Cover story: Family of UUP a union priority

Making family leave family friendly

Emergencies don’t respect deadlines. Babies don’t always wait until summer break to be born. And even the most organized person can’t predict when a parent or a spouse is going to fall ill.

Most people who have never had to take personal time off from their job believe that family leave will be there when they need it. But what most people don’t realize is that “family leave” in the United States is still more of a concept than a reality at many workplaces.

That’s why UUP has taken an interest and the lead in family leave.

“We know that more than 60 percent of our members have 10 years of service or less, which tells us that we have a growing number of younger members,” said UUP Vice President for Professionals John Marino. “These are people who are starting a career, raising a family and could be dealing with parents. They’re at a critical point in their lives and don’t have the ability to withstand a catastrophic or major financial disruption.”

UUPers who need to take a family leave often find that policies at SUNY are arbitrary, inconsistent and costly, said UUPer Jamie Dangler of SUNY Cortland, who chairs the union’s Family Leave Committee.

“Right now, SUNY does not have an adequately consistent family leave policy,” Dangler said. “There is a patchwork system of things being done, but it’s not adequate. Many people have not been able to get needed time off to care for family members.”

Dangler cites a few examples: Every UUP member does have 15 “family sick days” that can be used when a close relative is ill, but those days are rarely sufficient for serious illnesses such as cancer. A woman who has just given birth is allowed to use her own sick days to extend a maternity leave, but a father can’t use his sick days to be home with a newborn. And a woman’s use of her own sick days can’t be applied to an adoption.

“The reality is, many of our members end up taking unpaid leaves because they have no choice,” Dangler said. “Many of our members do not have flexible schedules. The assumption is, ‘Well, if you want to have a baby, you should have the baby in the summer.’”

In the absence of a clear and uniform SUNY policy, many UUP members rely on the federal Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which allows an employee to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave. The act is unusually broad in that it covers parental leave for a newborn, adoption, elder care and the care of ill relatives. But the fact that it does not guarantee pay makes it a difficult choice for UUPers, Dangler noted. Many European countries have generous national family leave policies, with some guaranteeing full or nearly full pay.

The lack of paid family leave in the United States may affect greater numbers of women than men, Dangler said.

“Women have to leave the workforce, or take unpaid leave,” she said. “They leave the workforce or lose wages. Over the course of a woman’s life, she’s likely to have cumulative disruptions that affect retirement and Social Security.”

UUPer Lisi Krall, an associate professor of economics at SUNY Cortland and a Family Leave Committee member, said that numerous studies offer a compelling argument for paid family leave.

For example, the mean earnings of women compared to men decline as women move from their 20s and early-30s into their mid-30s and 40s.

“There are a lot of factors that might be responsible for this,” Krall said. “But certainly one thing that could explain that change is that women are concentrating on having families at that time, and that is affecting their earning potential.”

Family leave, however, is not only a women’s issue.

“Anybody who has primary responsibility for the family — care of the elderly, care of the sick, care of the children — will be economically disadvantaged,” Krall said.

That’s why UUP will continue to focus on family leave, because what exists now at SUNY clearly isn’t working for everyone, Marino said.

“Whatever happens is negotiated on a case-by-case basis,” Dangler said. “It’s inconsistent; it’s inadequate. Sometimes it works; sometimes it’s a disaster.”

— Darryl McGrath