After nearly two years of work, state employees will likely see a paid parental leave policy enacted this fall. Members of MAPE, the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, organized in support of parental leave and have voted overwhelmingly to accept a memorandum of understanding negotiated between Minnesota Management and Budget, MAPE and other public employee unions.

The MOU was approved by members last week with 90.17 percent voting in favor, the union announced.

The agreement allows for six consecutive weeks of paid parental leave for employees, mothers and fathers, following the birth or adoption of a child. Currently, new mothers and fathers have no access to paid parental leave, but can go on short-term disability or use their accrued sick leave - up to 12 weeks for the birth parent, five days for the non-birth parent.

“MAPE members deserve tremendous credit for making Minnesota the fourth state in the country to offer paid parental leave," MAPE President Chet Jorgenson said. "This issue has energized our union like no other issue in recent years. Many private sector companies and local governments offer this benefit because it is instrumental in employee retention and recruitment in the 21st century.”

MAPE represents more than 13,000 professional employees of the State of Minnesota. Thousands of other state workers, represented by AFSCME and other unions, also will be eligible for paid leave if they approve the MOU.

The agreement will likely go into effect in November. Employees who gave birth/adopted children on or after July 1, 2016, will also be eligible for this benefit. This benefit must be taken within six months of child’s birth/adoption.

Once all state employee unions have voted to approve the MOU, it will go to the Legislative Subcommittee on Employee Relations for a vote. Upon receipt of the MOU, subcommittee members will have 30 days to meet and make a recommendation on the MOU.

Each state agency has already budgeted annual salaries for its employees so most agencies will not need additional funds when its employees use the paid parental leave benefit. Research shows that workplace policies that improve employee retention can actually save businesses money since it costs about 20 percent of an employee’s annual salary to replace that worker.

History
The idea for a paid parental leave policy came from a conversation with newer MAPE members brainstorming ideas about how to make government work better. The idea gained momentum, and new members, as it spread from MAPE local to local.

“As president of my local, it was important to members so it became important to me,” said Stephanie Meyer, Local 902 president and paid parental leave campaign leader. “We had a 50 percent increase in meeting turnout, including lots of younger members who had not been engaged before.”

Carolyn Ellstra, a complaint investigator at the Department of Education, gave birth to her son, Gus, last year. At the start of her second trimester, her wife, Sara, became seriously ill with a rare form of pneumonia. That forced Ellstra to use much of the sick leave she had hoped to use after giving birth to Gus.

“I held conference calls from the hospital and worked on a laptop while my wife was on a ventilator," Ellstra said. "No one should have to do that. Paid parental leave is one way that we can support families and help them get through those early weeks that are so incredibly sweet and so unbelievably hard.”

More than 120 people stopped by a lunchtime information table hosted by locals 301 and 101 in a cafeteria shared by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and Department of Natural Resources.

“I wasn’t going to meetings before paid parental leave discussions, and I know others became more involved with MAPE because of it,” said Local 301 President Johanna Schussler.

“After my son Heiko was born, I returned to work," said Schusler, one of the campaign leaders. "Heiko and I were not ready, but as the primary income earner and carrier of our health insurance, my family couldn’t afford for me not to get back to work. I made a promise to get involved – that I’d work to help people go back to work when they were ready and not be dependent on what financial situation they had at home. It didn’t seem fair to me.”

Last summer, more than 250 members participated in a paid parental leave luncheon. This was MAPE’s biggest action of the 2015-17 contract negotiations cycle. Members were joined by state Health Commissioner Ed Ehlinger, who had released a white paper (Paid Leave and Health) highlighting the benefits of paid parental leave to children, parents and employers.

Governor’s involvement
Five months ago, nearly 500 members participated in a special paid parental leave meeting with Gov. Mark Dayton, Lt. Gov. Tina Smith and MMB Commissioner Myron Frans where the governor promised, “We’ll work together until it gets done.” The governor praised MAPE for its leadership on the issue and commended the state’s “quality workforce” by saying he wanted employees to think the state provided “a great workplace.”

Paid parental leave was not included in MAPE’s 2015-2017 contract, but the proposal prompted the governor to create the Parental Leave Working Group, a labor-management group committed to working together to solve the problem. The governor supported the group’s recommendation of six weeks paid parental leave for state employees following the birth or adoption of a child, and promised to include the proposal in his supplemental budget. The Legislature did not act on the governor’s proposal.

Benefits of paid parental leave
The United States is the only industrialized country in the world not to offer parents paid leave after the birth or adoption of a child. Research shows that providing paid parental leave has a positive effect on productivity, profitability, performance and employee morale. According to the Minnesota Department of Health’s white paper, Paid Leave and Health, people with paid leave policies are healthier, use less sick time, spend less on health care and their children do better in school. Paid maternity leave contributes to better maternal mental and physical health, and greater parent/infant bonding.

The Paid Leave and Health report also highlights research showing that “flexible, family-friendly policies such as paid leave result in economic benefits to employers, including improved recruitment, retention and morale of employees. Conversely, a lack of paid leave benefits results in indirect costs to employers, including lost labor time, costs related to the spread of illness and disease, and challenges in employee recruitment and retention.”

Three states (California, New Jersey and Rhode Island) currently offer paid parental leave. Minnesota’s private sector is leading in this effort here. Some of Minnesota’s largest employers provide employees with paid parental leave, including the Mayo Clinic, U.S. Bank, Target, Ecolab and General Mills.

“More and more companies are adding paid parental leave," said Local 301’s Schussler, a MN.IT business analyst at MPCA. "The next generation of workers is going to be selective and have opportunities – this will be an issue for younger workers who want to be in a family-friendly workplace.”

Proven employee recruitment and retention tool
Paid parental leave is a proven employee recruitment and retention tool. Up to one-third of state employees are eligible to retire over the next five years. The cities of Minneapolis, St. Paul, Brooklyn Park and St. Louis Park; Hennepin County; and the University of Minnesota and Minnesota State Colleges and Universities already offer their employees paid parental leave. State government must compete with them or lose workers.

Workplace policies that improve employee retention can actually save businesses money since it costs about 20 percent of an employee’s annual salary to replace that worker.

“We started this campaign to make a change," Schussler said. "We wanted to make things easier on future parents, and make the state of Minnesota an even better place to work.”

“Over the 15 years I’ve worked for the state, I’ve had three children and I’ve been fortunate that my husband had a good job so we could make it work," Meyer added. "I want this to work for everyone’s family.”

This article is adapted from the MAPE website.