 Senator Phil Grooth, also from Chittenden, Chair of Senate Ed. Senator Becca Ballant, from Wyndham County. Allison Clarkson, I have some pleasure of representing Windsor County District. And I am David Sussi, representing Rotland County. David, welcome. Good evening. For the record, Damien Leonard, Legislative Council. So for everyone here who's in the room with us, there is a handout sitting on the edge of the table here, which summarizes what I'm going to kind of provide as my overview. It's also available on the, or should be available on the committee's website as well, if not currently then after tonight. Can you, Damien, just pick up your mic a little bit, so I can just make sure your mic, because that actually is an amplified mic, as opposed to a recording mic. Okay, can everybody hear me? I think so. Great. But not true. All right. Okay, so as the chair mentioned, the summary that we've got, what I'm going to walk the committee through is the bill as it passed the House. As you all know, that could change here. The committee can go ahead and amend the bill. And so we will go from there and actually grab a handout here, because I lost the file on that back there. So the way the bill works is it primarily sets up a new paid family leave program within the Vermont Department of Labor. And employees are covered by the program if first they're eligible for unemployment insurance in Vermont. So in other words, they meet the definition of an employee for purposes of unemployment insurance. And then they've been employed in Vermont for 12 of the past 13 months. So meaning after you've worked in Vermont for 12 of the past 13 months, you're eligible to receive benefits under the program. It would apply to all employers in Vermont. And it would provide benefits for a week of absence from employment, for a serious illness of a family member, including a child or step child, a foster child, a parent, a grandparent, sibling, your spouse, or the parent of your spouse. And it would also provide leave for parental and bonding leave, including the birth of a child or the placement of a child, if they're 16 and under for adoption or foster care. Or in the instance, if a grandparent is standing in the placement of a parent in terms of being a primary caregiver for a child, they can also take leave within the first 12 months after the child's birth if the child's biological parents don't take leave. It does not provide a leave of absence for an employee's own illness or disability, which is something that other state programs do provide leave for. The program is funded by a 0.141% deduction from employees' wages, and the deduction is on the first $150,000 of an employee's wages. So for most employees in the state of Vermont, that means it's a 0.141% deduction on all of their wages. And an employee may elect but is not required to pay that deduction on behalf of their employees. The contribution rate would be annually adjusted by the General Assembly based on the recommendation of the Commissioner of Labor, which would take into account the projected costs of the program in the coming year, as well as the maintenance of a reserve and the fund for the program and any balance remaining in the fund for the program. The benefits for the program under the House bill are set at 80% of an employee's average weekly wage or 40 hours a week and two times the livable wage, which for those of you who don't know or don't remember is currently set at $13.03 per hour. This is a wage that is set by a statutory formula and then determined by a joint fiscal office every two years. So in other words, that would be about $26.06 times 40 hours a week and it's 80% of the average weekly wage or that two times the Vermont livable wage, whichever is less. And the benefits would be subject to income tax. That's an important thing to note. And the benefits are provided for up to six weeks of parental or family care leave and could be used and this is six weeks within any 12-month period. So in other words, if you have a child and take six weeks of leave and then you have another child two weeks, two years later, not two weeks. Two years later, you would have another six weeks of leave in that 12-month period assuming you haven't used leave in the interim for family care. And the Department of Labor, like I said earlier, would be processing and administering the benefits. The program under the House bill, the effective date was set for last July 1st with contributions beginning to be collected this July 1st and then benefits becoming available 15 months later in October 1st of next year. Obviously, because we've passed the initial effective date any version that the Senate might pass would have to move those effective dates out by at least a year. So that would be assuming nothing else changed. This coming July 1st for the program to take effect so that the Department can begin setting up the infrastructure necessary, contributions being collected July 1st of next year and benefits becoming available October 1st of 2020. Are there questions from the committee? No, thank you very much. I want to mention for people who are coming in and there will be other people coming in that if you want to, we have about 20 people on witness list at this point. If anybody wants to testify, Kayla is our assistant she's taking names over there and we'll continue to take names throughout the evening. We'll start off with three minutes. As I said, we may imitate a little warmer if we don't get too many more witnesses but I will call the first witness and also mention who is on deck so we can be ready. Our first witness is Karen Lafayette, followed by Karen Casey. Karen, you're going to be just my test case for us today. Would you rather look at this or would you just rather have me tell you the time's up? No, I won't get it. Okay. I can't remember not to have my glasses on otherwise it's just a blur. Hi, I'm Karen Lafayette and I'm representing the Vermont Low Income Advocacy Council today. The Vermont Low Income Advocacy Council supports the implementation of statewide family leave policy that would allow Vermonters to have access to paid, job-predicted leave to take time to bond with or care for a new child recovered from a serious long-term illness or injury or care for a family member with a serious long-term illness or injury. Smart employment policies like paid medical leave and insurance are essential in this economy where both parents need to work to make ends meet especially for low wage earners and single mothers. Times have changed. It's not possible for someone in the family to be able to take time off of work and lose that income to care for an aging parent or bond with a new infant. Having access to parental and medical leave are critical in today's working environment if we want to support women in the workforce, if we want to support young families, if we want to strengthen the economy and our businesses. Being able to meet your family responsibilities and remain financially secure has all kinds of social, physical and mental well-being benefits. Having that time could be the difference between a young mother being able to reduce her anxiety and worry breastfeed or baby and realizing the well-documented benefits that 12 weeks of bonding creates. It could be the difference between an elder parent having to spend time in a costly nursing home when they could be cared for for a short period of time in their own home. One of the key elements of Vermont paid proposal as introduced was the 100% wage replacement, where it might seem reasonable to reduce that benefit to something less. That is the real equity for low-income earners, especially those close to the poverty level, whose choice it would be to hand over a two-week-old infant to costly childcare if available or leaving your job, acquiring debt and needing additional state assistance. So I would ask the committee to keep close as close between 80% and 100% of wage replacement as you can. If we want an economy that works for all Vermonters, if we want people to have choices and be able to remain in the workforce, if we want to support small business that can't afford to provide these benefits alone, if we want happy and healthy families to remain in and come to our state then creating a statewide insurance program is the way to ensure universal access to an important benefit. Thank you very much. We have Kara Casey, followed by Tiffany Shorff. Thanks for the opportunity to speak to me tonight. My name is Kara Casey, and I'm the economic justice and housing specialist of the Vermont Network of Ants Domestic and Sexual Violence. Today I will speak with you briefly about how K-family and medical leave would positively impact survivors of domestic and sexual violence. When living in poverty, barriers to overcoming trauma and leaving abusive relationships increase, and too often there are too few opportunities to obtain economic security, independence, and safety. What pay leave looks like in reality is a survivor being able to take time off, being able to take the amount of time off that they need and doing this without depleting all of their resources and that means money but also sick and vacation time. Access to resources that increase economic stability are essential in a survivor being able to leave an abusive relationship and rebuild a life after abuse. It has been proven that women who have access to paid maternity leave are significantly more likely to report increased wages and are less likely to be receiving public assistance in the year after their child's birth. In addition to the increased economic security for survivors, there would also be direct long-term benefits to their children. After leaving an abusive relationship, the victim is often left as a sole provider for their family. Studies show that children's resiliency is increased when mothers are employed full-time. That is, gainful employment has a positive influence on their children's recovery from witnessing domestic violence. So if a mother is able to care for her new baby, ill family member, or herself without losing out on income and without having to quit her job, it can improve overall long-term outcomes for her and her children. Vermont Network strongly supports H-196 and we urge the committee to restore the personal medical leave that was in the original bill. We believe paid family and medical leave insurance would help make victims and their families healthier and more economically secure so that current and continued future generations of homeowners can thrive. Thank you very much. Timothy Sharp, followed by Dan Ward. I'm Timothy Sharp and I live in Fairfax with my husband and our three sons. I have been working at UVM full-time for the past 13 years. Paid family and medical leave is extremely important to me. As my employer does not offer paid family leave or up until very recently, short-term disability insurance. 