Skip to main content
News release

Families Don Superhero Capes to Support Paid Leave in DC, Deliver Hundreds of Petitions to DC Council

November 16, 2015
Paid Family & Medical Leave

Lisa Lederer, 202-371-1996

Families from around the DC-metro area are “suiting up” in superhero gear to support the DC Universal Paid Leave Act of 2015, which would provide 16 weeks of paid family and medical leave for almost anyone who lives or works in the District of Columbia. If the Act passes, Washington, DC will have the most robust paid leave plan in the nation, which would allow workers to take the time they need to care for a newly adopted child, a newborn, a personal illness, or an ailing family member.
 
MomsRising members and their children will deliver hundreds of petition signatures, along with personal stories that illustrate how the legislation would help families, to the DC Council. They will ask council members to use their “legislative superpowers” to make paid leave a reality for DC-area families and will deliver superhero playing cards because without paid leave, the deck is stacked against working families.
 
Petition Delivery in Support of DC Universal Paid Leave Act 
11:00am–12:45pm, Thursday, November 19th
Washington, DC Council 
1350 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Fourth Floor
Washington, DC 20004
 
Right now, only 13% of working people in the United States have access to paid family leave via their employers, and one in four working mothers nationwide must return to work just two weeks after giving birth due to lack of access to paid family and medical leave. Other new moms are forced to cobble together vacation and earned sick days to recover from childbirth or to welcome a new child into their lives. Paid leave programs implemented in California, Rhode Island, and New Jersey have demonstrated that working families, businesses, and local economies all benefit when paid leave laws are passed. Passing paid family and medical leave for DC's workers and residents would have the same positive impact on local families and businesses.
 
Media are welcome to attend the deliveries and interview MomsRising staff and members. Photo and video opportunities with the families will be available, as well as interviews with MomsRising members who would benefit from the bill. For more information, contact Kim Hayes or Gretchen Wright at 202- 371-1999.
 

# # # #

MomsRising.org is an on-the-ground and online grassroots organization of more than a million people who are working to increase family economic security, decrease discrimination against women and moms, and to build a nation where businesses and families can thrive. Established in 2006, MomsRising and its members are organizing and speaking out to improve public policy and to change the national dialogue on issues that are critically important to America’s families, including criminal justice reform, immigration policy reform, and gun safety. MomsRising is working for paid family and medical leave, affordable, high quality childcare and early learning, and for an end to the wage and hiring discrimination which penalizes women — particularly moms and women of color — and so many others. MomsRising advocates for access to healthy food for all kids, health care for all, earned sick days, and breastfeeding rights so that all children can have a healthy start. MomsRising maintains a Spanish language website: MamásConPoder.org. Sign up online at www.MomsRising.org — and follow us on our blog, and on Twitter and Facebook.