Press Release - Stories from Americans Across the Country Highlight the Need for President Biden's Build Back Better Agenda

After reaching a historic bipartisan infrastructure agreement with Senate Democrats and Republicans, President Biden outlined how his Build Back Better Agenda, which encompasses the American Families Plan and critical proposals in the American Jobs Plan, will deliver for working families and bolster America's economic growth and competitiveness.

President Biden's economic agenda to build back our country better will make generational investments in human infrastructure and other critical priorities like clean energy investments that position us to tackle the climate crisis.

The American people need the investments in President Biden's proposal – investments in education, child care, paid leave, clean energy, and more – that will drive strong, sustainable economic growth for years to come, expand education and economic opportunities for the middle class, combat the climate crisis, and deliver for hardworking families.

Below are stories from hardworking Americans across the country highlighting the dire need for President Biden's Build Back Better Agenda:

Margarita Viveros
Salem, Oregon

Statesman Journal – OPINION: No one should have to worry about getting paid when they're caring for a loved one | Opinion
Four years ago, when I was 14, I was diagnosed with a chronic illness and was in and out of the hospital for a year. Two years after my diagnosis, I had a stroke that paralyzed my left side.

Recovery was brutal. I had a hard time remembering and articulating what I felt, and still just a teenager, I needed my mother there with me while I recovered. I felt fortunate to have her there to hold my hand as I relearned how to walk, but guilt crept up often when I saw other kids in the hospital alone.

During this time, my mom — a single mother of three — couldn't work. She's a farmworker, working through different farm labor contractors throughout the year, contractors that pay minimum wage and offer no benefits.

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She easily used up the 40 hours of state-guaranteed sick leave during my first hospital stay.

The stress and uncertainty brought on by this was devastating. My mother had to figure out how to tend to my medical condition in addition to my siblings' basic needs at home. Sometimes, I could hear her call family members when she couldn't pay the rent, and I worried that I might not have a home to return to.

After four weeks, on the day before my brother's birthday, I was finally discharged. That had been my goal: to not spend his birthday in the hospital. My family's support was the only way I could have done it.

Now, I'm in high school. I am still (and will always be) living with a chronic illness, and remission is almost impossible to maintain. I've had my fair share of hospital stays, but it's not the stays that are painful – it's the thought that my mother can lose her job and everything she's worked for, just for making sure I'm able to recuperate.

No one should have to worry about missing work when they're trying to care for a loved one. And those with a chronic illness or disability are suffering enough — the last thing we need is added weight on our shoulders.

While 1993's Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) was a great step forward, a solid 40 percent of the workforce, including my mom, don't have access to it. And for many of those who do have access, it doesn't really matter: How many can afford to go weeks without a paycheck?

That's why I fought to win in Oregon and became a member of the national Paid Leave For All Worker Advisory Group. We need a national paid leave program that is affordable and effective, recognizes all family types, provides meaningful wage replacement, and guarantees that leave-takers will have jobs to return to.

Having a stroke and a chronic illness opened my eyes to the inequities faced by those needing care and their caregivers. On the anniversary of the FMLA, I hope that federal legislators will pass an effective paid leave law so everyone can be there for those they love.

Christina Hayes
Detroit, Michigan

Women's Bureau Project: Michigan Moms Try to Revive 'Gutted' Sick-Leave Law

DETROIT, Mich.—A coalition of working mothers and restaurant workers are mounting a campaign to get Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel to reverse the Republican legislators' scheme that gutted ballot initiatives to raise the minimum wage and mandate paid sick leave in 2018.

"We are in a pandemic, and we are still talking about whether people should have paid sick time," Danielle Atkinson of Mothering Justice said in an online town hall Apr. 20 organized by the Michigan Time to Care campaign.

The campaign, led by Mothering Justice and the Restaurant Opportunities Center of Michigan worker center, is also backed by SEIU Michigan. Mothering Justice concentrates on paid sick leave, and ROC on the minimum wage, says ROC Michigan organizer Sarah Coffey.

