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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."

COMMENTS

• Actually, new employees only receive 4 hours of annual leave per pay period, until they have accrued three years of service, at which point they earn 6 hours per pay period. During the three years that I was earning 4 hours (about 12 days a year), I was diagnosed with a life threatening condition, was hospitalized four times, and eventually had abdominal surgery. Now I'm well and I'd like to have a child, any guess what my leave balance looks like? Not everyone can work two years straight with no vacations just so they can save up four weeks worth of paid leave in order to have a child. I'm actually looking to change jobs to a private company with this, and other, benefits that the government doesn't offer. Adding a maternity benefit is not only reasonable, it's almost imperative. Fed employee Posted May 15, 2007 3:34 PM
• I am adamantly opposed to giving 6 weeks paid maternity leave. I love children, got a couple myself, and used a combination of sick and annual leave to have and care for them. A brand new civilian employee gets six hours of annual leave per pay period or four weeks per year, plus 4 hours of sick leave per pay period or two weeks and three days per year. In two years, you would have more than 13 weeks paid leave accumulated. If you managed your time carefully, you could have a baby and a vacation and I and other taxpayers would not have to subsidize the birth of your child. The federal government is already more than generous in the leave category but some of you just want more, more, more. Family planning needs to include your ability to plan to have a baby when you have earned enough leave to accommodate a birth. By the way, did I mention that accumulated annual and sick leave is all paid time off. Again I say it is all paid time off. Child Friendly/Hand Out Hostile Posted May 2, 2006 11:23 PM
• Dear Taxpayer, Your argument that I didn't have it so you shouldn't reminds me of the arguments my fraternity brothers used to make about hazing -- I had to go through it so all the new pledges should go through it. You probably have CSRS benefits, which I don't have -- should we always say that new benefits should not be implemented in the federal sector because everyone doesn't get these benefits. How about those folks who retired before AWS, child care subsidies, telework, etc. You can't say new benefits should not be given because I couldn't benefit -- we would get nowhere with that argument. We are the only nation in the Western world that doesn't offer this benefit to civil servants-- we are way behind many, many organizations in the private sector and public interest sector in this area as well. To tell a new mother recovering from childbirth that she has the option of breaking her sick leave and annual leave banks or taking leave without pay under the FMLA to recover is just cruel. Even the retirement-age crowd have kids facing these recovery periods or needing time to take care of their grandkids. Scrooge was penny wise and pound foolish and so is Uncle Sam. I've had to fight my agencies with huge amounts of empty space even to get a lactate room for new mothers. The pettiness in this area never ceases to amaze me. HR Specialist GovExec.com reader Posted May 3, 2006 8:02 AM