Parenting Time

New parents employed by the federal government can take up to 12 weeks off at the start of their baby's life -- provided they can afford it.

The 12 weeks of congressionally authorized maternity and paternity leave for civil servants is unpaid. But a bill introduced this month in the House by Reps. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., Tom Davis, R-Va. and Steny Hoyer, D-Md., would upgrade that benefit by offering full pay for six of those weeks.

The Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act (H.R. 5148) would create a new category of leave, separate from annual or sick leave, for employees after the birth or adoption of a child. The same three representatives first introduced a bill to add the benefit in May 2000.

Extra weeks of paid leave would relieve employees from having to use their sick or annual leave -- as they can now -- making time off to enjoy burps and bounces a more realistic possibility for some government workers.

"It would just be an additional benefit which would certainly help my members," said Janet Kopenhaver, Washington, D.C., representative for the nonprofit volunteer advocacy group Federally Employed Women. "More importantly, it gives an added incentive to work for the federal government. We all know that the feds are behind in pay, but if you give these extra benefits, we'll be able to attract more workers."

Davis, who chairs the Government Reform Committee, shares Kopenhaver's logic.

"Today's worker is looking for flexible, family-friendly work options," Davis said in statement. "The federal government can't necessarily compete for talent with the private sector on a dollar-for-dollar basis, but we can make sure we are competitive in quality-of-life issues."

The benefit would come at a cost, though. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that paid parental leave would have cost about $1 billion between 2001 and 2005.

In November 2001, the Office of Personnel Management, which administers leave policy for federal employees, published a report that concluded the benefit is unnecessary.

"The federal government's leave policies and programs compare favorably with benefits offered by most private sector companies," Doris Hausser, senior policy adviser at OPM, said in a memorandum accompanying the report. "In addition, human resources directors in federal executive departments and agencies overwhelmingly indicated that an additional paid parental leave benefit would not be a major factor in enhancing their recruitment and retention strategies."

Kopenhaver said FEW members will be lobbying their representatives to support the bill. The women will have companions on the Hill. The National Treasury Employees Union, one of the largest federal labor unions, put its message out shortly after Maloney, Davis and Hoyer introduced the bill.

"NTEU believes that six weeks of paid parental leave for federal workers is a proposal that is good for federal workers, good for management, good for newborn children and a good example for the private sector," union president Colleen Kelley said in an April 19 letter to House members.

For FEW, paid maternity leave also is an issue that could speak to the younger women in the federal workforce, who the organization would like to recruit as members.

"A lot of our members are more near retirement age so [paid maternity leave] hasn't been on the front burner," Kopenhaver said. "But we've been doing some active recruiting. Everything isn't always about pensions."