The two initiatives—one to raise the minimum wage from $9.25 to $12 an hour by 2022, one to enable workers to earn up to 72 hours of paid sick time a year—both qualified for the ballot in August 2018. But under Michigan law, the state legislature has the power to adopt ballot initiatives before they go to the voters. The legislature's Republican majority did so—and then, after the election that November, returned to amend them in a lame-duck session.

The original sick-leave initiative would have required employers with 10 or more workers to give them up to 72 hours a year of paid sick time, earned at a rate of one hour for every 30 hours they worked. The amended version cut that to 40 hours, earned at a rate of one for every 35 hours worked. It also exempted employers who have less than 50 workers, and excluded part-time workers who put in less than 25 hours a week.

Those changes, Mothering Justice executive director Eboni Taylor estimates, denied sick leave to 1.7 million workers in Michigan.

The amended minimum-wage law reduced the increases to 20-26 cents a year, so it wouldn't reach $12 until 2030, and deleted the provision repealing the subminimum wage for tipped workers. It also cancelled the annual increase if unemployment over the previous year had averaged 8.5% or more — a provision that kicked in this January, preventing the minimum from going from $9.65 to $9.87.

The strategy was obvious. The Michigan Restaurant & Lodging Association trade group boasts on its Website that it "worked tirelessly with the Michigan legislature to have them adopt the MI One Fair Wage Ballot Proposal and prevent it from going to the ballot." Both the minimum-wage and paid-sick-leave measures "would have passed with overwhelming support" if they'd gone to voters, it adds, and then the legislature would have needed a three-fourths majority to alter them. But because the legislature "took the necessary steps to prevent this job-killing mandate from reaching the ballot," it could amend it with only a simple majority.

"They literally stripped us of our democratic power," state Rep. Abraham Aiyash (D-Hamtramck) said during the town hall.

Paid sick leave is especially important for people with chronic illnesses, said Christina Hayes, 33, who was diagnosed with lupus when she was 19.

"I learned what it's like fighting to get a day off for a doctor's appointment," she said. She missed several appointments for blood tests because she had to work, she added. Eventually, "my health made the choice for me. I passed out at work."

In the COVID-19 epidemic, "a lot of people are not going to bounce back," said Tia Marie Sanders, a mother of two from the Detroit suburb of Novi who missed eight weeks of work when she got sick.

Legal questions

Was the legislative legerdemain of adopting and amending the initiatives legal? "It was already unconstitutional," says Sarah Coffey.

The key legal question is whether the "adopt and amend" process was permitted by the section of the state constitution that governs ballot initiatives, which says initiatives approved by the voters cannot be amended until a "subsequent session." The guiding opinion then in effect, issued in 1964 by the late state attorney general Frank J. Kelley, said that the legislature has the power to amend initiatives it's adopted — but not during the same session.

Initiatives enacted into law by the legislature "are subject to amendment by the legislature at a subsequent legislative session," Kelley wrote. "It is equally clear that the legislature enacting an initiative petition proposal cannot amend the law so enacted at the same legislative session without violating the spirit and letter of Article II, Sec. 9 of the Michigan Constitution of 1963On Apr. 22, about 40 people organized by Michigan Time To Care rallied outside the Attorney General's office in Detroit, planning to deliver messages urging Nessel to revoke Schuette's opinion. They were unable to do so because the office was closed because of the pandemic.

But in December 2018, while the amended measures were awaiting then-governor Rick Snyder's signature, then-attorney general Bill Schuette issued an opinion that said Kelley was wrong, and the legislature did have the power to amend initiatives it adopted at any time. He argued that the constitutional limits applied only to those passed by popular vote.

There was a clear political imperative for the GOP legislators to rush their amendments through before the 2019 session. If they had waited, their changes would have likely faced a veto from the incoming governor, Democrat Gretchen Whitmer.

In early 2019, the legislature asked the state Supreme Court to give an advisory opinion on whether the amendments had been legally enacted. In December 2019, the court said that it would not rule on the question unless there was a lawsuit challenging them.

