This Labor Day, DC workers should be celebrating the recent victory to adopt a paid family and medical leave program for new parents and people needing time from work to care for an ill relative. Instead, the new program is being delayed by DC Council bills, driven largely by business interests, that would “repeal and replace” it with something much worse for workers.
Like federal efforts to repeal and replace healthcare, the DC paid family leave repeal and replace efforts would be bad for all of us and should be rejected.
The Universal Paid Leave Act (UPLA), passed earlier this year, gives private-sector workers eight weeks of paid leave to be with a new child, six weeks of paid leave to care for an ill relative, and two weeks of paid leave to care for themselves. DC’s program will be especially helpful to low-wage workers, by replacing nearly all of their wages when they take leave.
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