A RESOLUTION requesting a plan to develop an “Infants at Work” pilot program for eligible City of Seattle employees and their infants.
Bill passes and chair was sign it. Please read the first agenda item. The report of the City Council Agenda Item one Resolution 319 ten requesting a plan to develop an infant scent work pilot program for eligible city of Seattle employees and their infants. Councilmember Mosquito. Thank you, Mr. President, and thanks, council colleagues and all of the folks who came to testify today. And over the last few months, as we've been putting this presentation together to bring forward for the city's consideration, as you heard, bringing children to work has become a growing trend, allowing parents and caretakers the ability to come back to work while having the bonding time that they need with their new child. Let me be very clear about something. This is about all genders and all family types. This is about making sure that parents and guardians can bring their children to work if they need to. And there's very positive reasons for this. The ability to bond, the ability to be around children. Making sure that we are both addressing the health benefits of having those kiddos around. And there's also an equity issue that we're trying to address here. The negative consequences of having the lack of childcare, the lack of access to childcare, and the lack of affordable childcare. So this resolution, this effort today really combines both the positive aspects of having time with your kiddo and addresses the real consequences of having lack of access to childcare. We'll continue to work on these issues as we celebrate that every family now has the ability to take 12 weeks of paid leave beginning in 2020. We know that many families will potentially not be able to take this full 12 weeks because it's not full pay in some cases. And we're very excited that our state is now leading the nation in the length of time that every parent and adoptive parent and folks who are getting a child through various ways will be able to take 12 weeks. But this is pales in comparison to what other countries offer six months, a year, two years of guaranteed paid time off and guaranteed income. So while we're happy about the ability to now have more families to be able to take leave, we also know that at the end of those 12 weeks, many families are faced with the impossible decision of whether or not they pay for childcare, leave the job market, and what to do with their kiddo. This resolution offers a solution to enforce that work resolution and ask the executive to consider with input from the community, including the Women's Commission, Office of Civil Rights, Office of Labor Standards, our City Unions, new parents and Guardians and the Workforce Equity Planning and Advisory Committee to come up with a pilot strategy within six months that we can implement here at the City of Seattle. We know these programs are good for employees in workplaces. They reduce turnover, reduce stress for parents and guardians while increasing the health outcomes of kids by allowing for additional bonding time and breastfeeding and breastfeeding. The benefits go on. There's increased healthy brain development for the child, greater job satisfaction for the employee, and lower health care costs. And importantly, we don't talk about this often within that first 12 months when a parent is able to be with their infant. There is reduction in parental suicide and reduction in complications for the health of the parent. And this is also true for those who are adopting kiddos. There is increased life expectancy for kids when they're able to stay with their parents and have additional breastfeeding just feeding time and to be close to their parent or guardian. So I also want to be clear about another thing. This is not for me. This is not for me. This is for every employee here at the city of Seattle. I am lucky in that we have cobbled together various leave opportunities for the first year of our infant's life to come. This is about a long standing policy that we know to be a true and proven public health benefit when infants can come to work. It is good for the health of that baby. It is good for the health of the parent and guardian. And frankly, it's good for the health of the employer as well. So to anyone who's asking, this is absolutely about the greater good of Seattle's workforce. And in Seattle, we like to be pioneers. We like to have a plot ourselves for all the work that we've done on labor standards. But let's be real. We're actually catching up on this one. We're making up for lost time. We are not the first ones, as you've heard. There's at least 200 companies across the country with countless non-profits and for profit businesses, including municipalities like you heard from King County, Washington State Department of Health has already implemented this. And in King County, I was really inspired by the report that we received at the Board of Health, initiated by Councilmembers and Barofsky, to allow for people to bring their infants to work. Thanks again to Christina Logsdon and Elizabeth Evans from the King County Office of Councilmember Dombroski for their work to initiate a pilot at King County and their support for this resolution. The resolution largely tracks what King County has implemented, and there's three new additions that I'd like to call out, Mr. President, that I think are important. Please do. The first is that we're promoting equity across economic