American workforce.

Madam Speaker--this legislation is needed today, more than ever before! It will create a more progressive and family-oriented benefit system for the current federal workforce, setting an example for similar positive developments within all sectors of the economy. It will help working families to care for and support their young children, during a time when economic struggles often overshadow parents' most basic duties of childcare.

On behalf of all those who have spent time in creating this bill, as well as almost two million federal employees and their families, I urge my colleagues to support and vote ``yes'' on H.R. 626.

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