Workforce
Laborers' Add Paid Maternity Benefit for Women Union Members
An estimated 5,000 women craft workers attended the annual Tradeswomen Build Nations conference in New Orleans Sept. 28-29, including about 600 members of the Laborers' International Union of North America.
Photo courtesy of U.S. Dept. of Labor/Annie Flanagan, CC 2.0
As of Jan. 1, a minimum of 12 weeks of paid maternity leave will be available to members of the Laborers’ International Union of North America's General President Brent Booker announced Sept. 28 at the Tradeswomen Build Nations conference in New Orleans.
“We’re looking to the future and we want all members, including female members, to know that we value them,” he said, noting the benefit of $800 per week.
With construction labor shortages a continuing source of industry concern, the union’s new policy is “an effort to bring more women into LIUNA and better the lives of the ones we already have,” said Booker at the annual tradeswomen event which the union said had more 5,000 participants, including more than 600 of its members from 33 states.
In 2017, the Ironworkers' became the first building trades union to announce a maternity leave benefits policy, offering six months of paid leave and six weeks of postpartum leave, or eight weeks for C-section births, up to $800 a week after meeting certain requirements.
In 2018, the North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters, part of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, launched its own comparable policy. Prior to its enactment, paid pregnancy and maternity leave was the most frequently cited barrier to industry recruitment and retention according to the council's survey of its women members.
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