status and job classifications. So this resolution asks the question what alternative options exist for employees like bus drivers, firefighters, police officers, frontline folks who cannot bring their kiddo to work physically with them? Maybe there's a flexible schedule, childcare subsidies, additional paid time off, something like that to compensate for those individuals who work in somewhat dangerous situations. The second thing is we are going to ensure success with this. With this proposal, we've ensured success by asking for training programs for both participating staff and NONPARTICIPATING staff to ensure for successful programing . And as you've heard from Elizabeth Evans and Christina Logsdon, the presence of infants sometimes can actually be a boon for the entire workplace, not just for the infant and the parent. And then lastly, there's a racial equity and cultural competency component to this. We've asked for cultural and religious accommodations to be baked into the pilot. And this also recognizes what Christina and Elizabeth said, which is often it's women of color who have less life likelihood of having the longevity of breastfeeding, and that further complicates health outcomes. So the resolution is designed to ask the mayor to give us a pilot within the first six months sorry, between now and six months from now, we are hoping that the mayor will work with us and with the community at large to come up with both the financial needs, the policy framework and the training opportunities. And we look forward to implementing the strategy within a six month period. We're also going to be looking at training and alternative provisions as well as physical safety requests for kiddos and making sure that there's a successful workplace. And with that, I'd just like to thank the folks who helped to bring this resolution to you today. Protect 17 are union friends. Martin Luther King County Labor Council, who you heard from at Katie Jarrow, Civic Ventures, Moms Rising who testified. Police officers working in Washington, the Fair Work Center, Office of Labor Centers, Office of Civil Rights. And again, Councilmember Dombrowski. Special thanks to several in our office for coordinating with all of those stakeholders to bring this forward. And with that, Mr. President, I'm really excited about the resolution in front of you. Thank you very much, Councilmember Skeeter, Casper and Bagshaw. Thank you. Councilmember Mosquito, it would be just fine with me if you were doing this for Camilla. So you thank you. I appreciate the fact that you acknowledge that this is for the better. Good. And I do want to say thank you to Councilmember Dombrowski across the street, our good friend from public health. But also since we know and in the mayor's budget that she has indicated to us that you're my request to have a child care center in 2020, and city hall does not look like we're going to have the support that we had hoped for. But this is at least something to get us started. And I'm interested in knowing and I'm sure that we'll hear a lot more about this in the coming months. But whether or not there will be set aside rooms for people that want to go down, take their child if the child is fussy, but, you know, have computers set up places for them to continue work, having, you know, quieting their child and also separate breastfeeding rooms more than what we've got already. So I know that this is just a study, but I would really love to see if we can be really creative about this. So everybody has privacy when needed and the child can stay with a parent. Excellent. Thank you, Casper. And make sure you know the comments or questions before we vote on this resolution. And I want to just make a quick sort of personal comment. Thank you, Councilmember Muscat, for bringing this legislation forward. And for those that testified this today, one of our Legislative Department employees had a young son here visiting, and I think there was something going on around the afternoon that required him to be here. And I have to admit, it just it warms my heart just to be able to, because this employee still could do the job. They do it quite well, by the way. But I looked at this young boy and. And then I told my staff and I walked in, I had a chance to ride the elevator with them. I said, Well, that was me because my mother and father work for the city, both about 30 years apiece. And I was always down here in the library because that's where she worked. And it's city like with my father. And while there weren't official policies like this, they were just long term employees and they were younger then in their twenties and thirties. But I was welcomed and I don't think they had a lot of options. I think I was sort of stuck down here sometimes for appointments and whatnot, but I think that this kind of thing changed the culture to where we could say we want to be not just infant friendly, but children friendly. And and so I like where we're heading with this. I think we'll see the benefits of this kind of policy five, ten, 15 years down as cultures change in the workplace. So thank you for bringing this forward. Okay. There's no other soapboxes to get on. I'm going to move this. I move to adopt resolution 31910. Oh, thank you. Moved in second and any other comments those in favor of adopting the resolution 31910. Please vote i i those oppose vote no. The motion carries the resolution is adopted chair will sign it. You're right. Please read the next agenda item into the record.