NEW JERSEY — When a New Jersey resident welcomes a new child to their family – or has to care for a loved one who is ill – they deserve some time away from the job to take care of the truly important business in life. But as many as 1.7 million employees in the state aren’t covered under a law that is designed to protect this important right – and it’s time to finally stick up for them, advocates say.
A recent update to a study conducted by the Rutgers’ Center for Women and Work found that 1.7 million workers lack job protection coverage under the NJ Family Leave Act (NJFLA) – even though all employees in the state fuel the program with each paycheck.
They include Ediza Lahoz Valentino, a mother and social worker.
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“When my second daughter was born, I had only been at my job for five months and so I was not eligible for job protection, and I had to return to work after just six weeks of leave,” she said. “The lack of appropriate and reasonable paid time off was a major factor that contributed to my experiencing postpartum depression.”
For others such as Lauren Fonseca, the lack of coverage meant not having the chance to appropriately mourn for her younger sister, who died of cystic fibrosis.
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“I had recently used up all of my accrued leave when I was diagnosed with [multiple sclerosis], so I only had three days of bereavement … not enough time to grieve for your 25-year-old sister,” Fonseca recalls.
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What’s the problem? Unfair eligibility requirements, advocates say.
Currently, New Jersey employees’ jobs are protected when taking leave for a covered reason if they work for a firm with 30 or more employees, have worked with that employer for at least 12 months, and have worked at least 1,000 hours in the previous year.
But that’s not the situation for many people who deserve the same rights as their peers, advocates said.
The latter two requirements are especially burdensome hurdles to clear, researchers said. The Rutgers Center for Women and Work’s report estimated that 1.15 million New Jersey workers lack job protections under the NJFLA due to not meeting the duration or hours worked requirements – regardless of the firm size or employer.
“In our new report, we examined more closely which workers’ jobs would not be protected because they worked for less than a year, changed jobs in the last year, or have worked fewer than 1,000 hours,” explained Rebecca Logue-Conroy, a research analyst at the Center for Women and Work-Rutgers University.
According to Logue-Conroy, about 27 percent of workers remain unprotected – many of whom are women with low incomes who work in “health care support, education, instruction and library, and food preparation and serving-related occupations.”
New Jersey Citizen Action and the NJ Time to Care Coalition recently spearheaded a news conference to shed some light on the issue (watch the video below).
The groups are pushing for state lawmakers to tweak a proposed bill could make headway into the issue: A3451/S2950. Activists say the proposed law only addresses the size of companies, and not the duration or hours that employees are working.
Advocates are also calling for amendments to expand job-protected family leave to employers with at least five employees.
“We cannot ignore workers paid leave stories, the data, and the inequities that will persist if we continue to pass partial policy solutions that do not help New Jersey workers who deserve time to bond with their new children and be at the bedside of their sick or dying loved ones,” urged Yarrow Willman-Cole, NJ Citizen Action’s work justice program director and convener of the NJ Time to Care Coalition.
Social justice advocates aren’t the only ones who are calling for change – some small business owners are also pushing for more worker protections.
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“New Jersey’s paid family leave program is beneficial for both workers and businesses,” attested Anthony Sandkamp, the owner of Sandkamp Woodworks.
According to Sandkamp, the program helps businesses retain employees, who are often highly skilled and trained – which also reduces turnover costs.
“As a small business owner that relies on my workers to run my business efficiently, I value them as humans who may need to take time away from work to care for new babies and/or sick loved ones without fearing job loss,” Sandkamp said.
“Paid leave without job security is basically a severance package, and it doesn’t work,” he added.
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