Take It or Leave It Episode 30 – Congressional Developments on Paid Leave and Opportunity for Progress – Part 1

Take It or Leave It is the only law firm podcast focused exclusively on workplace leaves, absence management, and accommodations. Host Josh Seidman, Employment attorney and leader of Seyfarth’s Leave of Absence Management & Accommodations team, explores the latest legal developments, forecasts new laws, identifies workplace trends, and offers practical, business-oriented considerations within the leave, absence management, and accommodations space.

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Episode 30 – Congressional Developments on Paid Leave and Opportunity for Progress – Part 1

Winter's snow hasn't stopped yet, but 2024 is already proving to be a busy year for the paid family and medical leave landscape at the federal level. U.S. House and Senate members on both sides of the aisle continue to shine a national spotlight on the need to expand access to paid leave – and with that, comes opportunity for progress.

To make sense of the recent developments, host Josh Seidman sits down with Jason Kanter, the government and regulatory affairs executive from IBM and a leading expert on workforce policy and labor and employment issues, for the first episode in Take It or Leave It’s two-part mini-series on federal paid leave. Together, Josh and Jason comb through all things related to paid leave including its vital role in the lives of workers and their families during times of need, how employer-provided paid leave is a key part of providing access, and challenges that workers, states, and employers face in terms of fairness, navigation, and portability.

They discuss promising recent bipartisan progress in Congress, including activity from the U.S. House Paid Family Leave Working Group, a bicameral request for information on potential federal paid leave setups, and momentum for a new legislative proposal called the “Interstate Paid Leave Action Network (I-PLAN)” to improve the coordination and harmonization of paid leave benefits across the growing number of states with their own programs.