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Giannoulias Allows Benefits for Same-Sex Couples
The state treasurer's office is extending the benefits of family and medical leave to employees in same-sex relationships.

Employees of the treasurer's office who live with a same-sex partner are entitled to the benefits that married couples get: unpaid leave for child birth or adoption, to attend to the partner's illness, or for bereavement, under a policy announced by state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias.

He says it's not any kind of special right. "My action on this issue does nothing more than provide gay and lesbian employees with the same basic rights that other employees have long come to expect," he said before signing an executive order on Sunday at the Thompson Center in Chicago. "It also marks an important step toward fairness, and one that is long overdue."

The treasurer's office has about 180 employees, the bulk of them in Springfield and Chicago, though there are satellite offices in Effingham, Mount Vernon, Rock Island and Rockford . Giannoulias did not know how many employees would qualify. The treasurer's office is the first state agency to extend this benefit.

State Rep. Greg Harris (D-Chicago) says this is common in the private sector, with 76 percent of the Top 1,000 companies offering Family and Medical Leave Act benefits to gay and lesbian employees.

(Illinois Radio Network)
06 14 10 by Newsroom
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