Home > APC Alerts! > Parental Leave With Pay

Parental Leave With Pay

The CSU Publishes Inaccurate Information on Parental Leave With Pay (The APC Advocate, Fall 2002)

Once again, the CSU has released incorrect and incomplete information about your rights, this time concerning parental leave benefits for Unit 4 employees.

In its recently published Benefits Summary for Unit 4, the University states: "You are eligible for 20 days of paid maternity/paternity/adoption leave if initiated within 60 days of the arrival of your new child." (emphasis ours)

This simply is not true. As we reported in the last issue of The APC Advocate, APC had to relentlessly pursue a grievance on this matter until the CSU ultimately was willing to reach an agreement that the Union believed was consistent with what we had negotiated.

And now, only a matter of months after signing that agreement, the Chancellor's Office has published information on parental rights that simply ignores the terms of the settlement. (For correct information on your right as a Unit 4 employee to parental leave with pay, see The Agreement on Parental Leave With Pay, below.)

It may sometimes seem that APC makes too much of discrepancies like these. But this isn't simply a case of a particular CSU publication containing inaccurate information. Instead, unfortunately, it reflects an institutional attitude on the part of the University that pays little attention to details that would benefit employees.

And this attitude ultimately results in employees not receiving benefits, and not exercising their rights, as provided for in our contract!

The most important lesson here is that Unit 4 members cannot rely on the CSU for accurate information on their rights and benefits under the contract. Only if all of us in Unit 4 continue to be aware of our rights, and our union continues to exercise vigilance and take action on our behalf, will we have any real chance of preventing the CSU from simply doing whatever it wants.

The Agreement on Parental Leave With Pay

APC and the CSU have agreed to the following interpretation of Article 20.14 of the contract (“Maternity/ Paternity/Adoption Leave” with pay):

• Eligibility for use of parental leave begins with the arrival of the new child; that is, an employee may not use this leave to prepare for the child's arrival.
• The use of an employee's twenty days of parental leave must be initiated within one year of the child's birth, adoption or foster care placement.
• Days of parental leave do not have to be taken consecutively.

Questions? Concerns?

If you have any questions or concerns about this Alert!, please contact your campus steward (for information on how to contact APC, click here).

Back to Top Home

8/8/03

For information on chapter elections, contact a campus steward. For information on the election of statewide officers, click here.

Help us help you! submit a change of contact information or unit/membership status directly to APC's Statewide Office!

On March 2, 2006, APC and the California Faculty Association announced their new alliance.