10 years ago. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. My first son was born. My ex-husband and I were fairly low-income. It did average, saved up, both monetarily and in crude rates, I'm off. Looking back, I must have been crazy as I thought I'd be able to take near four weeks for a term leave. Little did I know that our baby would suffer a severe case of Macombian aspiration syndrome and spend several weeks in the NICU. By the time he was released, my leave was basically over and I had to ask my employer for additional uncayed time off. The financial instability had led to increased stress and eventually a diagnosis of postpartum depression. The financial burden could have been prevented had a family and medical leave planned and employees. In 2017, I was pregnant with my second son in April. When we first decided to have another child I told my husband we would need to find a way to fund my maternity leave because I didn't want to be in the same situation as me and my ex-husband had been in. He agreed and we saved some of the money we had for refinancing our home and invested it in hopes of growing what we already had. A few weeks before my due date, my husband hurt his shoulder at work and was out off and on for a couple of weeks. Doing light duty work as was available. The limited hours forced us to give into our maternity leave money. Because he was working some hours he was unable to claim workers compensation. A week overdue our son came into the world quickly and a bit traumatic the emergency C-section. Because of the C-section, my husband ended up taking more time off and planned to take care of me as well as our newborn. The paid family and medical leave program would be a game changer for families like ours. Instead of going massively into debt and negatively impacting the economy in our area, we would have been to stay current on our bills. The program would allow families to experience infinitely less stress and let them focus on bonding with their child or caring for an ill family member. Families are stretched too thin these days. We're expected to work to take care of our home and family and the active members of our communities with no real support from our local government. When we don't offer, pay time off for people to deal with these things it harms everyone. The individual suffers physically, financially, employers struggle with employee retention, distracted employees, lower productivity and the inability to plan for emergency use. People are forced to seek benefits such as snap, wink and reach up in order to make ends meet. This doesn't make sense financially for the state. We have other types of insurance in place such as unemployment insurance. It just makes sense to have personal medical leave as well. It encourages families to continue working after having a child as they have adequate time to bond without the financial stress. In closing, I would suggest that you have long and hard at the state of affairs in Vermont right now. Families are moving away because they cannot afford to stay here. We have an aging population that soon won't be able to support our economy. We need to not only pass this bill but restore it to include 12 weeks of personal medical leave. My school will allow Vermont to both retain the young families who are already here and also encourage new families to move to the area. I was born and raised here, but if we continue the way we're going, we may be forced to move somewhere more affordable. Thank you. Thank you. I have Anne Ward followed by Erin Flynn. I live in Berlin, Vermont. In just under six years, I've been a foster parent through foster care and turned down calls for placements of dozens more. I'm what's called a community foster parent and I take children ages 0 through 17. Being a community foster parent means that when a child enters my home to live with my family for an undetermined amount of time, they've never even met us before. The trauma and tragedies of that is being comprehensible. Paid family leave that includes a placement of a child or children in a foster home for foster care would mean more family members, grandparents, aunts and uncles, people who actually know and already love the children would be able to offer their homes instead of asking strangers like me to stabilize their children. The foster family shortage would diminish and some of the trauma of entering foster care would be mitigated for the children. Many of my former foster children have moved on from my home to live with my school. When a child enters foster care, their needs are intense and immediate especially when they're newborns. Why should a grandparent have to send a brand new baby to live with me until the baby is old enough for day care in order to maintain their employment? We must have a system that supports maintaining families. I'm honored to serve my community and support children by being a foster parent but doing so has had an undeniable impact on my employment which is critically important to me. For me, eligibility for leave time would not impact my drive to work but rather reduce much of the stress of the first few weeks of intense appointments and meetings that accompany adding a new child or children to my home while I continue to work. We need to do better for Vermont's children and families. Please support Dave Family Leave for all types of families. Thank you. Thank you for the work you do. Erin Flynn I apologize. I apologize. I realize I printed this much smaller form than I intended to do so. We've all been there. Can we close that? Yep. Good evening and thank you all sincerely for sharing your valuable time to hear my story today. By way of introduction, my name is Erin Flynn and I'm a wife, a daughter, a sister and a mother. I'm a native New Yorker who lives and talks to a 10 graduate school and have been working as a civil servant for our agency of human services for the last five years. I'll start by saying that I'm not here under the assumption that my story is any more challenging or captivating than most of the middle class working families I know and I hope I don't misspeak when I say I'm here representing them as much as I am myself and my family. I would also like to acknowledge that I'm not naive to the fact that you all, as leaders and policymakers have limited problems in needs for which you have very limited resources to address. I know that you grapple with complex problems such as poverty, homelessness and access to basic needs such as affordable healthcare and education on a daily basis. My testimony here today is not meant to disconflict as hard truth. I'm here today because I personally believe that we as a collective society need to shift our thinking around what it means to be a full-time working mother in this time and this place in our history. Since I was a young kid, I was regularly asked what you want to be when you grow up. I've never imagined myself not working. They're trying to build a professional identity and the desire to find self-worth and satisfaction through the contributions of my service has defined me for much of my adult life. Behind all of that, as one in a family of four kids who grew up with a very large family, having children on my own was a given one day when I was ready. Eventually, the far-off distant concept of how people managed to work in Marie's family as a modern time was right in front of my face, beginning with my preparations for maternity leave three years ago. Well, there are many benefits that I'm very fortunate to receive as state-employed maternity leave is not one of them. After a lot of brainstorming and social gene, here's what my maternity leave plan looked like. Start working an extra 10 hours a week to build up comm time so I could have enough paytime off to stay home with my daughter as long as possible. This included a scent of bedras and I worked up until the day I gave birth. I returned to work just eight weeks later and somehow struggled through the guilt, mental and physical trauma and just sheer exhaustion that would be my norm for the next year. And then I'll spend the next three years in mental health counseling and physical therapy trying to recover. We did all this because we did not want to start our young family off with a burden of death that would impede us from providing for a daughter's future. We did not want to lose what savings we had accumulated to support our old one day becoming homeowners. While returning to work eight weeks after childbirth, birth was one of the hardest choices I've ever made. I know there are many who are forced to make harder and unthinkable choices on a daily basis. I'll try to, I'll try to stop where I was. So becoming a full-time working mother was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life, but it's also one that I'm most proud of. I'm proud to stand before you on April payday to proclaim that I love my family and I love my job. Both these things are true at the same time. I firmly believe that no woman should have to choose between growing her career and growing her family. And I believe that this starts with ensuring that all women have the right to enough paid time off from their jobs to attend the birth of their children to recover and mom with their babies before returning to work. I'm not an economist but it doesn't take a very fan statistical analysis to know that birthing and raising children is one of the primary root causes contributing to the gender wage gap. All I have to do is open my eyes and look around to know that that is true. So just to illustrate my point and then I'll summarize here what it would mean for me to have a second child. As things stand right now, any leave would be completely unpaid. This is because nearly every single hour of paytime off I have accrued is a comfort in the almost 31 days that my daughter's daycare centers close annually. Combined with the at least monthly sick dates that come along with raising a toddler in a childcare setting, not only would any time I were to take beyond pay but I would now also spend $1,000 a month to pay someone else to take care of my toddler while I stay at home with my newborn. It's been a long and difficult journey to find a childcare provider that we really love that I just wouldn't put my daughter nor her provider through the experience of pulling her up to stay home for just a few weeks so that we could go through the agony of finding a provider all over again. That's faced with the same choices I was