HARRISBURG State workers' contract includes same-sex benefits

Rules will be written to define who qualifies as a domestic partner.
HARRISBURG (AP) -- Pennsylvania is now providing family and sick leave benefits to the domestic partners of homosexual state employees under a little-known clause in a 5-week-old labor contract.
The benefits, which went into force July 1, cover about 13,000 employees in locals affiliated with the Service Employees International Union, many of whom are nurses, social workers or counselors.
SEIU negotiators pushed for the extension of benefits when they negotiated a new four-year contract for an affiliate, the Pennsylvania Social Services Union. The administration of Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell "was pleased to facilitate it," said Robert Barnett, the secretary of administration who negotiated the contract.
Under the new rules, a qualifying employee can take five paid days off -- and more in certain situations -- if his or her domestic partner or one of the domestic partner's family members, such as a parent or a child, becomes sick or dies.
Unpaid leave
In addition, the contract allows for 12 weeks of unpaid leave with benefits, the same benefit provided to married couples in the 1993 federal Family and Medical Leave Act.
Heterosexual couples must be married to receive those benefits, but same-sex couples do not have the option of marriage, Barnett said.
The contract does not include the more expensive health-care benefits, according to the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group in Washington, D.C.
In addition, Barnett said he anticipated that the benefit would be extended to another 13,000 nonunion managers and supervisors employed by the state, meaning that the benefit would cover one-third of the state's workers.
Regulations to define who qualifies as a domestic partner -- such as extended cohabitation, and evidence of mutually owned property -- are expected to be written in the coming weeks, Barnett said.
Pennsylvania is the eighth state to extend that kind of benefit, whether paid or unpaid, to the domestic partners of its gay and lesbian employees, Human Rights Campaign said.
News of the agreement became more widely known Tuesday when The Patriot-News in Harrisburg published a front-page story about it.
Republican response
Though a union official said the entire contract has been made public on PSSU's Web site in recent weeks, Republicans wondered why they found out about the provision in a newspaper.
Steve Miskin, a spokesman for House Republican Leader Sam Smith of Jefferson County, said the agreement was carried out in "secrecy."
"Among the conservatives, there is a very strong feeling of concern," Miskin said. "This was a major departure from an area where governors have previously gone in labor contracts."
The federal and state constitutions would prevent the Legislature from removing the clause from the contract, but lawmakers could outlaw the extension of similar benefits in future labor agreements or to nonunion employees, said Stephen C. MacNett, lead counsel to Senate Republicans.
William Devlin, founder of the Urban Family Council -- which sued Philadelphia over a 1998 ordinance signed by then-Mayor Rendell that extended health insurance to partners of gay city employees -- said the group would likely sue over this matter, too.
Offering the same-sex benefit "weakens the institution of marriage economically, legally, psychologically, culturally and spiritually," Devlin said.
The group's suit against Philadelphia is pending with the state Supreme Court.
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