"I sometimes imagine how my life would be different if my mom had the option of paid family leave." So said Travis, a District of Columbia resident who was born prematurely. Because his mother could not get the time off from work to make necessary hospital visits to care for her fragile son, Travis said, "She had to give me up to be raised in Florida by other family members."
Travis and his fellow District residents may no longer face those wrenching choices, thanks to the Universal Paid Leave Act, a proposed paid-leave law that will be formally introduced this morning in the D.C. City Council. Among the most progressive of such paid-leave laws in the nation, the program includes 11 weeks of gender equal parental leave, eight weeks of paid family caregiving leave and up to 90% pay replacement for low-income workers on leave. The D.C. Paid Family Leave Coalition said it was "extremely pleased to see the council affirm the need for paid family leave and move toward creating a program that works for everyone," but called for strengthening the bill. On today's labor calendar, the Universal Paid Leave Act Markup starts at 9:30am at the John Wilson Building; at noon, catch a book discussion of "The Jackson Project" with organizer Phil Cohen at the AFL-CIO; and at 5:30 there will a release of the "No Piece of the Pie" Report at the Teamsters by Food Workers Organizing for Justice in the U.S. and Globally For details, go to dclabor.org and click on Calendar. Here’s today's labor history: On this date in 1869, African-American delegates met in Washington, D.C., to form the Colored National Labor Union as a branch of the all-White National Labor Union created three years earlier. Unlike the National Labor Union , the Colored National Labor Union welcomed members of all races. Frederick Douglass became president in 1872. In 1884, the Washington Monument was completed in Washington, D.C. On the interior of the monument are 193 commemorative stones, donated by numerous governments and organizations from all over the world; one of them is from the International Typographical Union, founded in 1852. In 1986 the ITU merged into the Communications Workers of America. In 1907, 361 coal miners died at Monongah, West Virginia, in the nation's worst mining disaster. Today’s labor quote is by Frederick Douglass Former slave Frederick Douglass, who said "No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened around his own neck."
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