faced with before but under even more difficult circumstances. I could stop working and stay home and take care of my children. I could burden my young family with thousands of dollars of debt or I could not have another kid for reasons I've already defined. None of these options work well for me and I think I'll stop there even though I've done worse and I thank you very much. If you could submit, if you'd be kind enough to submit your testimony to Caleb that would be great electronically. That's true for everybody. There are things you wanted to say but Caleb is for anybody who wants to submit written testimony and doesn't want to testify but could also submit things. We already have a packet as a good start. Chloe White followed by David Rose. Good evening. I'm Chloe White from the ACLU of Vermont. Thank you for having me here to talk about our support of paid family and personal leave. We think paid family and personal leave are the true economic and reproductive justice. No one working a full-time job should have to choose to risk job loss or financial ruin in order to recuperate from illness or care for their loved ones whether a new or baby or a sick spouse or child. We think that paid family and personal leave would help to eliminate that full choice. This is a question of being in fairness for all workers but this bill is particularly important for women. I think it's very auspicious that you're having this hearing today on People Pay Day where white women finally make the same amount of money that commended in 2017. So today more women work full-time than ever before yet they continue to bear disproportionately the burden of caring for children and sick family members. Paid leave enhances women's economic quality and provides better economic security for all workers. With paid leave, employees are healthier and more productive and employers can save money through retaining better staff. Nationwide only 12% of private sector workers have paid rental family leave and only about 4 in 10 have access to paid medical leave. It's past time for Vermont to act as a leader and lift up Vermont workers and families. So we ask you to please support paid family and personal leave for the benefit of all Vermonters. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the time to speak today. My name is David Rose. I live up in Burlington. I grew up in Manchester where my family has lived since 1999. My father is a network administrator at the Vermont Country Store and my mother is a power educator in the local school system. It was also her job in March of 2006 when she received a call in the early evening from the local ski mountain. My father had come off a job and broken his T-11 in the fall. He had been airlifted to Dartmouth and was paralyzed from Chester. Now, my father's story has been retold probably a thousand times, but as with many caregivers, partners, and families, the day-to-day path of healing is rarely heard outside home. Our experience regarding family leave begins with my father's injury but centers on my mother's experience during the ordeal and in the months that follow. As a caregiver of my mother's ability to have time away from work was afforded to us by accumulated paid sick days and generosity of coworkers who were able to donate their own sick days for both my parents as a meat supplement after our spring. And this gave her the flexibility to visit my father at the specialized rehab hospital six hours away in Philadelphia and to research opportunities in adaptive housing, further mental care without making desperate choices or putting a family. I have to deplete our accumulated time off when emergencies arise that require longer-term leave. A guarantee of remontress of secure income for both patient and caregiver for 12 weeks would be life-changing for a family facing emergency like a paralyzing spinal cord injury and would help families avoid dipping further into life-social services. The weeks that followed my father's injury were spent learning how to return to productivity but outside of the healing process it was time to handle all the medical paperwork, phone calls and long-distance travel to appointments with specialists and in just one example it took several weeks even in the months after he finally returned home to have the car adapted with hand controls complete the paperwork to regain his license and begin driving again. During this time traveling to routine appointments became solely my mother's responsibility. My dad also left the hospital with a prescription for oxycodone to address the immense pain that he was in at the time and he was able to wean himself off that pain relief because he was not attempting to return to work full-time right away. For both patient and caregiver it was essential to have enough recovery time to avoid complications or dependence on painkillers. He was injured March 2nd, 2006 and returned to work in late May that was approximately 12 weeks and he spent a week of that at Dartmouth-Hitchcock six weeks at the rehabilitation center like most paraplegics he never regained any sensation below his chest and also like most paraplegics his life was just as active now and was productive now as it was 12 years ago before he trapped this up say the healing from a life-threatening injury and providing care for a family member should not require that we deplete our paid time off work and go into death or rely on the generosity of the volunteers in our communities to donate their paid time off for their sick days in the way that our communities support us my family believes that it's time to make the privilege of safe and secure recovery right up until the moment. Thank you. Jill Sharminov followed by Elizabeth Casey Jill Sharminov I'm president of the Vermont AFL-CIO and I live in Middlebury, Vermont I would like to applaud the House Bill for expanding the definition of family but to say however without expanding the ability of workers to take this lead the hours we'd like to see the hours of eligibility for how much work time work in a year to be cut many workers I can tell you both union and non-union construction workers would look no further than rock vages to find people who continually work who have gaps in their work who are unemployed but have a job through the rest of the year and they would be ineligible to use this but they would be eligible to pay for it so I ask you to include them and I also ask you to include personal illness I have a story to tell like other people here that I have not told publicly October 19, 2000 in other kilts and I worked in post office I had sick leave I had vacation time I could take care of my family and still have an income and that was crucial to our recovery and I think everybody deserves that thank you Elizabeth Casey followed by Katie sorry Elizabeth Casey and I for the past 15 years I have been honored to provide early care and education for young children I have been a witness to the magic of a child developing and parents growing families so when it came time to have a family of my own I thought I would know what to expect I had seen the hardships and struggles I knew the challenges of life ahead to find childcare I knew that the United States is ranked at the bottom of developed nations when it comes to providing paid family medicine I have a bachelor's in family science and a master's in early childhood certainly knowing all this I would be able to navigate the first year of our child's life we put off starting a family for a long time we like so many had student loans we wanted to buy a house and made the financially safe decision to settle for a duplex when we finally got pregnant we met with the medical insurance representative to get a clear picture of what childbirth would cost despite all the preparation we were uncertain how we would be able to afford not receiving full paychecks for an extended amount of time after all, most early childhood educators aren't making a living wage let alone living off 60% of that wage our daughter was born under summer 5th of 2015 she was 43 weeks when we were when she was delivered I had been working up until I went into labor one of the many challenges was not having paid family leave is that it means everyday work matters I can't imagine if I would have started using my vacation time at 38 weeks I could have been waiting around 5 weeks for our daughter to come and lead a new zero vacation oh how I wished I would have had taken time to relax and feel refreshed as I entered into this new amazing role my daughter arrived healthy and we had the usual challenges adjusted to life as parents luckily she was born and tax season arrived we got our taxes down as fast as we could that year my 12 weeks of leave I received 6 weeks pay at 60% 6 weeks unpaid and was able to keep my job but every penny mattered during that time my husband used his vacation time he accrued working at UVM to stay at home with our daughter after I went back to work when he returned to work we still didn't have childcare we had put our names on almost 10 different provider wait lists upon learning of our pregnancy no one had openings after talking with my boss she agreed to give me the summer off and return at the start of the school year in the fall shortly after I got a call from our provider she had a spot open in her home in Burlington unfortunately because I committed to taking the summer off my teaching spot was already filled for the summer in order to hold my childcare spot I would have to pay almost 3 months of tuition roughly $3,000 we used the rest of our tax return and accepted help from our family we were lucky at all in preparation for sharing our family story tonight I reached out to friends and asked them to share their stories with me each one of them shared their struggles despite me familiar with the system and navigating it and planning ahead they all shared the financial burden was stressful they wished they didn't have to go back to work only to be forced into the pumping and closets cars and laundry rooms just for 2 ounces of breast milk each one of these women regardless of their challenges said that they were lucky ones in the end maybe it was that they were lucky but they were also resilient they made the best of challenging situations because they had to because the system forces us to if we want to financially contribute to our family this piece of legislation is more than just about being in the beginning of the end of life for loved ones it's about creating a system that demonstrates that it cares for the well-being of each community member in 2015 before my daughter was born she had the privilege to be part of the early childhood leadership institute one of the