San Francisco on Tuesday became the first city in the country to require employers to offer six weeks of fully paid leave for new parents.
The measure was approved unanimously by the Board of Supervisors and will give new mothers and fathers six weeks of fully paid time off-a rarity in the U.S., currently offered sparingly to some government sector workers and some private employees, particularly those who work in the tech industry.
"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. "We shouldn't be forcing new mothers and fathers to choose between spending precious bonding time with their children and putting food on the table."
California already has one of the most 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. It applies to parents of either gender and to both full- and part-time employees who work in the city. The law takes 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.
Julia Parish, 33, a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society who is eight and a half months pregnant, said the measure would be particularly helpful to lower-income residents who do not work for companies with generous benefits. "We are ahead of the curve in California, but globally, we are way behind," she said. "It's shameful."
