Senate Appropriations Committee includes $10 million for state paid family leave programs:

In its draft budget, the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee has included $10 million to help states cover start-up costs for paid family leave programs. It’s not the full $50 million that President Obama proposed, and the federal budget process isn’t finished yet, but this is a promising step for working Americans. So what does this mean for the status of Washington’s stalled paid family leave program? | Read more

Grocery workers’ sick deal

From Nicole Brodeur in the Seattle Times:

Tasha West-Baker can make you a latte, slice your lunch meat or make you a cake at Safeway.

And she could make your entire family ill for days.

West-Baker doesn’t get paid sick days from the grocery chain, where she has worked for seven years. She works four days a week to support three kids on her own. Just staying home with a cold for three days could cost her 75 percent of her weekly paycheck.

That means that when she’s sick, she’s at Safeway – at the Starbucks kiosk, at the deli, in the bakery – and sending her sickness home with our groceries.

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