discussions surrounding identifying our values a presented prompted us to discern on our values he stated if we want to know what we value take a look at our wallet and our calendar I want to thank everyone in this room tonight for putting this event on their calendar I value healthy families I value community and I want Vermont to share those values too not only in theory but in the way it governs this bill however small a step is imperative to creating a Vermont that is competitive and thriving and I strongly urge for you to support this legislation and extend it to 12 weeks thank you I'm from Northfield I was born and raised in Vermont I left for many years but came back here to raise my family I currently work for a small family run business with a very generous benefit package for the size of my family but it currently does not have an option for any long term leave I support paid family and medical insurance in Vermont for many reasons in 2002 my mother was diagnosed with cancer she used all of her sick leave on vacation and personal leave in order to receive treatments once she ran out of those hours her co-workers generously donated their sick leave to her and then she ran out of those hours as well fortunately for her she worked for an amazing boss I know Annie Ninin but refused to let her go without pay she continued to receive a paycheck until she passed away a few months after her diagnosis there are not many small businesses and organizations that are able to be that generous the bill has passed for the house removed the personal leave portion of the bill I strongly argue to put that language back in for many employees a cancer diagnosis means working through chemo and radiation treatments coming to work because they can't can't afford to stay home even though they're nauseous they risk they risk exposure to viruses and bacteria with weakened immune systems I can guarantee you that everyone in this room knows someone who has gone through these treatments and it's unimaginable to me that if not for Annie my mother would have had to go back to work just to earn enough for me to live she was blind I wasn't even close to crying when I started this she was blessed to get the focus on trying to survive cancer I'm not paying her bills should we want that for all of her money to struggle with illness I had two beautiful daughters when my first daughter was born I took four months off from my job on paid I had to apply for a week to help with the grocery bills with my second daughter I only took two months off because we just couldn't afford to take any more time I feel blessed that I was able to get as much time with them as I did because I've heard from so many other women who could only take weeks off because they couldn't afford more unfortunately staying home was not even an option for my husband as we needed at least once the paycheck just arrived he had to miss out on those first precious months as is the case for so many others paid family and medical leave insurance would help parents get time with their newborn babies and give each child a leg up on their early development the version that passed the house reduced the weeks of leave allowed from 12 to 6 again I implore you to restore the language to the original 12 weeks a month and a half is just not enough time to bond with the child and recover from the trauma of giving birth I support this bill with the revisions mentioned earlier because it just makes sense if we want young people and families to come to Vermont to live or stay in Vermont we have to find a way to make it easier for them if we want people to recover illness and return to work we need to allow them that option if we want our children to thrive with them when they're born it's just the right thing to do please support this bill thank you thank you chairman and members of the senate committee for accepting my testimony today my name is Eric Spurl and I'm a single 35 year old father of two little ones five and seven I currently work for the Alchemist in Waterbury, Vermont I was born and raised in Vermont I'm proud to say I've worked and lived here my entire life I'm here today in support of the paid family medical leave because it goes way beyond the dollar amount it touches the fundamentals that we need to instill in our young generation compassion stability supporting one another especially in times of need and most of all love before working at the Alchemist I worked quite a few jobs, many different jobs I worked in excavation building material sales and even though there are good jobs and they had decent benefits sick days, vacation days, etc it was often possible to get those benefits being a single father of two kids having 50-50 custody it was my responsibility to care for my kids when I had them there are times when my kids were sick and had health issues and my employer would ask me if their mother could take the time off knowing that we weren't together her responsibility I felt helpless at times it was like pulling teeth to get time off and they wouldn't play unless it was myself that was sick I had a doctor's note so I'd use vacation time and when I didn't have vacation time I'd go without a pay as far as you need to provide for your kids for your loved ones to care when they're sick and you have to worry about whether or not you're going to get paid being a single father with only one income this situation threatened my livelihood and my ability to provide a safe and secure place for my children I also was unfortunate to have witnessed what too many families do my family not being able to be there for their loved ones when they were needed most came down to my family members either losing their employment or not being able to be there for their mother something that seems barbaric to have to decide on this day and age today I work at the Alchemist I've been there for about two years and I'm very grateful that they offer a generous benefits package which includes paid time for you and your family as well as paid family medical leave and after having my past experiments experiences with other employment this is a huge blessing to be able to provide love and care for my family needs in troubled times and have a company which I like to call my family that supports and recognizes the need for that that stability for my children knowing I can be there for them physically and financially if God forbid a medical situation occurs now my children know that if something happens I'll be there they don't have to worry about being with someone other than me until I'm done work or whatever the situation or them having to be there or them having me be there physically but my mind being preoccupied with the stress of our livelihood I don't want to worry about seeing others go through with my family and many others have had to go through in times of need when something happens to a loved one paid medical leave goes way beyond the money you can put a dollar in anyone's pocket they'll spend it how they see fit because it's theirs it's a false sense of security we can give people a system that can make a difference in time of need we can provide real stability for our families stability, security that parents can give to their children or parents when they're sick without the burden of worry through the paid family medical leave we have an opportunity to come together for the greater good of everyone and be able to be there for our families young and old that's selfless and priceless in closing I'm a voice among many who see a clear, present need for paid family medical leave I wish everyone could have the benefit that the family gives peace and mind security for only slightly how about you go and start for a little while my name is Faye Longo I'm a native her monitor and resident of East Bering I'm also a full-time employee a part-time college student a daughter, sister, single mom and the breadwinner of my family I'm here to express my full support for the paid family leave bill to encourage you to ensure personal illness and injury leave is included and to extend the weeks to as close to 12 as possible I can speak to the benefits of this bill from personal experience as a mother and as a woman my father passed away suddenly last year my mom has got a cancer most of her life and continues to and I have two children who both have medical issues there's literally not any time in my life when this bill would not have benefited me last year my father who lives in Connecticut had a terrible car accident he was in ICU with a hospice until passing away nearly a month later I traveled to see him when he first had his accident and used up any combined time off I had a community bid I then took unpaid time to be with him and to care for him in his final weeks of life finally I had to return to work I simply couldn't afford to take any more time and my father passed away the day after I returned they family would have helped me in more ways than I can express it took me a long time to get caught up financially after losing just those few weeks of pay but I had no choice I had to choose debt and significant financial hardship in order to care for my father during that time when I should have been mourning the loss of my dad I was working nights and weekends on top of my already full-time job to get caught up and make ends meet it also put me in a tough position with my employer at the time having used all my combined time off to be with my dad I don't know what I would have done had myself or one of my children gotten sick and I hope you guys can see how that really could have quickly snowed out how that happened and I had also been in a position to work on with non-profits throughout our state for most of my life serving our most marginalized populations and working with these people I can assure you that my experience is not unique according to the Center for American Progress 55% of the 20 or so million people who took unpaid leave through the family medical leave act used it for their own medical condition only 18% used it to care for the health of a child spouse or parent leaving in the personal illness an injury is so important also a female-headed household with dependents are consistently the poorest households not just in Vermont but across our nation and the world this remains true even though mothers are now the majority breadwinners and families and make up nearly half of the workforce as Kate Ban of the Center for American Progress states and her article economics of misogyny despite the central role of women in our economy no serious effort has been made to modernize our work to respect the needs of women and indeed all people to care for their families and I would