Detroit approves plan to give workers paid parental leave

(Bridge Detroit ) https://www.bridgedetroit.com/

) "Detroit City Council has approved funding for a paid parental leave program that begins in the next calendar year. It will provide up to six weeks of full pay to qualifying city employees. (Bryan Pollard/Shutterstock) City of Detroit employees with new babies will have another benefit next year: six weeks of paid parental leave.

Detroit’s City Council has allocated $1 million for the program that will offer mothers, fathers and adoptive parents fully paid parental leave within the first year of the birth of their child.

District 3 Councilman Scott Benson said he’s been lobbying for the plan for two years and expects it will be a major benefit for the city’s entry-level and junior-level employees.

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“It’s a great way to say ‘we support you and we want you to be with us and we support families,’” he said. “That’s the foundation of a strong, stable city.”

Benson said financial pressures often force new mothers to return to work within weeks of giving birth, but “we’re eliminating that” because “it’s just the right thing to do.”

“It brings the city in line with the vast majority of the developed world,” added Benson, who worked on the effort with District 2 Councilwoman Angela Whitfield-Calloway.

The policy was among the budgeting measures council members signed off on in recent days following weeks of deliberation over how to spend city funding in the upcoming fiscal year.