Saw this graphic on Twitter today and couldn’t believe it was accurate, so also looked at Wikipedia
Holy smoke! That’s kind of unbelieveable in the 21st century … isn’t it?
The law was passed in 1993, this is Bill Clinton?
Oh, I’m so sorry. I meant for this to go in IMHO. Apologies!
There is paid maternity leave in the US, but it’s a benefit above and beyond what’s required in the FMLA, which specifies the minimum requirements (for qualifying employers.) The FMLA also requires employers to continue benefits (health insurance, etc.) while the employee is on leave.
Oh okay, some discretionary just not statutory. And paid benefits, but not salary.
So the graphic is correct?
It’s correct as to what the FMLA requires. It’s not entirely correct as to what people get. Some have maternity coverage that exceeds FMLA requirements. A lot of people work for small businesses with no FMLA coverage at all.
Did you see this big long thread: So how do you feel about paid parental leave?
You know a read something about … something. Maybe that’s why this graphic was on Twitter in the first place.
Okay, thank you, I’ll go read that thread now.
Sorry!
No mandatory paid maternity leave. Most employers with halfway decent benefit packages provide it, but they do so for reasons of competition rather than obligation.
There’s no mandatory PTO of any kind, I don’t believe, not even medical.
And don’t even get me started on the bullshit that is, with a straight face, called “Right to Work” that is the rule in many states.
Correct, there is no statutory requirement for any kind of paid leave, which is one reason FMLA was passed. You don’t get your salary, but you are guaranteed that when your leave period ends you will have the same job or at least equivalent.
In the U.S., statutory requirements are minimal, regarding minimum wage, and overtime pay requirements for employees who are non-exempt. (Most salaried workers, as opposed to workers paid hourly, are considered exempt and employers are not required by law to pay them overtime.)
That was Cecil’s conclusion back in 2001:
Do Americans get less vacation than people in other developed countries?:
[QUOTE=Cecil Adams]
Sam compared time off from work in nine countries — six in Europe plus Japan, Canada, and the U.S. When it comes to public holidays, all the countries are pretty much alike, with totals ranging from eight days in the Netherlands and the U.K. to fourteen in Japan (the U.S. has nine).
It’s in the category of “required vacation at full pay” that we see a big difference. Outside the U.S., mandatory vacation time ranges from 10 days in Canada and Japan to 20 days in the Netherlands and the UK, 24 days in Germany, 25 in Sweden and France, and 35 days for managers in Italy. The required vacation in the U.S.? None.
[/QUOTE]
I have one nitpick with the reference to 10 days in Canada: in most provinces and federally, it’s expressed as two weeks (i.e. weekends are included). And in Saskatchewan, the minimum is higher: three weeks for a new hire, with increases depending on the number of years a person has worked for that employer.
It’s true to the extent that it looks solely at what laws are on the books and not at reality. Many Americans negotiate for and receive paid time off, even exceeding their counterparts in other first world countries. Meanwhile, I’d be amazed if maternity leave in most of Africa is anything more than a joke passed by corrupt governments to get more money from NGO’s by pretending to show that they care about women.
My daughter who works in the South of England in a fairly junior position, gets 25 days paid holiday, plus eight paid bank holidays making 33 in all. This is a little above average but not that unusual. If she has a baby, she will be entitled to six months paid maternity leave and another six months unpaid. at the end of which she is entitled to return to the same or a similar job.
If she falls ill, she will be paid her full salary for a period of time relating to her length of service. I believe that after ten years she could be paid for up to six months, subject to a doctor’s certificate.
Yep, that’s all pretty normal.
Is she entitled to the NHS?
So are you saying that many American new parents have negotiated for more than a year of paid parental leave, which is the norm in many 1st world countries?
It is the norm in many middle income countries, as well as a lot of developing lower income countries.
Technically, it is the norm for pretty much every nation except murca and a handful of 3rd world nations. 188 nations have it, 8 do not. The US and 7 third world countries.
Hell, we didn’t even have *unpaid *maternity leave until the 90s.
I don’t see what nit you are picking. Two weeks include 10 working days. The pay you get for the two weeks you don’t work is for the 10 days you would have worked. So why is saying “10 days” incorrect?
Many? How many?
Looking at a list of countries by paid time off, only Albania, Denmark, Lithuania and Norway have a full year off. Sweden and Russia are the only countries with more than a full year off. That’s not close to being most of Europe, much less most of the first world.
If you’re entitled to 10 days off, an employer could say, “Tomorrow’s the first of the month. I expect you back on the 11th.”
If you’re entitled to two weeks, the employer can’t say that. The employer can only say, “Tomorrow’s the first of the month. I expect you back on the 15th.”
I have two more, but they’re regarding how to count:
in some countries (for example Spain) what’s in the contract or group agreement is hours worked per year. Depending on how long your working days are, you get more or less days off. Firemen for example work 24h shifts, but they have several days off in between shifts. They get more days off than other people, but they don’t work less total hours (well, there is some variation between sectors, but I hope you understand what I mean).
Many Americans get days that in other countries would be counted (or rather, not counted) against those worked hours, but because they’re not asked for by the individual the Americans don’t count them as vacation. Yet other days which are not asked for by the individual in other countries are counted as vacation, being “days off which are not a weekend”.
Of course. How is that even a question?
The Australian paid leave came in in … seems to be 2009 according to the government website, so you’re not that far behind us. Didn’t exist in 2007, when I last had a kid. At the time, you were by law entitled to a year of unpaid leave, and your job back at the end if you wanted it.
As far as I am aware, the rules before that included no parental leave as such, but the government paid you a bunch of money at the kid’s birth, you could get unemployment benefit due to not working (unless you had a partner earning over X amount), and you didn’t need to look for a job till the youngest child was 5. Basically the whole caboodle was administered under the unemployment benefit system, which has always been much stronger here than in the US