add personally for themselves more and more women are entering the workforce every day and more and more of them are single parents or primary caregivers of some sort this is a pattern that is not going to change the face of our workforce becomes ever more feminine by the day Vermont has always been a state of firsts but when it comes to supporting women and families it has failed we must start passing legislation like House Bill 196 to turn this breadwinness around and to show our commitment to supporting women and their families in our state and in our workforce imagine 30 years from now when my daughter now is my age I pray that she won't face the struggle that I did as her loved one lies dying I hope that she would be able to take advantage of House Bill 196 and focus on saying to fight her loved one rather than worrying how she'll keep the bill safe again I implore you to pass the bill to ensure personal illness and injury that is part of it and to increase it to 12 weeks and thank you for hearing my testimony told you only slightly over you were perfect thank you Chelsea Christine George thank you for hearing all of our stories two years ago almost to the day I got a phone call from my mom Susan Woodworth she had pancreatic cancer and she lived for five months after that in the first month we waited we waited for more test results that eventually confirmed that it was stage four terminal in the second month she started a trial for a chemo in the third month after throwing up every day for three weeks and losing all quality of life she made the decision to end treatments in the fourth month she went on hospice and at the end of the fifth month with her family surrounding her in her beloved cabin in Pittsburgh Vermont she died at the age of 60 years old I had the incredible fortune to have a very supportive employer at the interval center in Burlington I was able to take intermittent unpaid leave through the family medical e-back to spend time caring for my mom the last months of her life I could run up the hill to UVM Medical Center while she was there receiving treatments I could drive down to Rutland when she was hospitalized and I could spend the last week of her life with my family taking ships by her bedside it wasn't easy after her diagnosis I got out my calendar and my calculator and I figured out how many days I could take off without pay trying to guess at how long she would live that is an experience I would wish upon with one trying to balance your own financial needs and the need to be with a loved one during an illness I'm among one of the lucky ones though I could make it work without extreme financial hardship millions of Americans and thousands of Vermonters don't have that privilege people who are living paycheck to paycheck when the inevitable happens be it personal illness a family member who's in an accident a new baby who's sick or a new baby who's healthy people have to make unimaginable choices during some of the hardest times of their lives and it doesn't have to be that way we have the power to make things just a little bit easier for Vermonters who face inevitable challenges do you have a loved one? a child, a parent, a spouse if they're diagnosed with terminal cancer what sort of support do you hope to have in order to take care of them and spend time with them during their final months I'm here today because I want my friends and family and coworkers and people I've never met to be able to take pay leave when life's inevitable challenges come up I want things to be just a little bit easier for working Vermont families I can't cure cancer I can't change what happened to my mom but I can use the experience I had to urge you to do the right thing the compassionate thing for Vermont's families by supporting this bill and by making it better including intermittent leave more weeks and personal family medical leave will make the bill stronger and go a long way to helping Vermont's families George, followed by Lisa Mason thank you I'm surprised to be the first business owner to speak hopefully I'm not the last one and Randy George from Red Hen Baking Company happy to speak out in favor of this my wife and I have owned and operated Red Hen since September 1999 we currently employ about 42 full-time equivalent employees and we often say that our employees are our greatest asset from the time we started our business our goal has been to create a workplace that supports our employees not only with a positive work environment but also with pay and benefits that will enable our employees to stay with us and mature and settle down and if they choose to start a family most of our employees are a livable wage and all of them have disability insurance and access to pay time off they have the opportunity to invest and with a small contribution on their part they enjoy a peace of mind of full healthcare coverage but missing from this list is paid family leave a benefit that nearly every working person is going to need at least once in their working life and I might add this is a benefit that's enjoyed by every other worker in the world besides people living in Los Alamos Papua New Guinea or most states in the United States although many larger companies can afford to offer this benefit to their employees it would be far too expensive for most small businesses to afford to pay people while they are not working for a number of weeks yet aside from health insurance I think paid family leave is arguably of more importance and value than any of the benefits that we currently offer in our business at some point in our careers most of us will be faced with an event that compels or forces us to take time away from work we've never faced these kind of dilemmas regularly in just the last five years six of our employees have had babies each time these new parents men or women have dealt not only with the strain of having a new baby in the house but they've also been faced with the dilemma of how to maintain their income although we would love to offer them a solution as their employer our cashflow could not support such an expense fortunately a solution has been offered with the insurance that this bill would provide employees in Vermont would be able to take time away from work when their family needs them most without a concern for how they will pay their bills and put food on the table if ever there was a good example of strength and numbers this is it for so many businesses pooling all of our resources is really the only way we can ever get our employees the coverage that they need and deserve I would also like to add that we supported H-196 and proposed in the house we would like to see some of what we see as the essential elements of the original bill restored first on that list for me is that to have the employees be able to take leave to recover from their own non-work related illnesses or injuries we also think it's important for the leave time to be at least eight weeks if not the original in proposed 12 I know that making these changes will have a small impact on the cost of the program and the increase will be small in return for these significant improvements as currently written with the 0.141% payroll deduction for the cost of an employee making $24,000 a year that's about $12 an hour this would just be $33.84 annually but if we restore the aforementioned benefits it will increase somewhat but the fact is that even at the original 0.93% figure this is a heck of a deal so I want to add that we continue to support a model that shares the cost between the employer and the employee if the portion if that portion of the bill is not restored I predict that many employers would see the value contributing to this cost and join Red Hand in doing so thereby reducing the burden on employees even further in either case we feel that the value of this insurance cannot be overstated such a plan is really the only way we can make sure that all of our monitors regardless of income level and placement planning can be ensured that they will be able to care for themselves and their family when the need arises thank you thank you for the question thank you for Red Hand it's a downfall any of us it's the best to keep up the entire world you know please submit hi, I'm Lisa Mason I'm the owner of Fiddlehead Spasenium Mortem I'm the second business owner to go it's a small business and I love being a small business owner I like helping the economy grow I like being connected to the members of my community it's been incredibly successful and rewarding a venture over the past seven years where I've been full time on my own however being self-employed comes with a lot of challenges as a self-employed entrepreneur there is no paid time off for illness or rent to leave not to mention access to affordable health care being one's target with my second child with no paid maternity leave in sight again this is a challenge that has never been more relative to me personally it's almost on a monthly basis that I consider giving up the idea of giving up my business and getting a job somewhere else that has evidence it's truly difficult to make ends meet without them I love what I do I love what I know what I contribute contributing to the health and happiness of my community members but also the health of the non-economy when my husband and I decided to start a family it was a major concern that we wouldn't have any time off between the two of us but we knew it was something we wanted to do and accept we wanted to take so we did it and we continued to struggle financially as a result at the same time as we have rising expenses due to a growing family we also have to drain our savings to pay for maternity leave as well as the cost of pregnancy and health care so this thing is really vulnerable to any unexpected financial burdens that come off whether it's house repeated you've got your bits and we get sick or anything like that and we're also obviously the lucky ones we have the option to take 8 weeks off a lot of people just can't go 8 weeks without any source of income so it really puts at risk our mental and our physical health as well as the health of our children we suffer from the result of not having the space and time to bond with a new family while the birth of a child is a time of endless love and joy the transition to parenthood is equally full of overwhelming challenges and immense adjustments a family and medical leave insurance program would be a life changing support for the many entrepreneurs and self employed business owners in Vermont and ultimately help young professionals stay in our great state and attract new families to settle here so I really urge that we put back in self employed business