Attorney General Nessel was co-counsel for the side arguing that the amendments had been unconstitutionally enacted, says Coffey, but since the non-ruling, "she has not chosen to do anything about it."

On Apr. 22, about 40 people organized by Michigan Time To Care rallied outside the Attorney General's office in Detroit, planning to deliver messages urging Nessel to revoke Schuette's opinion. They were unable to do so because the office was closed because of the pandemic.

"What we really ultimately want is for her to be on our side," Coffey told LaborPress afterwards. "We understand that she's a supporter, but if we don't bring the urgency, no one will."

"The question of constitutionality was brought before the Michigan Supreme Court for consideration and was declined," Nessel's press secretary, Lynsey Mukomel, said in a statement to LaborPress. "The Attorney General was disappointed by the court's choice not to consider the question."

Does she plan to take any further action on the issue? "Not at this point in time," the Attorney General's office responded.

The other avenue for changing the law would be legislation. Last June, state Sen. Erika Geiss (D-Wayne County) introduced a bill with sick-leave provisions similar to those of the 2018 initiative, with added clauses related to pandemics. It did not get a hearing in the Senate, where Mike Shirkey (R-Clarklake), sponsor of the 2018 bill to cut paid sick leave, is majority leader. (Shirkey, who was also a prime mover behind Michigan's ban on the union shop, enacted during another lame-duck session in 2012, got brief national notoriety this February when he told a Republican county committee that the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol was "not Trump people" and was a hoax "that was all prearranged.")

"We never even got a response to the request for a hearing," Geiss told the press conference.

If the paid-sick-leave law had been in effect when the COVID-19 virus hit, "we would have had more people able to take care of themselves, to quarantine," she said. "It's still a problem, and it needs to be fixed."

Kris Garcia
Denver, Colorado

NBC News: President Biden proposes policy guaranteeing paid leave for caregivers

When his father was dying in Texas, his boss allowed only four unpaid days. He fell behind on his car payment and couldn't pay his light bill. Then he got the call that he wasn't going to make it. All he could think about was his father being alone as he took his last breath.

Tameka Henry
Las Vegas, Nevada

CBS News: Activist: "You have to choose between your life and livelihood."

She's a mother of four and her husband is disabled. Once he became ill, his work let him go and she was the sole breadwinner. Each time he was hospitalized, she would have to take off without pay, and often that meant losing my job. That cost her family $200,000 over a decade. Tameka joined CBS News to discuss her challenges and how a federal paid leave program could help workers in need.

Virginia Badillo
Austin, Texas

Austin Statesman – Opinion: We need a national paid leave program

After a c-section, she needed her husband to care for her and their newborn son, but he had no paid leave. She had postpartum depression and wasn't able to breastfeed her son. Last year, she had to have surgery to remove her gallbladder and had to go back to work too soon.

Article:
This week, the House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing on proposals for a national paid leave program. I am heartened that Congress is discussing the need for paid leave, but there is still so much to do to ensure that my family and millions like me don't have to decide whether to take care of a loved one or go to work so we can pay the bills.

When my child was born, I was working in a child care center. We didn't have any type of benefit, no paid leave or paid sick days. My husband worked for a company that did not provide any benefits either. We had wanted to have a child for a long time, but this was a really hard time for us.

Because I had a C-section, my husband stayed with me and the baby for a week, and he wasn't paid at all for that time. I would have liked him to stay home longer, help take care of our son, let me get some sleep. But he had to go back to work and there was no one else who could help – we have no family in this country. When he came home after work, he would be very tired, and was not able to do as much as we needed.

With all the stress and lack of sleep, I had postpartum depression and wasn't able to breastfeed my son. The postpartum depression lasted for four or five months. I just wanted to be able to give my child all the love I had, but unfortunately, I could not because I was so depressed. I had emptiness in my heart.

My baby did have insurance, but everything else was so expensive, and there was no way my husband could stop working. Someone had to pay the bills, buy diapers and clothing. If he'd had paid leave, he would have been able to be with his family, and this situation wouldn't have been so hard for all of us.

