Starting January 1, some 20,000 managers and non-unionized city employees will be able to take six weeks of family leave at 100 percent of their salary, thanks to an executive order from Mayor Bill de Blasio. Some may be eligible for up to twelve weeks total, after combining the new policy with existing paid time off. This new policy does not cover New York’s 300,000 unionized employees, WNYC reports, but may give unions a bargaining chip in future negotiations.
As Rebecca Traister writes in the New Republic, the overall state of paid family leave in this country is abysmal. The United States is one of only two developed nations in the world to offer no paid family leave whatsoever. But things seem to be changing: President Obama became the first president to call for paid leave in his State of the Union in January, the issue has made its way into the talking points of all three Democratic presidential candidates, and high-profile corporations like Facebook and Netflix have announced generous parental leave policies.