Dear John,

This headline says it all:

"In 1984, a group of female attorneys huddled over a typewriter in an office of the Women’s Legal Defense Fund, now the National Partnership for Women & Families. They punched out a document that would eventually become the Family and Medical Leave Act, which today guarantees eligible workers 12 weeks of unpaid time off. To get the idea out into the world, they rolled out copies through a mimeograph machine.

Those women had originally wanted to push Congress to pass a national mandate for paid leave to welcome a newborn, care for a sick or disabled family member, or recover from a serious illness. But they soon realized that even passing unpaid leave would be a slog. 'People were calling us communists. They said that this was going to be the end of capitalism as we know it in this country,' Debra Ness, one of the women in that office and president of the National Partnership, recalled with a laugh. 'They thought we were nuts.'"

Read the entire article here.

Well, America knows it's time for paid leave. We had the right idea then, and we sure as hell have the right idea now.

So please take a minute and call your representative before it's too late.

Congress is still hammering out the final details, and we need to ensure paid leave stays in the bill, paid leave gets adequately funded, and the Build Back Better Act makes it to President Biden's desk.

Thank you!!

— The team at the National Partnership