Cathy Osten

Osten Votes to Draft Earned Family and Medical Leave Legislation

State Senator Cathy Osten (D-Sprague) today joined a Labor Committee voice vote to draft Senate Bill 1, “AN ACT CONCERNING EARNED FAMILY AND MEDICAL LEAVE,” the first procedural hurdle needed to modify Connecticut’s existing family sick leave law to allow for paid family and medical leave.

Passing an earned family and medical leave law is one of the top priorities of Democratic state senators this year; a similar effort last year to allow eight weeks of paid family and medical leave passed out of committee but was not raised for any further votes.

“This bill honors families and honors the working members of those families, and its passage would put Connecticut in competition with surrounding states that already offer these types of family benefits, and more,” said Sen. Osten, who is Senate Vice-Chair of the Labor Committee. “If we are serious about retaining and growing our millennial workforce and competing with the Bostons and the New York Cities of the world, we have got to offer paid family and medical leave to our citizens. Otherwise we will continue to lose our young people to other regions of the country.”

Specific language of the bill will now be written and then debated at a public hearing at a date yet to be determined.