Here in New Zealand it’s the second situation Paid Parental Leave is paid by the state rather than the Employer (and it’s capped at a maximum of around $500 per week). The Employer pays any replacement worker like usual.
It’s worthwhile to note that parental leave is not at your normal salary. Sweden, for example, does 75% and caps it at level of about 40k per year.
In this case that is a mis-characterization of conservative opposition. Federally mandated parental leave is probably* going to cost money which will come from workers either as a tax or lower salary. Conservatives would rather keep that money and pay for child-care themselves or work it out with their employer.
You say we can afford it but on what basing your opinion? If I were to take 1 year of parental leave it would cost someone (government or business) well over $100k. Are you willing to pay that? Someone else already said it: parental leave is a great idea if we don’t look into how much it costs.
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- I’ll leave out arguments that parental leave will help the economy over-all.
Depends on the job, they may not require to hire someone else. In some place the workload may be more spread out that several people can cover someone’s job, at least parts of them, such that it is not a big burden on one person. Or even if only one person takes over, it may not be a huge burden. And that person may in turn have other helpers.
Also, it is a bit selfish train of thought. The idea is that everyone can participate in these leaves, so most of the people who have families will need this paid leave. Either to take care of their kids, take care of their parents (which can be another leave), or take care of themselves (disability leave). Or heck, even just taking regular paid vacation time. Therefore, yea, one coworker or groups of coworkers may be saddled by slightly extra job for a while, but eventually, they WILL also need to take some sort of leave, so the burden will be distributed amongst all. Today for you, tomorrow for me and all that.
Bolding mine.
Is this how it works in other countries?
I can see both sides. First we have to keep the birth rate up. This is good for society as a whole and a good use of money as public policy. On the flip side, I work as a social worker but I am licensed as a psychologist. But I get more benefits at my job because of the advanced degree and license even though I don’t use it. This definitely has caused resentment among my coworkers.
Work places should be as fair as possible but that isn’t always going to happen. For instance, what about having bereavement leave for that covers parents, children and spouses. You’re giving something to some people while others may, through no fault of their own, be unable to use it.
In my work I work with an NPO that helps people get off public assistance, so I personally feel Obama has little concern for helping and this is more a political thing. If he wanted to help, he’d do more on a basic level to help everyone. Even a simple thing, overtime for eight hours in a day (as opposed to 40 hours a week) would help a lot more.
Dunno about other countries, but at the place (university) I work, in a place that has paid parental leave and where people love to take all their vacation time at once, this is how it works. The work gets shuffled around. My coworker will go on institutional leave later this year and I have to cover and do his job on top of mine for a month. Last year while he was on vacation, I also had to cover him… and he was covering 2 other people so I was covering 3.
Did I do all the work? No, in one case the person left all her stuff in the bare minimum, so I was only needed for signatures and in case an emergency popped (which didn’t). In the second case, it was understood that I wouldn’t give as prompt reply as they were accustomed, but that it would be better than nothing and as quickly as possible, and in the last one, my colleague and I juggle responsibilities, so we just switched responsibilities a bit earlier.
For other staff, sometimes they have a pool of previous temporary workers that they can use and shuffle around as needed.
Leaving aside the cost, how is it fair to people who don’t have and don’t intent to ever have kids, or those who already have kids? They have to pay (and step up to fill in for those absent) even though it doesn’t benefit them at all really, and actually is just more work. Even if you stick this all to the rich (:dubious:), who does the persons work while they are out? Or does the company/rich also have to pay for a temp to do the job of the person out as well?
I guess I don’t see why we’d do this. We have FMLA, after all, so this seems to be a bit over the top. If Canada/Europe/whoever makes it work, that’s good for them, but I guess I’m not seeing why we should necessarily do the same. My wife and I both worked during the time we had kids, and when she got pregnant we’d set aside leave (sick and vacation), as well as money for when the babies would come, so that one of us could take off (and usually so my wife could take off a few months after the babies were born).
I plan on paying for my own retirement, but I don’t see Social Security as a waste. Same here: it’s a fallacy to believe that for something to be a benefit to society, it must be a benefit to every single member of society.
You’ve basically summed up why I am not thrilled with this idea. And I feel guilty about betraying my liberal/progressive leanings like this. But I can’t pretend I’m a fan of giving all parents, regardless of need, yet another benefit.
One of my coworkers is pregnant. It’s a high-risk pregnancy (she’s in her 40s), so she’s planning on taking some extra maternity leave on top of the usual. The other day she was complaining about how wrong it is that she’ll have to use all her annual and family/personal leave to fund this venture. By her own words, she can’t afford to take unpaid leave. And in her opinion, this is a disgrace and something society should fix.
When she said this, my mind instantly went back to the Fiscal Disacuity thread. She has two mortgages, owns three cars, and a boat. And yet apparently she doesn’t have enough savings to tie her over for six weeks? Why yes, that really is a disgrace. I’d have sympathy for her if she was trying to eek out a living on minimum wage, or if she didn’t already have a bank of paid leave to draw from. But someone in her position really doesn’t have a good excuse, especially since she had more than enough lead time to stow some money away. (I’m guessing she CAN afford to take unpaid leave, but the prospect of doing so bothers her a lot.)
