NJ AFL-CIO brings paid sick leave to forefront

Understanding that when women succeed, America succeeds, women’s rights leaders in New Jersey are doing all they can to ensure a victory in the war on women by placing the vital issue of paid leave into the spotlight.

“It’s no secret that earned sick leave is an issue that affects countless women and families across the state,” said Laurel Brennan, secretary-treasurer of the New Jersey State AFL-CIO. “That’s why it’s so important that we do all that we can to bring attention to this issue.”

Already a special focus of this year’s Women in Leadership Development (WILD) conference, paid leave is one issue that experts believe would have a tremendous impact on working women across the state.

Despite local ordinances in Jersey City and Newark requiring paid sick time for workers, many experts think its past time for statewide earned sick leave legislation.

“In New Jersey, over 1.2 million workers do not have access to paid sick leave. Nationwide numbers total more than 59 million workers as of 2003, and nearly 86 million do not have paid sick leave to care for ill children,” said Jenelle Blackmon, a Communications Workers of America (CWA) representative and WILD Conference co-instructor. “The lack of earned sick leave disproportionately affects women who are typically the caretakers of their elderly parents, sickly children and the rest of their family members.”

Equal pay and access to paid sick and family leave were just a few of the issues covered at the New Jersey State AFL-CIO’s 11th annual WILD conference in East Brunswick, N.J. 

“At our March 2014 NJ WILD conference, we committed ourselves to raising this important issue and supporting our state legislators in the effort to demand that N.J. protect its women by implementing legislation requiring paid sick leave to all workers,” said Blackmon.

Focusing on the war on women, this WILD conference brought together union women from all over the state while earning national attention as the premiere statewide union-women’s leadership conference in the country.

At this year’s WILD conference, the NJ AFL-CIO  launched a new Facebook page to focus on women’s issues to unite women in the virtual world who want to help fight for women’s rights causes like never before.

“The way women fight back against inequality in the workplace is by using our collective voice to push for the issues that affect us each day,” says Brennan.

The New Jersey State AFL-CIO is a founding partner of the 256-member Working Families United for New Jersey, Inc. coalition that led last year’s successful statewide campaign to increase New Jersey’s minimum wage, and was recently asked by legislative leadership to take the lead in a new effort for a statewide earned sick leave law – an effort WILD graduates will now take online.

For more information about the 11th annual Women in Leadership Development conference, please visit www.njaflcio.org or on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/WomenareLeaders.