Family Leave Act Extended To White House Employees

President Clinton has boasted all year that his Family and Medical Leave law has permitted 12 million American workers to take time off from their jobs to spend with ailing relatives without the risk of reprisal.

Turns out it didn’t officially apply to those who work at the White House or the president’s own executive office.

So on Saturday Clinton signed legislation correcting that.

He said he did so even though he had already acted to assure, “as a matter of policy,” that White House employees could take liberal family and medical leave.

The practical result, Clinton said, is that “future presidents will be bound to give their employees the same rights I have afforded voluntarily.”

Clinton said the new law, which is modeled on the law Congress passed last year to extend workplace protections to House and Senate employees, also guarantees the protection of basic civil rights, labor, health and safety laws to the chefs and butlers and gardeners and electricians who toil at the White House.

Again, the president said these workers were already covered by other statutes.