U.S. should follow Europe’s lead on medical-leave policies
I was raised by a single mom. She worked three jobs to keep our family afloat, driving a bus for the public schools, cleaning rental cars and delivering pizza. When it came time for me to apply for college, I was able to get scholarships that covered tuition, but the money wasn’t enough to cover all the other costs of attending school, like room, board and books. My hardworking mom wasn’t in a position to help me out financially.
The answer to my predicament came in the form of Italian citizenship, which I acquired through my father. I applied to and was accepted at a university in the Netherlands. As an Italian citizen, I now qualified for European Union citizen tuition rates, meaning my education was practically free.
While attending university, I observed firsthand the value of the strong social safety net that most European Union countries have. I couldn’t help but compare it with the weak public support here in the United States.
I benefited from a low-cost education in the well-funded university system, of course, but it was obvious that families in the Netherlands relied on a range of other programs that people in the United States don’t have access to. For example, paid leave: Dutch people are guaranteed ample time to rest, heal, care for loved ones and bond with their children.
Under Dutch law, workers get a minimum of four weeks’ vacation and eight public holidays — and a guaranteed 8 percent salary bonus each year. If they get sick, they are entitled to a minimum of 70 percent of their most recent wage level, up to a maximum period of two years. Birthing parents can take up to 16 weeks of paid leave. They’ll have an additional nine weeks of parenting leave as of August 2022; partners will have 15 weeks partially paid leave.
Life in the Netherlands showed me what it’s like to live in a nation that supports working families. It was there I learned these benefits were not radical at all. They were common-sense solutions to the challenges all of us face: caring for our own health, raising children or helping a loved one heal.
Back in the United States, I became an organizer, helping to win policies that will bring us in line with our international peers. It’s time for the richest country in the history of the world to join our peers in offering basic, family-supporting benefits.
We need a government that takes the side of working people and the vulnerable and that guarantees the shared prosperity that we have earned, including living wages, access to health care and child care, and paid sick days and family and medical leave that allow us to heal, take care of our loved ones, and protect public health.
There are paid familyand medical-leave programs in place in nine states and Washington, D.C., that are proving that policies that prioritize and respect caregiving are possible, and benefit not just the workers and their families, but public health and the economy as well. Congress is considering a bill that would make access to these supports available to all workers: The American Families Plan. The plan, which is modeled after these existing programs, would ensure that we come out of this pandemic with a stronger care infrastructure that supports all working families.
Now is the time to put our well-being and our families first, to put aside partisan politics and focus on what’s most important. Other countries, like the Netherlands, have managed to do this. The United States needs to join them.
Now is the time to put our well-being and our families first, to put aside partisan politics and focus on what’s most important. Other countries, like the Netherlands, have managed to do this. The United States needs to join them.