Family Leave Ordinance

On June 26, 1989, the City Council's Finance and Personnel Committee (chaired by Virginia Galle) held a public hearing for the public to voice their opinions related to the Family Leave Ordinance (Ordinance 114648). The law proposed changes to City employees' family leave policies and defined "domestic partnership," in order to be in compliance with Seattle's Fair Employment Practices Ordinance (FEPO). The legislation also enlarged the definition of "family" so that City employees could take sick leave to care for their domestic partners as well as their children and parents, and allowed employees to take bereavement leave.

Representatives from many community groups including Radical Women, the Employee Committee for Equal Rights at City Light (CERCL), Freedom Socialist Party, and Coalition of Labor Union Women provided public comment. In an 8-1 vote, the City Council passed the Family Leave Ordinance on August 14, 1989.

Speakers

Linda Averill, Seattle Radical Women (listen to audio)

Linda Averill: Hello, my name is Linda Averill and I'm speaking on behalf of Seattle Radical Women and I live at 1619 Redwing Ave South. And I wanted to say it's just a few minutes earlier when we heard the man talking about trying to set up a situation where people can make money off of this program. I was reminded of the kind of situation that women have been forced to live in in the past 20 years, before the beginning of the feminist movement, where women were married, a lot in large part because it was economically the only option that was available to them. And one of the greatest victories of the feminist movement was to give women the ability to work outside of the home to gain economic independence and to win economic freedom from the servitude of the home. And yet we're still facing economic discrimination in the workplace by not being able - if we live as single women with children or we live in a nontraditional relationship that is not sanctioned by the church or by the state, we're not qualified for the same kinds of benefits that those who do live in traditional relationships qualify for.

We support this ordinance as a first step because it does provide women more flexibility in their job situation. It gives the very important benefit to women to be able to take sick leave to care for their children, or it gives women living in nontraditional relationships the ability to take sick leave to care for their partners. So that we support.

But we think that this, that the City Council needs to go a lot further. As taxpayers, and also as many of us as workers whose wages are set in part by the benefits that are provided, we're tired of being discriminated against in the benefits that we receive or also paying our taxes for a system that discriminates against us. And we want more. We want the City Council to live up to the spirit of the nondiscrimination ordinances that are on the books. First, we think that in this particular ordinance that the City should strike any requirement that an employee sign an affidavit proving that they are living in a domestic partnership situation…is my time up? No, okay. Currently people living in a marital situation don't have to sign affidavits, so why are we now going to be signing affidavits that the City is going to extend it to domestic partners?

Secondly, we also do support changing the Sick Leave Transfer Program from "may implement a pilot program" to "shall implement a pilot program." The City should implement the Sick Leave Transfer Program. And finally we think that the City should - the next step is to bring back the health benefits or to introduce the health benefits that were before the City Council in May and that you decided to suspend - the section of the ordinance that would have allowed health benefits. The fact is that the majority of people paying taxes and working in this system are single women with children, are people living in nontraditional relationships, and we want to start receiving the benefits that we are paying for right now. Thank you.

Councilmember Virginia Galle: Thank you Linda.

Lorem I. Nelson, minister (listen to audio)

Lorem I. Nelson: Yes, I’m Mr. Nelson. Seems like it's time for the other side to be heard a little bit here. I speak for myself. I also am a member of the notorious Local 17 and I am also an ordained minister. And I hope that as I speak, I speak not only for myself, but also for those who believe in God and believe in the Bible that he inspired. And these days it seems that progress is being defined in terms of the wrong direction. And how do we determine what is right direction as opposed to the wrong direction? We follow what God has said plainly and told us in the Bible: that homosexual relationships are wrong. And so this is my concern that will be this ordinance will tend to give society's approval for this type of relationship, which down through history has left a continuous stream of wrecked and ruined civilizations, which the state of the archaeologists are still digging up. The humanists and the ACLU and now others, they are telling us to go in the other direction and against God and established order of traditional Judeo-Christian values. I believe that this ordinance will tend to discriminate against family members who may be living together. Apparently, that was in the writing there somewhere. Society cannot survive under a death style of homosexuality.

My second concern briefly, is a financial one. I believe, to quote one of the previous speakers here: this ordinance is a first step. And that's sort of the feeling I think a lot of us have, that this is a first step toward extending health benefits, which means that this will end up being, supporting the victims of AIDS, those who have chosen a wrong lifestyle in our point of view and is not fair to us, to the rest of us, to have to pay for these wrong choices. And so I say at this point that God has given us instructions in the Bible and all of us can have forgiveness. God does love us all and there is redemption. There is salvation. There are many homosexuals who have turned from a wrong lifestyle to a correct lifestyle, to falling as God has told us to do.