We are not alone. In the U.S., only 19 percent of workers have access to paid family leave through their employer. And in Texas, even unpaid leave under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act is inaccessible for 62 percent of working people.

Even now, both my husband and I have to work to provide for our family. My husband has a really hard job in landscaping. He's breathing in dirt and chemicals that make him sick, but he still has to work every day.

We try to stay healthy but that isn't easy. Last year, I had to have surgery to remove my gallbladder. l work now in housecleaning and had to go back to work too soon. That has made it hard for me to recover. But our ability to pay the rent and provide for our son is affected if we miss work even for a day.

It breaks our hearts that we have to decide between making sure we can pay for my family's expenses, or take care of our son and ourselves.

I know that change is possible when working people come together. For years I have been active with the Workers Defense Project in Austin. They're part of the national Paid Leave For All campaign, and I'm now a member of its Worker Advisory Group.

February 5 is the 27th anniversary of the Family Medical Leave Act. While momentous, it is a reminder that workers need more than unpaid leave. Many workers don't qualify for FMLA. And of those that do, families like mine can't afford to go without pay for weeks on end.

We need a national paid leave program that is affordable, covers all workers and all kinds of care – because everyone should be able to be there for the ones they love.

Badillo is a leader with Workers Defense Project in Austin. She's been an activist for over 10 years for immigrant and worker rights.

Permelia Toney-Bass
Roselle, New Jersey

NJ.com – OPINION: Everyone should be able to care for family | Opinion

In a two-year period, I had two major surgeries. The first time, in 2009, I had lung cancer and had to have a section of my lung removed. I really needed someone to care for me and couldn't afford a private duty nurse or home care. I wish paid family leave could have been an option, but it wasn't.

My daughter, Tahearra, volunteered to help me, but she couldn't take extended leave, just a day here and a day there. It helped that she could be with me when I went back and forth to doctor appointments, but she was there only part of the time, and that was hard. But I recovered and was able to go back to work.

I work for a state university. I do a lot of dispatching for emergencies on campus. I'm also an executive board member of my local union. At some point I went to a workshop and heard about New Jersey's Family Leave Insurance program. Learning about that program would become very important to me and my family.

In 2010, my doctors found additional tumors. I would have to undergo another surgery. I told my daughter about New Jersey Family Leave Insurance and it turned out she qualified. I learned that actually most workers in New Jersey are covered and are eligible with minimum earnings.

When you get bad health news, it's really hard to digest. You have surgery and don't know if you're going to wake up. You feel your life is over. But I wasn't ready to die; I have children and grandchildren.

My daughter took paid family leave so she could be there with me during and after my surgery. Having someone who really knows you take care of you makes a big difference. I know I healed faster because she was there.

But I have family members who weren't so fortunate. Most of my family have jobs where, if you don't go to work, you don't get paid. I have had to take care of family members as they battled cancer. NJ Family Leave was not available at that time and I used up all my vacation time and more.

Having paid leave gives you the opportunity to care for your loved ones and yourself. You can continue your life, pay for groceries, pay your rent, and still provide that care. Having paid family leave in every state would be extremely beneficial for families, especially for poor families.

Our program in New Jersey is getting even better. By increasing the benefit amount, by including all loved ones for caregiving, by expanding job protections, and by doing more outreach and education so the public is aware of the program, more New Jerseyans who need to care for a loved one will be able to do it. But the rest of the U.S. needs to be part of this movement.

I've joined the Worker Advisory Group of the Paid Leave For All Campaign to help educate policy makers and the media about what's at stake when families lack affordable time to care. The campaign, which launched Dec. 10, is a growing collaborative of organizations - including groups right here in NJ that have fought for equitable paid leave like the NJ Time to Care Coalition - fighting for paid family and medical leave for all working people. Because everyone should be able to heal or to be there for family, no matter where they live or work or who they love - no exceptions.

