Clinton campaigns on family leave

MANCHESTER -- Speaking at a YWCA founded to help girls working in the mills, Hillary Clinton today offered her proposal for helping parents cope with work and childrearing.

Clinton would encourage all states to pass paid family leave into law, and she would put $1 billion a year into federal fund for matching grants to help that happen. She would also have the Department of Labor award grants to businesses experimenting with so-called family-friendly policies.

She would also extend the Family and Medical Leave Act to all businesses with more than 25 works. It currently applies only to businesses with more than 50 employees. And she would provide grants to states to provide financial support to low-income stay-at-home parents.

"Today, women can be fired just for being pregnant, if their employer has no leave policy" she said. "If that sounds horribly outdated, that's because it is."