New parents in S.F. to get 6 fully paid weeks leave
Law aims to help lowwage workers.
San Francisco became the first city in the country Tuesday to require employers to offer six weeks of fully paid leave for new parents.
The unanimous vote by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors came a day after New York passed a law requiring up to 12 weeks of partially paid time off for new parents that it funded through a weekly payroll tax.
California already has one of the more expansive laws in the country, requiring that employees receive 55% of their wages for up to six weeks of paid family leave.
The San Francisco ordinance would require businesses with more than 20 employees to plug that gap by paying the remaining 45% of their employees’ wages. The rule applies to parents of either gender and to both fulland part-time employees who work in the city.
The law will take effect January 2017 with a gradual phase-in for smaller businesses. Businesses with 35 employees or more must comply by July 1, 2017. Businesses with 20 or more employees have until January 2018.
“Our country’s parental leave policies are woefully behind the rest of the world, and today, San Francisco has taken the lead in pushing for better family leave policies for our workers,” the bill’s author, Supervisor Scott Wiener, said in a statement after the vote.
The legislation aims to help low-wage workers who often cannot afford to take a pay cut at the same time they are coping with the additional expenses of a new baby, he said.
Since California implemented its paid family leave law in 2004, higher-income workers have been most likely to take advantage of it, said Jenya Cassidy, director of the California Work and Family Coalition.
Tech companies in the San Francisco area, such as Twitter, Facebook and Google, offer fully paid parental leave for up to 20 weeks. Netflix made news last year when it announced “unlimited” maternity or paternity leave for the first year after a child’s birth.
The proposal got a mixed reception from San Francisco’s business community.
The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce took a neutral stance on the legislation. The chamber supports expanded parental leave but said its 2,4000 small-business members may find it challenging to meet the financial requirements.