owners into the bed family and medical leave insurance is not complicated other states that they can lead in Vermont has many good models to learn from there's no need to prolong this hardship the positive impacts of supporting great families will have ripple effects throughout our society we must move forward for the sake of our workforce families and economy and I think I've cried at every single one of these testimonies I don't know if it's normal it's a power of it thank you I'm Brenda Siegel followed by Linda Churchill I'm Brenda Siegel, I live in New King Vermont I'm also a business owner I direct the Southern Vermont Dance Festival one month ago almost to the day my nephew Kaya the son of my brother who passed away 20 years ago and whom I love like my own, he died it was unexpected because he had been doing extremely well and had been stable for almost a year he died after a long battle of mental illness and eventually a disease of addiction and after nearly an entire year of sobriety either his mother or I have worked in an entire month I am self employed, she is not I had to go to my subcontracted work at Mount Snow just two weeks after his death because I couldn't afford not to but that's the only time that I have worked and I'm at a loss now for how it will make up the income I was sorry to see that bereavement is not included in this bill as we know that we are not the only family that's experiencing this type of tragic loss in Vermont throughout his lifetime, my family especially his mother and I have had to juggle who would miss work to care for him when that task fell on me, it was in part because I was self employed and I would not lose my job if I missed work that did not leave me without financial burden I still would have to make up my work pulling all nighters to get it all done which left me at considerable health risk this is often how the burden falls because the risk of losing one's job is too great in 2013 Kaya fell off of a roof and broke 27 bones he had to have brain surgery restructure his nose out rebuilt forehead and nose essentially rebuilt and steel rod in his arm and other arm was broken as well this was an injury sustained from his illness not from work and because of work that we could not miss his mother and I had to take turns sitting at Dartmouth during surgeries either of us had to miss some of the surgeries and throughout his day he had to be left alone once home at times with opiates for pain making his chance at relapse even greater though this is a more extreme example of the times we had to care for him there were times when he wanted when we wanted to just be with him because he was struggling and needed us there were times that someone needed to get him to treatment and we could not there were times when he needed someone to be at the hospital with him and there were times when we had no choice but to miss work miss pay and miss opportunities to care for him with no chance at recovering these losses Kai was an amazing kid and young man who was very bright was extremely loving and one of the funniest people I've ever met throughout his illness my family remained very close to him and structured our lives to help him survive and he had a better chance at success as a result of that support we deserved every chance at survival and we deserved every chance to help him survive without the risk of losing work or not being able to pay our bills not only is the burden on our families great when they are loved or when they are loved one or another but the burden on our state becomes great as well as families have to make as families have to make tough choices to leave stable jobs and be on state assistance so that their loved ones will have the care that they need illness whether it be the disease of addiction mental illness cancer chronic illness or other diseases takes a toll on multiple family members and ultimately on our community and our state the bill that was passed in the house and sent to the committee as a start it is still missing key elements that I hope the committee consider including access to insurance for self-employed should be back in the bill if employees are covering the cost that we would not include access for this large and important segment of remotors even if the committee chooses which I think would be wise to return to a bill that splits the cost between employee and employer the self-employed would still be picking up the burden for their own insurance it strikes me that this move would not carry much risk at all personal illness should be also being included in this bill how could we be talking about necessity to take time off and care for our loved ones if our loved ones can't take off and care that they need do we really want to remot our people work through cancer and chronic illness where our young people are dying because even if they have health insurance they can't afford to miss work or risk losing their insurance the bill should be brought back to its original coverage of 12 weeks and as close to 100% as is possible and offer much stronger protection for workers no matter what size business there are extremely few situations in which the work is so specialized that the workers should be subject to firing when they are sick or caring for a loved one the language in this current bill is far too broad and will leave remoders open to financial injury my work is pretty specialized and I can usually find a replacement if I have to I keep asking myself what would I have done if I had to go to work in this last month I would be if I had been fired I couldn't do anything but go for walks cry, be with family and drink tea I keep asking the same question about the past many years of caring for my nephew we no longer have the opportunity to care for Kaia or see and thrive but there are many families that need this right now we are in the middle of the opiate crisis there are many remoders suffering from chronic illness mental illness, cancer and diseases and they deserve to get the help that they need and their families deserve the opportunity to help their loved ones survive I am so grateful that somehow my family made sure to be there to let Kaia know that he is loved and capable of loving and that we were able to give him the chance of survival that were within our control in the end the time that you share with your loved ones is all you have to be able to do everything they could and they had that time Kaia's time here was made better by our family's ability to be by his side if just one life is changed or saved from this bill it will be worth it ultimately, if we have a healthier Vermont we have a stronger Vermont and a stronger, more vibrant economy when we begin to look at strong policies that take care of our residents not as just a lifeline but economically and it stops being about us versus them but rather all of us together this bill as it is now is a step in the right direction and with some of the stronger elements added back in it will lead us to a brighter Vermont and our kids to a brighter future let us do what it takes to lead this country again my family did not win this battle but every family should have the chance to do everything they can to try to follow it by should be anything my name is Brother Churchill from Bakersfield, Vermont I'm here to testify as a private citizen of a number of the LGBT community thank you for having this public hearing I want to tell you about my experience with Paid Family that we wrote in the past 35 years in my life I could sum it up by simply stating that I have been covered by several collective bargaining agreements the result of being union member for these past 35 years these agreements have included Paid Family Medical Leave insurance the benefits brought me and my family the ability to pay bills on time buy food and most importantly get healthy again I will admit that having a Family Medical Leave benefit was a problem with good wages and health insurance as a union member we were equal Paid Family Leave was in combination with good wages and good health insurance for these things I would not be alive to testify here this evening Paid Family Leave is a cornerstone benefit that clearly that clearly every member of my LGBTQ community needs considered this past influenza season how many people came to work sick how many of you were sick how many of folks got sick because co-workers came to work sick how many kids got left home when they were sick when they were in school and parents did not afford to care and did not lose their wage lost time extra child care wages that don't come in is a vicious cycle of poverty that's perpetuated without Paid Family Leave insurance I never experienced any of that when my LGBTQ community does I see the effects on family and on these kids I know you do too but the benefit to everyone family and individuals and even employers is huge I urge you to please support H196 for Paid Family Leave thank you for listening what can I ask for for Andy the reporter two union's UAW which is United Auto Workers and Communication Workers in America Stu Betty followed by Cheryl and Ollie that pronounced that perfectly my name is Stu Betty on the owner of Blue's Barbecue in Burlington we have approximately 30 employees around and wholeheartedly in support of this bill and for y'all even better time is kind of interesting because on this day last year I woke up in the ICU at the Union Medical Center the previous night my partner had a pretty serious injury so we were in the hospital for three days and then discharged without a plan which really created a pretty serious stress situation for myself being a business owner and now a full-time caregiver for the first month she was what they called looping which was saying the same questions over and over again obviously she couldn't be left alone I was there and just so grateful for the privilege of having my role in my company to take the time that I needed to care for my partner and then feeling so disheartened that at our time our company doesn't have the resources to provide that opportunity for our team members it was probably about a six month period of intense caregiving where members of my team would support me and I'm here to ask you to help small business owners like myself help create safe work environments where people can thrive with their whole lives and take the time off that they need I kind of raised back to work because I felt like I needed to be there and I wanted to leave by example but I wasn't there I wasn't able to physically really mentally be there I was kind of pretty stressed because anyone any good to rush back to work I don't think I don't think it really helps our economy I think the