As early as the turn of the 20th century, social reformers and labor organizers recognized that employee illnesses and family obligations were legitimate workplace issues. While various European nations took up the idea following World War II and strove to make it easier for workers to strike a family-work balance, the notion did not gain momentum in the United States until the late 1960s and 1970s, when working women were no longer a minority.
Groups concerned with women’s rights (including AAUW), organized labor, senior citizens, and family life came together in the early 1980s to lobby and pressure members of Congress to introduce and support a piece of social legislation that required employers to grant leaves of absences for employees who were seriously ill, who had newborn or newly adopted children, or who had to care for sick children, spouses, or parents. These groups gained bipartisan support in both the Senate and the House of Representatives and saw their bill introduced in each session of Congress from the 99th (1985-1986) to the 103rd (1993-1994).
In the first sessions of Congress, however, their efforts were met with opposition from business-lobbying groups who viewed the legislation as a first step in allowing government mandates on businesses. In addition to helping delay the passage of the bill, the business coalitions demanded amendments and compromises to the original language in order to protect small businesses, such as only allowing employees at businesses with 50 or more employees to take leave instead of employees at all businesses. Twice in the early 1990s, both chambers of Congress passed the amended family and medical leave bill and both times it was vetoed by President George Bush. Once President Bill Clinton took office in 1993, he quickly signed the bill into law on February 5, 1993, creating the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993.1
Return to the Family and Medical Leave Act Resource Page
1 Elving, Ronald D. Conflict and Compromise: How Congress Makes the Law (New York, NY: Simon and Schuster Inc, 1995).
