[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 29, Number 5 (Monday, February 8, 1993)]
[Pages 144-146]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Statement on Signing the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993

 February 5, 1993

    Today, I am pleased to sign into law H.R. 1, the ``Family and 
Medical Leave Act of 1993.'' I believe that this legislation is a 
response to a compelling need--the need of the American family for 
flexibility in the workplace. American workers will no longer have to 
choose between the job they need and the family they love.
    This legislation mandates that public and private employers with at 
least fifty workers provide their employees with family and medical 
leave. At its core is the provision for employees to take up to 12 weeks 
of unpaid leave for the care of a newborn or newly adopted child, for 
the care of a family member with a serious medical condition, or for

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their own illness. It also requires employers to maintain health 
insurance coverage and job protection for the duration of the leave. It 
sets minimum length of service and hours of work requirements before 
employees become eligible.
    The need for this legislation is clear. The American workforce has 
changed dramatically in recent years. These changes have created a 
substantial and growing need for family and medical leave for working 
Americans.
    In 1965, about 35 percent of mothers with children under 18 were 
labor force participants. By 1992, that figure had reached 67 percent. 
By the year 2005, one of every two people entering the workforce will be 
women.
    The rising cost of living has also made two incomes a necessity in 
many areas of this country, with both parents working or looking for 
work in 48 percent, or nearly half, of all two parent families with 
children in the United States.
    Single parent families have also grown rapidly, from 16 percent of 
all families with children in 1975 to 27 percent in 1992. Finally, with 
America's population aging, more working Americans have to take time off 
from work to attend to the medical needs of elderly parents.
    As a rising number of American workers must deal with the dual 
pressures of family and job, the failure to accommodate these workers 
with adequate family and medical leave policies has forced too many 
Americans to choose between their job security and family emergencies. 
It has also resulted in inadequate job protection for working parents 
and other employees who have serious health conditions that temporarily 
prevent them from working. It is neither fair nor necessary to ask 
working Americans to choose between their jobs and their families--
between continuing their employment and tending to their own health or 
to vital needs at home.
    Although many enlightened companies have recognized the benefits to 
be realized from a system providing for family and medical leave, not 
all do. We all as a nation must join hands and extend the ethic of long-
term workplace relationships and reciprocal commitment between employer 
and employee. It is only when workers can count on a commitment from 
their employer that they can make their own full commitments to their 
jobs. We must extend the success of those forward-looking workplaces 
where high-performance teamwork has already begun to take root and where 
family and medical leave already is accepted.
    Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics support the conclusion that 
American business has been fully responsive to the need of workers for 
family and medical leave. This data showed that, in 1991, for private 
business establishments with 100 workers or more, 37 percent of all 
full-time employees (and 19 percent of all part-time employees) had 
unpaid maternity leave available to them, and only 26 percent of all 
full-time employees in such establishments had unpaid paternity leave 
available. The most recently available data for smaller business 
establishments (those with fewer than 100 workers) are for 1990, and 
show that only 14 percent of all these employees had unpaid maternity 
leave available, and only 6 percent had unpaid paternity leave 
available.
    The insufficient response to the family and medical leave needs of 
workers has come at a high cost to both the American family and to 
American business. There is a direct correlation between health and job 
security in the family home and productivity in the workplace. When 
businesses do not give workers leave for family needs, they fail to 
establish a working environment that can promote heightened 
productivity, lessened job turnover, and reduced absenteeism.
    We all bear the cost when workers are forced to choose between 
keeping their jobs and meeting their personal and family obligations. 
When they must sacrifice their jobs, we all have to pay more for the 
essential but costly safety net. When they ignore their own health needs 
or their family obligations in order to keep their jobs, we all have to 
pay more for social services and medical care as neglected problems 
worsen.
    The time has come for Federal legislation to bring fair and sensible 
family and medical leave policies to the American workplace. Currently, 
the United States is virtually the only advanced industrialized country 
without a national family and medical leave policy.

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Now, with the signing of this bill, American workers in all 50 States 
will enjoy the same rights as workers in other nations. This legislation 
balances the demands of the workplace with the needs of families. In 
supporting families, it promotes job stability and efficiency in the 
American workplace.
    The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 sets a standard that is 
long overdue in working America. I am very pleased to sign this 
legislation into law.
                                            William J. Clinton
The White House,
February 5, 1993.

Note: H.R. 1, approved February 5, was assigned Public Law No. 103-3.