I'm doing my part. As part of the Worker Advisory Group I will be able to tell my story and be part of the effort to guarantee all workers can count on the care of a loved one during a serious health crisis like I was.

Now it's time for Congress and U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer and Rep. Jeff Van Drew to do their part and pass the Family Act. This comprehensive, inclusive legislation would give access to paid leave to millions of workers nationwide who find themselves needing to give or receive care. Having paid leave here in New Jersey no doubt changed my life. Elected officials need to do all they can to help change the lives of all Americans.

Lisa Iliopoulos, Early Childcare Teacher
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

My program would greatly benefit from receiving investments that would adequately compensate our child care teachers for all they do. It is critical that we are nurturing and developing the foundation for each child's early development to become lifelong learners. Our teachers are building this foundation, all while taking care of each individual child's needs, working longer hours than any qualified teacher in kindergarten, and getting a fraction of compensation for it. Everyone knows, a fractured foundation leads to structural problems, and a stronger foundation that relies on equal pay and benefits would make a huge difference.

Talona Coleman, Early Childcare Teacher
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

I would benefit so much from investments in my compensation, to alleviate some of the financial burdens that we face as Early Childcare Professionals. Unfortunately, though we give of ourselves selflessly, working to benefit the children and families we've been entrusted, we are slighted in many ways. Behind the scenes many ECE Professionals are struggling to make ends meet! We are deemed essential; but we aren't compensated our true worth, and so many of us are living paycheck to paycheck, facing food insecurities and financial burdens, without health insurance, and no retirement accounts. To those who have the heart to listen and the courage to make change, know that increasing ECE wages would avoid further calamity not only for ECE professionals but for those whom benefit from our selfless services (and that means everyone, because everyone benefits!)

Gina Forbes, Early Childcare Teacher
Brunswick, Maine

Sustainable public investment that would pay for the cost of quality and increase our staff's wages without necessitating a program increase enrollment or tuition fees for families would mean higher quality early education and care, a better, less-stressed labor force, and a more sustainable business model. As an early childhood educator, I began my teaching career making minimum wage. I had a 4-year degree and experience in parent and family education and support. Since then, I have gained a Master's degree in Early Childhood Education and became a lead teacher and then Director of a program. My wages have gone up, but so has my debt and my job never offered benefits. Educators everywhere are leaving the field to earn$15 per hour somewhere else. This is no way to create a sustainable work force and programs everywhere are struggling to find and retain qualified staff. Better wages and benefits would make a huge impact on me and the quality of the workforce in the field, which means better benefits for children and families!

Anu Sarkar, Early Childcare Teacher
West Bloomfield, Michigan

I have been in early childhood education for over 26 years, proudly owning and running a family group home child care program. Funding would be wonderful to provide pretty much everything- curriculum that includes all phases of developmentally appropriate, culturally sensitive and responsible materials and supplies. The increased wages for my staff would mean the world because I have not been able to raise rates in over 5 years, since I have regular working parents for whom it would be financially very stressful. People like us would very much appreciate funding to help pay our employees who work so hard.

Anna Lara, Mother
Huntington, West Virginia

"If I had access to full day Early Head Start or quality affordable child care, I could go back to work and back to school. I could better myself and better the lives of my children. I would be able to have the funds that I needed to fix my car when it broke down or to fix the heat in our home. I could save money for my children's education. As kids grow, they need a solid foundation, they need the strong building blocks. There are way too many children in this area who need these services and don't have access!"

Carolyn "Carry" Lapitan, Mother
Downey, California

When Carry Lapitan was pregnant with her first baby, she was laid off from job as a preschool teacher due to the pandemic. While Carry wants to go back to work, she says, "I dread putting my baby in child care due to lack of quality infant care facilities in our area. As an early childhood educator, I know firsthand the struggles of teachers in the field: underpaid, underfunded, and unrecognized for our pivotal role in raising the future. No wonder so many educators tend to do the bare minimum when they are also getting the bare minimum in terms of compensation. Still, the child care that is available to me is too expensive. I can't work in preschool and afford child care."