Schumer facing pressure in New York to preserve paid leave in spending package

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is facing pressure from a coalition in his state to preserve paid family leave in the Democrats’ massive social spending and climate package, an endeavor that appears unlikely due to opposition from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)

The coalition of more than 750 New York lawmakers, organizations and industry leaders penned an open letter to Schumer on Thursday urging him to “put your strongest-possible support behind” paid family and medical leave to be included in the Democrats’ Build Back Better Act. The House passed the legislation last month.  

“We thank you for your leadership to fight for working families in New York and across the country; the passage of paid leave this year would cement that legacy. Simply put, on your watch, paid leave must not be left on the cutting room floor,” the coalition wrote in the letter.

The group also placed a full-page ad in The New York Times encouraging Schumer to keep the provision in the bill, writing, “We Can’t Build Back Better Without Paid Leave.”

The House-passed version of the Build Back Better Act includes $200 billion for four weeks of paid family and medical leave for both employed and self-employed workers.

The provision, however, will likely face an uphill battle in the upper chamber due to voiced opposition from Manchin, who holds a considerable amount of power in a 50-50 Senate. Democrats will need a signoff from every member of their party in the upper chamber to pass the Build Back Better Act through a process called budget reconciliation. 

The West Virginia Democrat has said he does not think such a provision should be passed in the spending package, instead encouraging Congress to consider it “in a bipartisan way” to “make sure it’s lasting.”

The lawmakers, organizations and industry leaders in their letter on Thursday called paid leave “an effective and necessary tool for public health and for our economic security and growth — one our country should have had long before this pandemic began, and one we cannot recover without.”

They said access to paid family leave represents “the difference of whether hard-working Americans can safely heal and care for their loved ones and themselves” amid the pandemic.

“It is the difference of whether illnesses spread, whether small businesses stay open and thrive, whether families can stay afloat and hold onto their jobs,” they added.

The group said that lawmakers face “the rare opportunity now to build back better with equitable policies that will prepare us for future crises and protect the hardest-hit communities from bearing a disproportionate burden of such crises.”

“We urge you to not let this opportunity pass us by, not to deprive nearly 20 million workers who need paid leave each year the ability to take it, and to join with us in putting your voice and the full weight of your leadership and office behind paid leave in Build Back Better,” they added.

Reached for comment, Schumer’s office referred The Hill to remarks the senator made on Tuesday.

“I’m working with Sen. [Patty] Murray [D-Wash.], Sen. [Kirsten] Gillibrand [D-N.Y.], Sen. [Debbie] Stabenow [D-Mich.] and many others. We want to see paid leave in the bill,” he said at the time.

Signatories of the letter include New York state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi (D), Ma​​nhattan Borough President Gale Brewer (D), the ACLU, the NYS AFL-CIO and “Orange is the New Black” actress Uzo Aduba, among others.

— Updated at 1:06 p.m.