Duckworth leads call for paid sick leave in pandemic
NEA prez says any school could become a ‘germ factory’
U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth is leading calls for paid family sick leave to be included in the next congressional coronavirus relief package ahead of the school year. (Zoom)
By Ted Cox
Calling it “beyond critical” in a pandemic, Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth led calls Thursday for paid family leave and child care to be included in the next COVID-19 congressional relief package ahead of schools reopening this fall.
Saying she was “terrified” to send her own 5-year-old back to class if schools aren’t granted the resources they need, Duckworth insisted on a media teleconference that “it is beyond critical that we include paid leave” in a new coronavirus relief package now under consideration in Congress. “And we’ve got to insist that paid leave covers not just teachers, but the other people who look after them from when they leave our sight in the morning until they’re back in our arms after the final bell rings.”
Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the National Education Association, said that as a sixth-grade teacher she’d seen parents apologize as they drop sick kids off at school. “They feel like they have no option,” she said, if they expect to keep their job.
“It is essential that we expand paid family sick leave and do it as soon as possible,” Garcia added, so that not just teachers are covered, but all workers, in order to cover parents. She also pointed out that NEA Educational Support Professionals, including school custodians, lunch ladies, secretaries, and paraeducators, often do not have the same provisions for sick leave as teachers in their union contracts. “Just one case can shut down a school,” she said. “It can shut down a day-care center.” She said each school was potentially a “super spreader” or “germ factory” in a pandemic.
“Just one case can shut down a school. It can shut down a day-care center.”
NEA President Lily Eskelsen García (Zoom)
“We all know that the need now is greater than ever,” said U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, one of the lead proponents in the House, in pointing out that polls show that three out of four parents are worried about sending their kids back to school this fall. “There’s never been a more urgent need.”
“Far too many are being forced to make choices that are no choice at all,” said U.S. Sen. Patty Murray of Washington — a choice between working sick themselves or sending a sick kid to school and risking employment by calling in sick.
U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York pointed out there are just six weeks before many students are scheduled to return to classes, “and the only thing the president has done to get students back in the classroom is to tweet about it.” She added that students and teachers were threatened with the possibility of becoming “guinea pigs in a system we know is not ready.”
She added, “It’s clear that paid leave is one of our best means of stopping the spread of COVID, keeping our children and teachers safe at school, and getting the economy back on track.”
“We will all be safer,” Murray said, “and we will have a stronger, faster recovery.”
Duckworth is lead sponsor of the Family Medical Leave Act in the Senate, but she and her congressional colleagues want to tie universal medical leave and day care to the next COVID-19 relief package, then make it permanent after the pandemic subsides through a system in which workers and employers pay into a fund.
They all pointed out that the HEROES Act passed by the House in June did just that, covering some 106 million U.S. workers exempted from provisions for emergency paid leave in previous pandemic relief, including 2 million grocery workers. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has refused to call it to the floor and instead has pressed to grant businesses “immunity” from prosecution for potentially spreading COVID-19 infections. Meanwhile, President Trump has demanded a break in the payroll tax, which would only worsen funding backlogs for Social Security and Medicare. Republican proposals have thus far been about a third the size of the $3 trillion HEROES Act, which would also provide relief to states and other local governments for lost tax revenue in the economic collapse stemming from the pandemic.
“Sen. McConnell has refused to let us even debate that bill,” Gillibrand said.
“Republican priorities seem to be helping massive corporations and their bottom line by immunizing them from liability,” Murray said, “and bullying our schools into reopening in person, even if it is not safe to do so.”
“We call on the Senate to act to close the gaps in these protections, to value the lives of every worker and our children, instead of simply focusing on bailing out big businesses and granting them immunity from the risks that will come with a reckless reopening,” said Dawn Huckelbridge, director of the grassroots national umbrella group Paid Leave for All.
“If McConnell and Trump refuse to expand paid leave, while insisting on opening schools’ doors without adequate protection, then they’re all opening the doors to another spike in COVID cases this fall,” Duckworth said. Pointing out that the issues of paid leave and child care are interconnected, she added, “We need a national child-care system, and we needed it long, long before this pandemic ever ravaged our nation.”
DeLauro said the pandemic presented an opportunity to do what should have already been done. “We’re closer than ever to securing that win,” she said, adding they intend to “get this critical policy across the finish line.” Insisting that farm workers, too, need access to child care — not just in a pandemic, but at all times — she said, “This has to be permanent.”
Duckworth called paid leave and child care “matters not just of common decency, but of common sense, too.”