Outcomes of U.S. union mobilization for workplace leave in California and Pennsylvania

The US lags behind many other countries – industrialized and unindustrialized – with regard to workers’ rights to leave benefits, such as family leave, sick leave, and maternity/childbearing leave. Workers represented by unions are more likely to have access to such leave benefits in their contracts, but unions also mobilize politically—as social movement organizations—for policy changes that impact all workers regardless of membership. Recently, unions and other organizations in the US have mobilized at the state-level to obtain broader access to leave benefits for workers. This paper reports on a current study asking: Under what political, institutional, and social conditions do unions and their coalition partners win state-mandated leave benefits? Based on transcripts from legislative committee hearings and interviews with union and community organizers, this paper compares movement mobilization in California and Pennsylvania to understand how the contexts of mobilization play a role in outcomes. Both California and Pennsylvania have above-average union density, yet they are starkly different with regard to state-mandated leave. California workers have access to State Disability Insurance for pregnancy and childbearing leave and unpaid leave to attend their children’s school activities, among other types of leave. But Pennsylvania has no state-mandated leave. What explains this difference? Preliminary research emphasizes the importance of the political make-up of state legislatures and movement organizations’ relationships with elected officials, thus supporting social theories of political mediation. However, union strength and the extent to which unions are involved in movements for state-mandated leave also play a role, raising questions about the fate of state-mandated workplace rights in the current context of a weakening US union movement. The methodological challenges of linking movement mobilization to outcomes, such as policy changes, are well-known. Future work to supplement qualitative case research with quantitative event history analysis will be discussed.