Happy 20th Birthday: Q&A With The Women Behind The Family And Medical Leave Act

Meet The Women Behind FMLA

On Monday night, Debra Ness and Judith Lichtman attended a birthday party. Ness is the president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, and Lichtman successfully lobbied for the group’s Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which turned 20 this week.

There was a yellow cake with white icing that was inscribed, Happy birthday, FMLA. It had two candles — a 2 and a 0. But it just as easily could have had 100 million, which is the number of times the Act has been used since its inception.

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