So those are my two concerns. I hope that the Councilmembers will not forget that there are many others who would agree with this in general. Thank you.

Doreen McGrath, Committee for Equal Rights at City Light (CERCL) (listen to audio)

Doreen McGrath: My name is Doreen McGrath. My address is 5236 South Fontenelle Place in Seattle, WA, 98118 and I'm here representing the Committee for Equal Rights at City Light, otherwise known as CERCL. I work at City Light and I am also a member of the non-dissenting members of Local 17, of which there are a few of us here. CERCL has a long history of supporting the Fair Employment Practices Ordinance. We've worked very hard to strengthen it and to make it work for all people in Seattle, so of course we support this bill. And one thing, one of the things I firmly hope is that the Supreme Court never gets a hold of any of this, at least the current membership of the Supreme Court. Because this is a basic civil rights issue and a basic employee rights issue that as other people have said should have been in effect long before this. Part of what always bugs me about the fact that you have to be in a traditional relationship to get benefits is that it's a morality, a traditional morality of the June and Ward family being applied to all people and that's just, that morality should not be legislated and it's very unfair. The other thing I would like to say too is that I think the Sick Leave Share Program should be not just a pilot program, but should be implemented as something basic to do. We have, we all have our sick leave benefits, and then for those people who manage not to get sick very often and accrue a lot of sick leave, I think they have a right to do, and use it, as they please.

So it's also in the spirit of this equality and the fact that I don't like morality to be legislated, but I think there's some holes in the ordinance, as well as some unnecessary obstacles. A lot of the holes have been pointed out. One thing I did like was Jesse Wineberry's statement about it - you should just define "household members" and I think part of what he said is "household members that have a mutual responsibility with one another." So I would like to support his idea on that. Just simply defining "domestic partnership" and not getting very hung up on all the requirements to meet a "domestic partner." Some of the other holes are the things about the "may" for the Sick Leave Share Program that definitely should become "shall." I don't know why it says "may." And one other thing I'd like to suggest is to look into some way to right past wrongs. The woman who was, has already been denied funeral leave, this should be made retroactive so that she can get her leave back and her money back, if she doesn't sue the City first, which maybe she should. [applause]

Some of the unnecessary and unneeded obstacles or ladders that people would have to climb in order to use this legislation - I don't think there needs to be a big fancy affidavit that you sign detailing everything about your domestic partner and stuff like that. In fact, I don't even think employees should have to give the name of their domestic partner to the City. All they need to say is "I'm married" or "I have a domestic partner." That's all the City needs to know. If they want to, if we do move into - and I firmly urge you to - to move into the health care area and somebody wants to sign up their domestic partner for health care, then they should submit their name to the insurance company. I do not think that discrimination in the City has stopped and certainly not discrimination against lesbians and gays. So in a lesbian-gay relationship, if you have to turn your name into your employer, you have now told them whether, that you are in a gay or lesbian relationship, and it's none of their business.

With the Share Program, I have some specific things about that. Again, I think that's set up with way too many restrictions. I don't think there should be any restriction or limit to the number of hours an employee, any one employee, could give another employee. If they've got the hours, they should be able to be used. It’s as simple as that. It's unnecessary. I'd also, if you want to look on page five of the proposed ordinance, I think you should delete lines 19 and 20 which talk about employees who have now have this employee who's going to receive the sick leave that's shared must have, in the past, prove that they are “diligently attempting to accrue sick leave reserve.” I don't know how you would define “diligent,” and I think it's just unnecessary. You have a catastrophic illness-- you know, what can you do? You want the help.

In closing, these kinds of things, to me, legislate morality, even within this ordinance, and I would urge you to make some changes in that, to pass this ordinance, give us the benefits, and move on the rest of the benefits that were upheld in the HRD complaint. Thank you.

Listen to the full hearing in Digital Collections. To learn more about the history of domestic partnerships in the City of Seattle, please see SMA's "Domestic Partnerships and Marriage Equality in Seattle" online exhibit. Citation: Finance and Personnel Committee, June 26, 1989. Event ID 13225, Seattle City Council Legislative Department Audio Recordings, 4601-03.