Sen. Amy Klobuchar has changed a policy that required staffers who took up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave to remain employed in her Senate office for three times as many weeks once they returned to work, or pay back their salary.
If an employee left after returning from maternity or paternity leave, they would be required to pay back what they were paid while they were on leave, the New York Times reported Friday.
An aide in the Minnesota Democrat’s office told CNN that the policy has been updated in the staff handbook after it was brought to their attention earlier this week.
“We offer 12 weeks of paid maternity and paternity leave for our staff and have one of the strongest paid leave policies in the Senate,” Klobuchar spokeswoman Elana Ross said. “We’ve never made staff pay back any of their leave.”
The policy was noted in the latest story about Klobuchar’s alleged mistreatment of people who work for her, which recounted an anecdote about the senator eating a salad on a plane with a comb, then making the staffer who forgot a fork clean it.
Klobuchar, who announced earlier this month she is running for president in 2020, has acknowledged she can be a demanding boss. She has not, however, admitted to any of the specific incidents shared by former staffers.
