Mayor Todd Gloria Wednesday signed an expansion of parental leave benefits for city employees into law.
The resolutions, spearheaded by City Councilman Raul Campillo, updates the city’s previous package of four weeks of leave for parents.
“San Diegans deserve a high-quality workforce that gets things done, and to make sure we’re attracting and retaining the most effective employees, we must offer competitive benefits,” Gloria said. “That’s why I am proud to sign into law a dramatic expansion of paid parental leave for City workers. I applaud Council member Raul Campillo for bringing this sensible proposal forward and successfully getting it through the legislative process.”
The law doubles the amount of parental leave provided to employees from 160 hours to 320 hours — eight weeks. It also eliminates the 30-day waiting period for disability benefits for pregnant employees and employees disabled by pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition and changes the eligibility requirement to access the benefits from a one-year minimum employment requirement to 30 days of employment.
“Our city’s current benefits for expecting parents have been woefully insufficient and complicated to navigate,” Campillo said. “My parental benefits package started a long overdue conversation, and I appreciate Mayor Gloria and my Council colleagues in joining me to take action and address an issue that punished our current workforce and dissuaded qualified applicants from coming to work for the city.
“By doubling our paid parental leave and by making it easier to access pregnancy disability benefits, parents who work for the city will have much more time to raise their newborns without the worry of being hurried back to work,” he said.
–City News Service