After a pair of Brooklyn high school teachers launched a campaign to demand that New York City teachers get paid family leave, their union is now joining the fight.
On Friday, the United Federation of Teachers sent an “action alert” to its members, calling on the city to provide paid leave — at no additional cost to teachers. After years of negotiating behind the scenes, the union is now going public with its demands and calling on parents to share their stories about how the policy has impacted their families.
“The city’s current parental leave policy forces members to choose between their own children and their profession,” the union’s action alert email reads. “It’s time that the city grants UFT members the paid parental leave they deserve.”
The campaign follows a teacher-led push that included a viral petition and speeches at a recent union meeting. Emily James and Susan Hibdon, both teachers and mothers, started an online petition demanding paid leave that has garnered more than 81,000 signatures. The women also took their cause to the union president.
“We dedicate our lives to taking care of other people’s children; we become second mothers to them,” James said in a speech at a recent union meeting. “But when it comes time for us to do the bare minimum for our own children, the system forgets us.”
Under the city’s current policy, only birth mothers are allowed to take time off after having a baby. Even then, they have to use their sick time, which is limited to six weeks after a vaginal delivery or eight weeks after a C-section. Adoptive parents and fathers can take up to 12 weeks off under federal law, but the city provides no pay during that time.
Meanwhile, Mayor Bill de Blasio extended paid family leave to 20,000 non-unionized government employees in December 2015. But the move didn’t apply to city workers in unions, and the benefit came at the cost of a scheduled raise for managers and fewer leave days for veteran employees. No public-sector unions currently offer paid leave.
In an interview with Chalkbeat Monday, UFT President Michael Mulgrew called the teachers’ petition and speeches “very helpful” in drawing attention to the issue. He added that the union has been trying to negotiate with the city for paid family leave for the past two years, but with little luck.
“They’ll meet and they’ll hem and haw,” he said. “I’m angry and we’re just going to go after it right now.”
Last week, de Blasio said he was “hopeful we’ll get somewhere pretty soon” in the negotiations, according to NY1’s Lindsey Christ.
Monica Disare contributed to this report.