Why this campaign about maternity leave is taking social media by storm
February 18, 2022
“Paid family leave isn’t just a “nice to have…this is not a perk. This is a necessity. It is imperative as a company that you have the basics in place, and strong family leave policies should be part of the essential foundational package of what you are offering your employees in order to be considered competitive.”
—Danielle Weisberg, Co-Founder of The Skimm
The gist:
When Skimm Co-Founder, Daniel Weisberg heard that paid family leave was cut from President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better package, she posted this on IG:
When “hundreds of stories from parents across the country who were forced to go back to work too soon after giving birth, parents who had no paid maternity leave at all and parents who literally worked remotely from laptops during labor to accrue enough work days to become eligible for short-term disability,” started poring in, they encouraged parents to start posting their stories with the hashtag #showusyourleave. They asked Co.’s to post their leave policies as well. And then it went viral.
Why?
Mary Beth Ferrante, Founder of Wrk/360, “a company that helps improve workplace culture by decreasing burnout and caregiver stigma,” notes that, “in addition to increased retention rates, parental leave policies also demonstrate support for employees, attract top talent and build gender equity at a leadership level.”
“Weisberg said that the ultimate goal of the #showusyourleave campaign is to provide transparency and start to change the paid family leave disparity: ‘There is not a lot of hope out there that this is going to get done at a national level. We need to make sure that companies step up. And this campaign and the petition is really about getting them to do that.’”
The Skimm offers “18 weeks of paid leave for adoption, fostering and surrogacy at their company (plus bereavement leave for pregnancy loss, phased return to work, unlimited PTO, backup childcare and flex scheduling.)”
The Co-Founders have also started a Change.org petition to “help amplify the conversation and advocate for national action. “ (Currently, it has over 30,000 signatures.)
The Stats:
According to Paidleave.us, one in four mothers in America returns to work just 10 days after giving birth, and the U.S. is the only industrialized country without a national paid family leave policy.
When Google’s parent company, Alphabet, expanded its paid parental leave policy from 12 weeks to 18 weeks in 2007. As a result, the retention rate of women post-maternity leave increased by 50 percent.
Connect with the MSNBC article here.