Last week, eight representatives from the Seattle Coalition for a Healthy Workforce(opens in new tab) and the Washington Family Leave Coalition(opens in new tab) joined more than 200 people from across country in Washington, DC for the National Summit on Paid Sick Days and Paid Family Leave.
The conference brought together policy makers, campaign leaders, worker representatives, researchers, and business owners to share best practices and learn from each other’s campaigns.
Following the conference, Washington’s group spent a day on Capitol Hill, delivering the message to Congress that their constituents want action to protect public health, children, and family economic security.
Washington’s group met directly with members of Washington Congressional delegation and their staff, including Sen. Maria Cantwell, Rep. Jim McDermott, Rep. Jay Inslee, Rep. Adam Smith and staff from the offices of Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Norm Dicks.
In these meetings we urged our elected leaders to support the Healthy Families Act(opens in new tab) – which would allow every American to earn paid sick time to address their own health needs as well as those of their family members – and support federal funding to cover state family leave insurance(opens in new tab) program start-up costs.
Some other highlights from the conference:
- Excitement from Connecticut(opens in new tab) as they recently became the first state to pass a paid sick leave law;
- Updates from paid sick days campaigns already underway, including in Denver(opens in new tab), Massachusetts(opens in new tab), New York City(opens in new tab), and of course, Seattle(opens in new tab); and
- A new report(opens in new tab) from IWPR showing access to paid sick days lowers health care costs.
The trip was part of a national effort sponsored by the National Partnership for Women and Families(opens in new tab) and the Family Values at Work Multi-state Consortium(opens in new tab).