Paid Family Leave Moves Through Legislature

Paid Family Leave Moves Through Legislature

The state Senate on Monday passed a paid family leave bill that would grant all workers up to six weeks to care for sick family members, a newborn or a newly adopted child.

The bill, S-786, was approved largely along party lines—as 22 of 23 Democrats supported the measure, while all Republicans voted against it. Meanwhile, the Assembly version (A-873) is pending action in the Appropriations Committee and could reach the full Assembly for vote as early as next week.

The bill would affect all private and government employers, including school districts, that are subject to the state’s unemployment compensation law.

NJSBA is part of a coalition of businesses and state organizations opposing the bill. NJSBA believes benefits should be negotiated locally, and should not be given to employees through legislative action.

Six Weeks of Benefits The bill, as currently amended, provides up to six weeks of temporary disability insurance (TDI) benefits for a worker taking leave to provide care—including psychological comfort and arranging third-party care—to a family member with a serious health condition. It also provides leave for a worker to be with a newborn during the child’s first year or with a newly adopted child. The bill would grant payment at up to two-thirds of an employee’s salary to a maximum of $502 a week.

The weekly benefit amount paid under the bill will be the same as the weekly amount for TDI benefits during a worker’s own disability and is subject to the same one-week waiting period.

The employer may require the employee to take up to two weeks of available sick or vacation pay or other fully-paid leave before receiving benefits. The employer may also require that the period of benefits be reduced by the amount of time in which fully paid leave is provided. If the employee is required to take fully paid leave, the bill requires that the employee be allowed to use the first week’s worth of the fully paid leave during the one-week waiting period that precedes the family leave benefits. If the leave is for care of a child after birth or adoption, the worker is required to give at least a 30-day notice.

The benefits would be funded through an annual $33 deduction from workers’ pay.

In each subsequent year of the program, the Commissioner of Labor and Workforce Development would set a new contribution rate for workers based on estimates of the expected cost of benefits and administration, less the funds left over from the preceding year. The funds that are raised through the assessment would be deposited into an account that could only be used for family leave benefits and the program’s administration. Neither the assessments nor the benefits would be considered in determining the TDI tax rates of employers.

If approved, New Jersey would become the third state to require paid family leave, after California and Washington.