Supporting Working Families with the Paid Parental Leave Act & Right to Nourish Act

Councilmember Andrew Friedson stands with colleagues and supporters in front of the County Council Building in Rockville after a press conference presenting the two new bills.

I am proud to celebrate the introduction of two important bills to support working parents. We cannot, and should not, be creating false choices for new parents to choose between nourishing their child, taking care of their own wellbeing, and having a fulfilling career. The Paid Parental Leave Act will provide 6 weeks of paid parental leave for 100% of county employees’ salary and includes spouse/domestic partners, as well as new foster and adoptive parents. The Right to Nourish Act will require county buildings to provide clean, private and properly equipped lactation rooms.

Being a new parent and balancing work and family is difficult enough. These combined efforts will help make it just a little bit easier while we recruit and retain talent and help county government lead by the power of our example as an employer of nearly 10,000 employees.

Last week at a press conference here in Rockville, we encountered a little drizzle but that did not stop us from uplifting working families! Many thanks to Delegate Ariana Kelly and Councilmember Nancy Navarro for their powerful words and support, along with Donna Rojas from Montgomery County Commission for Women, Karen Gomez Morales from Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington DC, and Michelle Fish with UFCW Local 1994 for joining us and sharing your testimonies. I am honored to introduce these critical measures that will impact all of our hard-working employees and their families, and hearing your stories shined a light on how sorely needed these provisions are. I am so proud to sponsor these bills and am grateful to every single one of my Montgomery County Council colleagues for signing on as co-sponsors!

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call our office. In the meantime, if you are curious about learning more about the two bills, here are the links to:

• My remarks from the press conference (Youtube)
• The full press release for the bills
• Links to local news articles (Montgomery County Website)

If you are interested in tuning in the public hearings for these bills, both are tentatively scheduled for July 12, 2022 at 1:30 p.m and will be available on the Montgomery County Council Youtube channel. As always, we encourage those who feel passionately to sign up to provide public testimony either live or in a pre-recorded manner. 

Constituent Services

I encourage residents to continue to engage with my office on issues of importance to our community. We appreciate your patience and understanding as our small but mighty team works to respond to your inquiries. Please continue to engage with us by email, visiting our website, Facebook, and Twitter pages, and subscribing to our newsletter.