I’m a staff attorney at the Sustainable Economies Law Center and my baby is due very soon. Together, along with my co-workers Alejandra Cruz and Jay Cumberland, whose baby was born November 2021, last year we proposed a bold policy change: support staff members by providing 40 weeks of paid parental leave.

The Sustainable Economies Law Center is a nonprofit organization democratically run by staff co-stewards who are caring, trusting, and radical. To give you a picture of our organizational culture, here are some of the policies that already make us unique:

• We have a needs-based salary calculator that starts off by treating all staff members, including lawyers and legal apprentices, equally.
• We have a paid “free time off” policy, meaning staff take the time off they need without arbitrary limits, and instead focus on achieving agreed-upon deliverables rather than hours on the clock.
• We enjoy a 30-hour work week with benefits.
• We earn a 3-month paid sabbatical after 5 years of working.

Still, the proposal for a 40-week paid parental leave policy proposal was controversial. Along with my two co-workers, I helped draft an organizational policy proposal to support pregnant people and new parents. It poured out of us with joyful optimism, out of love for the women and children we’ve encountered and supported over the years. We came with a fire in our bellies ignited by the capitalist devaluing of motherhood, in particular Black and Brown motherhood. We had decolonizing ...

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