time off helps our economy it's kind of like quite often we all feel right around a treadmill in life when you have an injury like this or a traumatic event like this or a child the treadmill doesn't go faster it starts going backwards and you have to really work to stay on top and not fall behind I'm just asking to really really move this bill I think it's incredibly important I think it's a game changer just make it better and as an employer you have our support like Randy would happily contribute I think this is going to make Vermont such a better place to work and live thank you I appreciate that I think Shelly Brinaldi followed by two and a half years ago a little more than two and a half years ago I was diagnosed with an end-stage tumor disease my husband and I do not have any children so it was just the two of us I'm not originally from Vermont and our families are not living in Vermont so really we are here kind of alone so to speak with all of you but as you can imagine there's a lot to deliver transplant a lot of testing a lot of time off from work I actually could not work at that point I was too sick but my husband was working and he did not have family so anytime that we also just for clarity sake I had to go to Boston for my transplant so anytime we had to take we had a lot of testing to go through before the actual surgery all of that was unpaid my husband could take vacation days from you know but ultimately when I had to have my surgery I was in the hospital for two and a half weeks and I had to stay in Boston for four and my husband stayed with me that whole time and was unpaid so it was hard financially it was extremely difficult and not just financially but emotionally my husband was there by my side the whole time the difficult part for me was I'm the one who pays the bills I'm the one who takes care of the household stuff and I knew that we were pleading money faster than coming in nothing was coming in so we were pleading money quite fast and being the one that was sick it was really hard because I felt like I was I was the anchor sinking our ship and I don't think when you're not in that position you don't know what it's like to be the one to feel like you're the one bringing the family down you're the one whose fault it is and I know logically that that's not true but emotionally that's where your head goes so I just am here to support this bill and to say that it really would have helped us it's too late for us at this point we'll never look through something like this again but I'm hoping that I'm one of the last remarkers that had to pay out of pocket for things that this could have taken care of and really relieve some stress out of it thank you Terry Carpenter followed by Jennifer Ticklebaum yes I I'm here I'm here today to support the paid family and I'd like to encourage you to strengthen the bill put back in the part that covers personal leave and also if you could bring it back to 12 weeks or as close to that I think that would be very beneficial in November of 2016 I was diagnosed with breast cancer and shortly thereafter I had mastectomy between the surgery and complications I had to work for six weeks I used up all my accumulated time off and after that 20 weeks of people said I wasn't going to do this so 20 weeks of chemotherapy followed by five and a half weeks radiation therapy which is five days a week I had no disability so I was forced to work through all of this because if I didn't work I didn't have a paycheck so as a single mother yeah as a single mother of a teenage daughter no and I'll tell you the number of people that said to me I don't know how you do this how you're still working and it was an answer I don't have a job I did not have a choice I had to do it people should not have to work through something like that and the disparity in the bill stands right now as it stands now somebody can take time off to care for their family member while they're going through chemotherapy but they can't take time off for themselves while they're going through chemotherapy that's a huge disparity and that needs to be looked at so that's something that I really wanted to encourage you to look at I'm totally straight off what I'm working on you're here which is great so you must be recovering I'm still going through treatment I still have an infusion that I have to get for a year I'm almost at the end of that but I still have another surgery coming so I'll be out of work for probably another eight weeks again I have to use my paid leave so in two years I have not had a vacation because all of my time has gone towards my medical treatment and if we had if we had this leave in place it would have been a huge help so I guess if something I look at it that if something maybe the reason this happened to me is that I can help this I help this move forward and it can help somebody else thank you thank you thank you Jennifer to the left I'll be by Mary Margaret Wilbur hi my name is Jennifer I work at the department of health access I don't have a prepared statement but I really wanted to come here and let you know about an experience that I've had recently I work in the pharmacy unit I've worked for department of health access for 13 years people come to me and ask how can you help me with this how can I do this I need this type of health care I've always been able to help people till a few about a month ago this gentleman that works in our cafe at Waterbury state office complex came to me and told me that he desperately had to have surgery and did he did I know of any way that he could get some funding to cover the cost of the six weeks he needed to take off I told him I would look into it I researched every possible avenue the only thing I could come back to tell him is that I will help you set up a go fund me site and that did happen he was able to get $2,000 out of the $3,000 he thought he needed to get him through the time off he has several part time jobs in Vermont he works at the cafe he's a farmer in Berlin but she had to have a fire sale for his chickens by the way and he also is a chef in local restaurants okay so he's doing very well he's actually going to get back to work before he thought he would have needed to but it was it was major abdominal surgery that he had to have and another person I know who has cancer she also did not have any disability insurance although she was a full time employee she has set up she has a marketing degree and she has done marketing in Vermont and she has set up a site for herself where she has raised about $25,000 which she will need she will need that money I pay for my disability insurance I pay a lot of money for it I'm so glad it's offered to me I don't know what I would do it doesn't pay my whole salary but it would pay enough that I could survive it's just not fair that someone who works three or four jobs in Vermont doesn't you know it's dependent on others goodwill and a lot of people just don't have the money to contribute to that I can't tell you how many people have contributed to their health care costs out of pocket just because there's no other resources for that so please put in this bill the personal use of the funds and please push it to 12 weeks because that is just the minimum some people need yes I do does the employee give you that option I believe that my is through the union I'm a proud union member I'm a council member and I am the vice president of the Waterbury chapter this affects so many people and as an activist I just implore you to expand it make it better and help us thank you Mary Margaret Grover and this is our last witness is there anybody else that would like to testify who you want to and our youngest she's not testified she's 19 days old you think she's not testified she's been quiet for the last hour and a half now she'll start my name is Mary Margaret Grover I live in Montclair and this is my daughter Molly who was born two and a half weeks ago after a healthy pregnancy and uncomplicated delivery I'm very lucky to be part of the small minority of Vermonters who has access to pay family through my employer but every day I think about how challenging and painful it would be to be 19 days into what the medical profession agrees is a minimum six week recovery time access to unpaid leave is access to no leave for almost everyone because it's so fresh for me I thought it would be instructive for you to hear about what's going on with my body right now and what we're asking women to do when we deny them the ability to take sufficient time off to recover from Tyler Burke because again access to only unpaid leave is access to no leave so I had stitches in my perineum which tore during delivery making it painful to sit stand, walk, bend over and lie down and if you think that sounds like pretty much all forms of activity you're correct the stitches also make it uncomfortable to wipe myself after I use the bathroom so I have a spray bottle at best this would be awkward and embarrassing to handle in the workplace and for many Vermonters their work environment is all together I'm still bleeding as the inside of my uterus heals the wound where the placenta detached I may continue to leave off and on for another three weeks I'm told by my doctors that strenuous activity may cause the bleeding to increase and if that happens I should back off and take it easy activities that have so far caused such an increase in bleeding include walking my dog and eating dinner with my family imagine how being back at work I'm breastfeeding my baby in choice that is strongly supported by the State Department of Health if the number of camps that I've received are a measure when I do go back to work I'll have the use of a free breast pumping speed forward will care act however the first few weeks of breastfeeding are essential for establishing my milk supply and my baby's ability to suck and swallow effectively she's breastfeeding every one to four hours around the clock one of my nipples still has some cracks in it but thankfully I don't have stopped bleeding my state government desperately wants me to breastfeed for my daughter's healthy development there are state laws in place protecting my right to feed her in public which I just did in the hall and to pump for her when I'm at work but for many many Vermont women these laws are moot if they're not also given time off that they can afford to establish breastfeeding in the first place having needs around the clock is of course not unique to breastfeed babies or to newborns but the added stress my body of recovery from childbirth makes it very difficult to cope with the sleep deprivation in these early weeks I'm so tired that I have to be reminded whether I've