Making the Family and Medical Leave Act Work for All Californians

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Assemblymember Sandré Swanson

Family and medical leave laws are not meeting the everyday challenges that Californian’s are facing under our current system of health care. As Chair of the Assembly Labor Committee, I believe that the need to assist your family with personal or medical emergencies must be protected under California law and should never threaten your employment.

There is a two-way street that exists at the workplace – an employee agrees to be a hard worker and help the employer be more productive; and the employer agrees to provide the worker with a fair wage and benefits in an environment with dignity and respect. This is the social compact that should be supported between employee and employer.

However, under current law, California employers are not obligated to give families critical leave to support all of their family members during times of sickness.

For this reason, I am pleased to have the opportunity in the State Legislature to support three bills that expand protections for California’s working families.

My bill, AB 537, will directly impact the ability of family members to care for their loved ones. This bill will add seriously ill "grandparents," "grandchildren," "parents-in-law," "siblings," and “domestic partners” to the list of family members that an employee can take job-protected, unpaid leave to care for under the California Family Rights Act (CFRA). It will also ensure that employees can take leave to care for their seriously ill independent, adult children.

While the original CFRA was well-intentioned, the language does not adequately reflect the reality of today's working families. The CFRA was enacted in 1991 and is the state law version of the federal Family and Medical Leave Act signed into law in 1993. Currently, the CFRA only authorizes employees to take leave to care for a "parent, spouse, or child" with a serious medical condition. In other words, employees may not take leave to attend to an ill sibling, grandchild, grandparent or parent-in-law. In addition, current law defines a "child" as either under age 18 or an adult dependent child. Therefore, an employee is prohibited from taking leave to attend to an adult child unless that child is officially a dependent of the parent.