Change.org challenges organizations to expand parental leave
The petition site is starting a movement of its own, and using some shrewd PR to do it.
Social change has been a hallmark of petition site Change.org since it launched in 2007. But a new move from the organization is at once a shrewd PR move and a step in the social change direction.
A Change.org blog on the Huffington Post details the company’s new parental leave policy that grants all parents—mothers, fathers, biological, adoptive—a full 18 weeks of paid leave.
David Hanrahan, the company’s HR chief, bluntly writes, “The state of parental leave in the U.S. sucks … the U.S. is one of only three countries (the other two are Oman and Papua New Guinea) to not mandate some level of paid parental leave at the federal level.”
Hanrahan says “business leaders should step up and offer paid parental leave—for all parents—at least at the FMLA minimum of 12 weeks.” He’s referring to the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act, which requires companies to grant leave for 12 weeks, but not to guarantee pay during that time.
The campaign even comes with its own #ChangeLeave hashtag:
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