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Law360 (March 12, 2020, 6:30 PM EDT) -- Senate Democrats on Thursday urged their colleagues to follow the House's lead and include paid sick days and family leave in any response package put forward amid the rapidly evolving coronavirus outbreak, calling the measures "very pivotal policy ideas."
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said in a press conference alongside Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., that the Families First Coronavirus Response Act introduced in the House on Wednesday was a "good bill that puts families, communities and workers first."
The proposed legislation would "not only help the American people cope with the economic fallout from the coronavirus" but would "also help them follow the advice of health professionals," Gillibrand said.
"Now the Senate must do its job — paid sick leave and paid family leave must be included in any package put forward by the Senate," Gillibrand said. "We have to pass these policies now, because the truth is people are facing impossible choices right now."
According to Gillibrand, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act would provide eligible workers with two weeks of paid sick days and up to three months of leave with benefits of up to two-thirds of their average monthly earnings if they're unable to work because of the coronavirus.
Gillibrand noted that the federal government already began providing its workers with 12 weeks of paid leave, saying the crisis surrounding COVID-19 — the disease caused by the coronavirus referred to as SARS-CoV-2 — made it clear that benefit needed to be extended to all workers.
Currently, the U.S. doesn't provide federally mandated paid sick days or family leave for workers and, according to Gillibrand, is the only "industrialized country" that doesn't have access to paid family and medical leave.
Gillibrand said at the press conference that more than 80% of American workers aren't entitled to paid family and medical leave and that those benefits are even less likely to be available for low-income workers. According to Harris, two-thirds of low-income workers don't have access to paid sick leave.
"It's worse than unacceptable, it's terrible policy," Gillibrand said.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., criticized the House on Thursday, saying on the Senate floor that the Democrats in the chamber "chose to produce an ideological wish list that was not tailored closely to the circumstances."
"Instead of focusing on immediate relief to affected individuals, families and businesses, the House Democrats chose to wander into various areas of policy that are barely related, if at all, to the issue before us," McConnell said.
The House on Wednesday also considered separate emergency paid sick leave legislation, H.R. 6150, which offers seven days of paid sick leave to workers a year and an extra 14 days in a public health emergency. The bill was also introduced in the Senate, but Republicans blocked it from coming to the floor on Wednesday.
--Editing by Nicole Bleier.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
