State legislators are considering a bill that would provide grandparents with one week of family leave per year to care for a grandchild with a serious health condition.

Currently, state law allows employees to take up to a month of paid or unpaid family leave per year if they have or adopt a child or need to care for a sick family member, but it excludes taking that leave to care for grandchildren.

House Bill 1343 Opens in a new tab would partially extend family leave to working grandparents.

Supporters argue that there is an increasing number of grandparents in Hawaii who are the primary caregivers for their grandchildren, but state laws do not reflect that.

“By allowing grandparents protected leave, this proposal would better align policy with the realities of Hawaii’s families,” according to testimony from the Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women.

About 12,500 grandparents in Hawaii housed and were responsible for their grandchildren in 2018, according to Grandfamilies.org. About 60 percent of those grandparents were employed and about half were younger than 60 years old.

The retail merchants of Hawaii and the Chamber of Commerce Hawaii opposed the bill, citing the additional burdens it would place on businesses.

“Policy makers should be focusing on eliminating obstacles to business growth, job creation and economic stability and not adding additional costs that employers cannot afford,” the Retail Merchants said in its testimony against giving grandparents a month of family leave.

Although HB 1343 had originally looked to give grandparents a full month of family leave to care for a sick grandchild, it was reduced to a week by the Senate.

“This is probably the least we can do to allow grandparents to support in caregiving,” said Khara Jabola-Carolus, executive director for the Hawai‘i State Commission on the Status of Women. “I mean it’s unpaid, it’s one week, and so it’s not by any means going to impact business in a substantial way…That’s kind of an absurd thought.”

Tina Yamaki, president of Retail Merchants, said that while the leave is unpaid, businesses will still take a hit.

“What people don’t realize is that, when people take family leave…we’ve still got to pay for their health care, we’ve got to pay for somebody else to take their place,” she said, adding that there are many costs businesses in Hawaii already have to incur.

WalletHub found that Hawaii was the worst state in the country to start a business in 2018, a rank that factors in costs of business such as the price of office spaces, labor and health insurance for employees.

Yamaki said that she knows of 75 businesses that had to close one or more stores during the two years she has been president of RMH.

The Retail Merchants organization also argues that grandparents may already be covered for family leave under federal law if they are their grandchild’s guardian, serving as a legal parent in place of a child’s biological mother or father, or providing psychological support to their children by caring for their grandchildren.

“We feel for the grandkids who are sick, but…we have to look at, is our business going to survive?” Yamaki said.

She also said that those costs increase product prices and so are passed onto the customer, but prices can only be increased by so much.

“Where do you go after you can’t raise your rates that much?” she said. “People are going to be cut, and these people might have kids…[It’s] part of doing business, because you have to make a profit. You can’t be in a deficit, because your business won’t survive.”

Supporters of family leave also believed bolstered family leave would be helpful for women.

“They are the primary caregivers of infants, children and aging parents,” the Hawaii Children’s Action Network said in a testimony. “The lack of paid family leave exacerbates the gender wage gap for women.”

Jabola-Carolus said that after childbirth, women alone usually carry the burden of caring for their newborn.

“Women have to do all of this unpaid work and assume all of the costs for that, and businesses assume nothing,” she said. “Business is not hurt, but our families are hurt. Our No. 1 priority is protecting businesses and productivity, and the cost of that, you know, is being subsidized by women.”

The rights of grandparents as caregivers is of particular importance locally, as grandparents in Hawaii are more likely to be an important caregiver for their grandchildren than grandparents anywhere else in the United States.

About 11 percent of households in Hawaii, or about 34,400 families, have three or more generations living together — the highest percentage in the country based on data from 2009 to 2011.

California had the second-highest percentage of such multigenerational households at about 8%, and as a whole, 5.6% of households in the United States are multigenerational.

The bill is scheduled to be heard by the Senate Committee on Ways and Means at 10:35 a.m. today.