Push for Time Off Gains in Many States

From the Wall St. Journal

By MICHAEL SANSERINO

New
and strengthened Democratic majorities in many state legislatures are
pushing measures that require businesses to grant employees additional
time off for personal or family reasons.

Getty Images

A Nevada law grants leave to attend school events, including sports.

Governors
in Colorado and Nevada signed laws within the past month that give
employees unpaid leave for school-related events, becoming the first
states to do so in a decade. Wisconsin lawmakers will take up similar
legislation this fall.

Lawmakers in roughly a dozen other states are debating measures that
would require employers to grant paid family or sick leave; President
Barack Obama campaigned in support of such laws last year.

Democrats now control both houses in 27 state legislatures, up from
24 two years ago, and share power with Republicans in eight others.

The political shift has created "a slightly more employee-friendly
climate," said Margaret Hogan, a shareholder at employment-law firm
Littler Mendelson. Ms. Hogan said Democratic state lawmakers are
promoting employee-leave laws to help workers offset recent cuts in
wages and benefits.

The push worries people such as Tony Gagliardi, Colorado's state
director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, who
lobbied against that state's new law. He said the mandatory-leave laws
unfairly burden businesses struggling with the recession.

"This is growing," he said. "The ultimate goal is paid family leave for any compelling reason."

Colorado's law requires employers with 50 or more employees to allow
full-time workers to take up to 18 hours of unpaid leave annually to
attend a child's school activities. Linda Meric, executive director of
9to5, the National Association of Working Women, which led the push for
the law, called it critical for workers to balance job and home
responsibilities.

The Colorado law is limited to activities such as parent-teacher
conferences or meetings for disciplinary issues. Nevada's law gives
parents leave for any school-sponsored activity, including soccer
games, school plays, class parties and field trips.

Efforts to require companies to grant leave got their biggest boost
in 1993 when the U.S. Congress passed the Family Medical Leave Act,
requiring certain employers to give workers up to 12 weeks per year of
unpaid leave for child care or illness.

Since then, several cities and states have passed laws to supplement
FMLA. Eight states passed laws granting educational leave -- time off
to attend children's school events -- between 1993 and 1999. Three
states -- California, Washington and New Jersey -- passed laws since
2000 that give employees paid time off to care for family members. San
Francisco and Washington, D.C., require employers to give workers paid
sick days; Milwaukee voters approved a similar law in 2008, but a judge
struck it down June 12.

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D., Conn.) and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D.,
Mass.) recently introduced a bill that would guarantee workers up to
seven paid sick days per year.

Business advocates see such measures doing more harm than good for
workers. To pay for additional benefits, employers may have to reduce
wages or other benefits, said Randy Johnson, vice president of labor,
immigration and employee benefits for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Write to Michael Sanserino at michael.sanserino@wsj.com