Dear Working Women Activist:

Since the Family Medical Leave Act was enacted in 1993, studies estimate more than 50 million working people have taken FMLA leave.  As working women, we know why this law is so important: It has enabled millions of us to take time off from our jobs to care for seriously-ill family members, bond with our babies or recuperate from our own illnesses. 

We also know the law doesn't go far enough.  The FMLA does not cover all workers, and the leave is unpaid.  In fact, among workers who needed FMLA leave but did not take it, more than three in four said they could not afford to miss a paycheck.  To make things even more difficult, nearly half of private-sector workers don't have sick leave. 

Instead of expanding family medical leave, the Bush administration is signaling it will try to put new limits on the Family Medical Leave Act, as early as March.  We're not sure what these changes will look like, but the result will be a gutting of the law.  For example, one proposed idea has been to deny time off for any illness that knocks you out of work (or a child out of school) for less than ten days, rather than the three or more required by current law.  So a worker with an emergency appendectomy who misses a few days of work or a working mother who needs to care for a child with a life-threatening bout of asthma could be fired since their leave wouldn't be covered by FMLA.

Save FMLA

At a time when working women are stretched thin trying to make ends meet, we need laws to expand family medical leave, make work more flexible and ensure that all working people have paid sick leave--not make it more difficult for us to balance work and family.

Get Five Friends to Help Save FMLA

We hope you will join us in the fight to save FMLA.  In the coming weeks, we'll send you e-mail updates and let you know what you can do to help.  In the meantime, we'd like you to send us the e-mail addresses of other working women who want to join the campaign to save FMLA.  (Please click reply to this e-mail or e-mail us at WorkingWomen@aflcio.org.)  Send us the contact information for as many working women as you can.  The goal is for us to be communicating around this and other work & family issues.  We need to make sure that once the Bush administration's proposed changes to FMLA are released, they hear from working women right away!

Working Women, AFL-CIO