already taken medications which has the potential to be very dangerous to my health imagine if I were your nurse your delivery driver or your daughter's teacher I want to emphasize that I had a healthy pregnancy and a normal uncomplicated delivery with access to excellent affordable health care many women face much more painful and complicated recoveries or have to care for a sick baby at the same time my husband and I moved to Vermont for a job opportunities five years ago and for us this is not a hypothetical people who move here or who are thinking about working here and growing our population and contributing to our economy are thinking about family leave and deciding whether or not to come here based on that and the fact that the state government does not offer family leave as a benefit is something that we notice too family leave is not a special interest issue it affects all of us and it benefits all of us thank you for you Is that your first job? Cecil Johnston Good evening I'm Cecil Johnston I live in Cabot, Vermont I am self employed I'm the same stress just down the block and I am very much in support of this bill in full including 12 weeks and including people like me and I I'll come back and give you a little bit of background history and just to say that in 1999 I gave work to a lovely baby girl who is now in the early college program at that time my father and I both worked for nonprofits and while I was pregnant we both got hit with budget counts and we were both laid off he was laid off completely my job was cut to half time it was pretty intense and although he was eligible for our unemployment we were jammed and especially then when my daughter was born in our incoming to zero we ended up living on a credit card we ended up declaring a bankruptcy and these are things that just don't have to happen you know taking the stress that kind of stress on families the testimony has been incredibly compelling and I'm not going to get too much more into detail in my personal situation but my guess is that if fewer people are up against that wall financially and emotionally and we take that stress away we'll see the economy skyrocket because we'll see less depression we'll see less if fewer people turn into stress relief measures that are ultimately harmful it's really just the humane thing to do but I'm going to come a little bit more recent so as I said I'm a sophomore I no longer have any children at home and I was walking down the sidewalk in November I just made a deposit that the bank was looking forward to a perfectly normal day at work and I tripped on a crack in the sidewalk and I broke a bone and tore a tendon and that really knocked me for a loop it was thousands of dollars of lost income as I was recovering from that and in November of course I'm like in the middle of all of the holiday work that I'm doing and calling my clients and I'm not even taking new work and I'm sending off work to other people to get finished because I want my clients to have what they need I'm really hoping that you will put that in the measure and that covers people like me I hope never to be in that situation again I hope nobody else is in that situation again and it's not fun if I as it stands right now we're getting into prom and wedding season if I were to break my hand right now I would close my business it would be the only choice I would have anyway thank you for the time that you're taking to hear the testimony and thank you thank you and I appreciate the Outland Committee for addressing the committee and I also thank the many voices that we've heard here it's really remarkable the expression of strength resilience and New England character my name is Alan Rates I work with the Hanover Co-op Food Stores since 1936 members of this consumer cooperative have been committed to concern for community and support for other locally owned businesses those themes are actually specified in the founding documents of the co-op 82 years ago today as a cooperative we have stores and facilities in both Vermont and New Hampshire we're pleased to have 157 Vermont residents on our workforce 75 of those who are in our Vermont facilities you're looking beyond our mission statement or employment statistics a business like ours also needs a strong local economy Vermont producers and farms help make that possible from Brattleboro to Grand Island Derby to Bennington we source about 3,000 items from 231 Vermont businesses food producers and farms the overwhelming majority of those Vermont businesses are small or tiny their stability matters to us as a cooperatively owned business able to leverage benefits to attract and retain employees we recognize H196 as an insurance option that will benefit and strengthen Vermont based workers and businesses family and medical leave including the ability to affordably cover one's own illness disability or needs strengthens businesses big and small by securing the most valuable asset of any firm those people who need to work we have handled the cost strongly supporting H196 as a necessary benefit for the Vermont workforce and small business community successful passage of H196 could also result in cost effective means for employers who must provide leave under federal FMLA to fund their leave programs by paying the employees portion of the insurance cost of the proposed program this added benefit we free up resources for employers to use to buy more local goods, hire more local people and pay them fairly with our support with our support for the creation of this program we respectfully encourage the committee to restore the personal medical leave insurance component of the original bill and extend the leave to 12 weeks so that it will be adequate and accessible to Vermont is doing a variety of unexpected or expected life events and it will mirror the maximum period now in place under the federal family and medical leave act thank you very much can I ask one question are there any other witnesses so as a business owner do you have any concerns about the bill that it doesn't provide job protection for people taking leave well as a cooperative we look at the employees first that's trying to provide benefits so it's hard for me to put myself in the shoes of those in being able to consider that but yeah it would cause concern we see day in day out that people are on the edge the stories here were moving and sadly not surprising so as a business we need a stable economy but we know when communities are strong it's not a trickle down effect it's a way so anything we can do to support employees and support businesses and do so in an environment that is balanced is something that we stand on to answer your question I'm going to speak for our 23,000 member owners they are residents of the region and for them community is critical and that starts with people just to be clear there is job protection for people over the phone yes there is but there is no job protection for people over the line I'm not just about to speak I'm going to half of others in the right direction we need to make as wide a stride as possible so we should consider that I hope you'll take that into consideration even though it's not been directly addressed second as one please come up those of you are I'm Rebecca Weber I'm the resident of Montpelier and I grew up in 7th generation from London and have family all around the central London area mostly I am a foster parent I'm part of a foster parent group on Facebook we get daily requests for placements for kids I have a child in my home I don't have a space in my license for another child at the moment but there is a tremendous need for foster parents I have had a Kino for 11 months I miss a day to two days a week meeting her needs she's a teenager that's doctor's appointments including making up for ones that were missed when she was with her family mental health therapy court DCF appointments she doesn't actually do family visits but family visits can vary with infants it might be daily days three times a week for a lot of kids there's a tremendous amount that has to happen I do have, I am using FMLA for her it's not parental leave because she's not a foster child that's being placed for adoption there's some language in the parental leave at the moment that doesn't she doesn't quite apply but I was able to do it as medical leave because a lot of these appointments but it's unpaid and I've eaten up all of the leave that I have saved both sick and annual and probably within the next few weeks I'll be taking unpaid leave for all of those appointments which aren't going to stop anytime soon and so I've had her for 11 months I'll probably have her longer but if she left my home and another kid and DCF asked if I could take another child I would have to seriously consider whether I could do that not because I'm too heartbroken by the system or because I'm too worn out by the kids because I cannot afford it and I do know a few families foster families with a stay at home parent who spent their whole day driving kids around but I know a lot more families like mine where people are taking leave and no matter how understanding your job is, it's still unpaid leave I do work for the state and the leave policy is lovely it's unpaid I have short term disability that the person spoke before it's through the union, it's ATLAC and it's $40 a pay period so $80 a month if I have short term disability it doesn't cover any kind of FMLA for any of what I'm actually doing and so I just I think paid family leave is really something that we deserve to have in our communities every single one of us benefits from it because every single one of us has parents or kids or spouses or somebody who at some point is going to need our time or ourselves and I think also recognizing that foster parents have a special need and the ability of foster parents to continue to foster the kids in our communities who need to be fostered is dependent on their ability to continue to have a livelihood that isn't possible without paid family and I would encourage you to think about extending it to 12 weeks 6 weeks as normal recovery as someone testified my short term disability would be 8 weeks if I had a cesarean section so 6 weeks is it seems like a lot until you're actually sick or until you actually have a baby and then it's not very enough thank you very much so that is the career I just want to say that I want to thank everybody for coming out the testimony was very personal very moving and informative and I know it's not easy for a lot of you to come out and talk and talk about other people especially tell your own personal stories but it's important for us to hear that so thank you all for coming thank you all