Most U.S. workers do not have access to paid leave when they need to take time away from work to care for a new baby or a sick parent. But in Pennsylvania, there’s growing bipartisan support for a bill known as the Family Care Act, which would provide up to 20 weeks of paid leave for parents or people experiencing periods of illness or crisis. The bill has passed out of committee and it’s awaiting votes in the Pennsylvania state House and Senate. If it passes, Pennsylvania will join 13 other U.S. states in having a mandatory paid family and medical leave policy.
The Women and Girls Foundation is a Pittsburgh nonprofit that’s a key member of a coalition advocating for paid family leave. The organization was founded 21 years ago to boost the number of Pennsylvania women participating in politics. 90.5 WESA's Priyanka Tewari spoke with CEO Camila Rivera-Tinsley about improving the lives of Black women and girls in Pittsburgh and the push for the Family Care Act.
Priyanka Tewari: You started at the Women and Girls Foundation two years ago, but before that you were the director of education for the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy and the Frick Environmental Center. So what prompted you to accept the position with the Women and Girls Foundation?
Camila Rivera-Tinsley: In this region a few years ago, there was a study that came out from the University of Pittsburgh and what it laid bare was that Pittsburgh was the worst city in the United States to exist as a Black woman. It really got me thinking about what kind of life I was creating for my daughter when I moved here to Pittsburgh to work at the Parks Conservancy.
So looking at statistics like that and thinking about how we can improve the lives of Black women is how I came to be at the Women and Girls Foundation. And something like paid medical and family leave is going to be important to lift all women, but, in particular, women of color out of the poverty that they're experiencing on this side of the state.
The Women and Girls Foundation has been part of a coalition advocating for the Pennsylvania Family Care Act, which is a bipartisan bill that would provide paid family leave and medical leave to Pennsylvania workers. Why did you think it was important for the Women and Girls Foundation to get involved?
The CEO before me, Heather Arnet, had the foresight to understand that paid family and medical leave would be an important bill for the Women and Girls Foundation to focus on because of the financial benefit to women.
When we look at other countries that have been able to actualize having a female president, [one of the] tools that exists in those countries that allow a woman to be able to rise to those ranks include having access to paid family medical leave.
Just to play devil’s advocate, what are some of the objections that have been raised or possibly could be raised in passing Pennsylvania’s Family Care Act?
I think that some of the objections could be how we plan to pay for it as a state. Some people will say this is yet another tax.
But as a coalition, we don't consider this a tax. We consider this an investment in the future of all Pennsylvanians, specifically as in the state of Pennsylvania our population is trending older.
There is going to be a huge portion of our population that is over the age of 65 and women are at the forefront of being the caregivers. And so there's going to be more pressure on families to take care of our aging population.
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Bill O'Driscoll
Arts & Culture Reporter
