Dev Stahlkopf, Microsoft Corp. general counsel.

Dev Stahlkopf, vice president and general counsel for Microsoft Corp., Thursday announced in a blog post that over the next year, the company will require that its major suppliers provide employees who handle Microsoft work with paid parental leave.

A spokesperson for Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft confirmed that the company will include its outside counsel among those suppliers, but declined to answer further questions about the policy.

“We rely on a wide array of other companies to supply us with goods and services that reflect their core competencies, and the people who work for our suppliers also are critical to our success,” Stahlkopf wrote.

Three years ago, Microsoft announced that it would require a variety of suppliers in the United States to provide their employees with paid time off. Thursday's announcement builds on that policy.

“Over the next 12 months we will work with our U.S. suppliers to implement this new paid parental leave policy,” the GC said.

Here are more details of the policy, according to Stahlkopf's post:

  • Microsoft will require suppliers to offer their employees a minimum of 12 weeks paid parental leave, up to $1,000 per week.
  • The leave is for parents employed by suppliers who take time off for the birth or adoption of a child.
  • It applies to suppliers with more than 50 employees, and covers employees “who perform substantial work for Microsoft. “
  • It is a minimum requirement, and is not intended to supplant any state or future federal law that offers more.
  • The state of Washington passed a paid parental leave law last year that goes into effect in 2020. But the company said it made the decision to apply the requirement more broadly, outside Washington, and not to wait until 2020.

“Microsoft will work with our suppliers to understand the impacts of this change, and we will make these changes in a thoughtful way,” the blog post stated, including discussing a process to address the increased costs such a policy would generate.

“Like many large employers, we welcome the opportunity to engage in the important national conversation about how all U.S. workers, regardless of where they work, can access paid parental leave,” Stahlkopf said.

Some businesses voluntarily offer paid leave to employees, and several states require employers to provide some paid leave, including California, New York and the District of Columbia.

In a statement, Ellen Bravo, co-director of the advocacy group Family Values @ Work, praised Microsoft's decision while saying the country needs a federal social insurance fund to pay for paid leave for all families.

“We applaud Microsoft for the leadership they've given in the fight for paid leave,” Bravo said. “At the same time, we have to ensure time to care does not remain a workplace perk dependent on who you work for or where you live.”

She called the United States “an outlier when it comes to paid leave,” and urged the nation to catch up to the rest of the world.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, with support from White House adviser Ivanka Trump, introduced a parental leave bill in Congress earlier this month. But the controversial bill would draw funds from an employee's Social Security benefits to “pay” for the leave.