If the bill came up for a referendum vote, I’d vote for it. But I’d only do so it covered all family caretaking, not just parenting. I imagine in the coming years, as Boomers’ health starts to decline, there will be a societal demand for something like this.
So those with no kids or who already have kids need to just suck it up for those who want both want to keep their job (which is what FMLA does) AND get paid to take off to be with their kids too? And you see this as a fair thing? I mean, I get the stick it to the companies and the rich thingy…it’s a recurring theme here…but this is going to also stick it to the co-workers of these folks, presumably both the male and female, since both parents would be off for some amount of time fully paid, right? If we are talking a week, then I guess that’s not too bad…if we are talking a month it’s going to get a bit more difficult. If we are talking month(s) or longer, though, it’s going to be pretty bad, unless said co-worker(s) jobs are so unimportant they won’t be missed.
I can see how this would work in Europe, since they are already used to long paid vacations every year. It’s part of their general make up, and frankly it says something about their own staffing that they can afford to have people gone for a month or two every year. I guess it works in Canada as well. I don’t believe it would work very well in the US, and as a poster up thread noted I can see this having negative implications for women especially, unless they do this for both parents…in which case, I can see negative implications for younger people of child bearing age. YMMV, but I’m not seeing this one.
I’m not a parent and never will be. I’m single and live alone.
What’s in it for me, other than having to occasionally take up the slack at work of others who are on leave?
Would you feel any resentment for your co-workers who would get a paid leave (over and above their vacation/sick leave that you all get) that you’d have to work harder to fill in for them (and possibly pay more in taxes) and could never get yourself? I know I would. It would be like the smokers break of a bygone era, except magnified many fold…and I can tell you that I’ve seen some extremely rancorous meetings talking about why do smokers get a break to smoke when other people who didn’t smoke didn’t get the same break (the solution, in the end, was to give everyone a similar break on a similar time frame to make it fair…and, for this to work as it does in Europe we’d need to do something similar. Which, of course, means more cost and probably more staffing levels because you’ll always have someone out for weeks or months more than they are currently getting vacation/sick leave for).
So what’s in it for me is - resentment?
Good to know.
You left aside the ‘cost you more’ and ‘more work’. Are those things good to know as well? 
If you are cool with it, then you are. I don’t believe that everyone will be as placid, however, at least based on my own experience in the work force in the US.
You know, I’m fine with Obama’s proposal that federal workers can advance their sick leave to cover maternity leave.
In my personal situation, I started a new job that offers zero, zip, zilch for maternity leave. I would like to have another kid, but it will be probably another year until I save up enough leave, and with day care costs I’m not sure I could save up enough to go without income for six weeks.
The only issue with this is that waiting another year will push me into a high-risk catagory, which isn’t a great outcome for anyone (and, incidently, will lead to me taking more leave for more frequent prenatal appintments.) I think advancing leave is an adequate solution to this issue. I don’t expect anything for free, but I don’t see what the big difference between six weeks now or six weeks later makes.
My co-workers had to pick up the slack when I was out for six weeks (and then worked only part time for another three weeks) after my husband’s brain surgery. I would have taken that time off regardless of California’s paid family leave benefit. My co-workers coped, and many halleluias were sung when I was able to come back. The benefit (about 2/3 of my salary) helped a lot, though.
More recently, I had to pick up the slack when a co-worker was fired, until they hired her replacement. That’s kind of how things work in our office - we all help each other out when needed.
shrug Is it fair for single people to pay taxes to fund public schools? I’m a childless homeowner, but I usually vote for property tax increases to funds schools. 'cuz, you know, I’m civic-minded and all that :).
Same thing, really. It’s a common benefit in industrialized nations and seems from my corner to be useful for society overall. Doesn’t really bother me as long as it has some sort of reasonable cap. Plus, I’m on hourly wages and so get paid overtime to cover missing people ;).
Anyone have any idea of how to quantify the value of fewer women dropping out of the workforce? Given other countries with paid leave, I am comfortable with the notion that this would be a result, but I think an economic argument might be more powerful than some of the others being made.
[QUOTE=even sven]
You know, I’m fine with Obama’s proposal that federal workers can advance their sick leave to cover maternity leave.
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The OPs link doesn’t work and I haven’t read through the proposal, but if all we are talking about is advancing leave they already get then I’m totally fine with that. In fact, we do that already where I work, so I don’t see it as a change at all (and as I’ve worked as a contractor for the Federal Government before, I know they already do this, though informally and off the books in a lot of places. It’s all up to the supervisor).
[QUOTE=Tamerlane]
shrug Is it fair for single people to pay taxes to fund public schools? I’m a childless homeowner, but I usually vote for property tax increases to funds schools. 'cuz, you know, I’m civic-minded and all that .
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I hear you, and if what even sven is saying is correct I would agree…it doesn’t seem too onerous to me to give someone an advance on the leave they already are entitled too. And, of course, there is FMLA for holding ones job already if you want to go beyond what leave (sick and vacation) you have. Totally good with all of that. However, there is a point where it just adds insult to injury. Ok, so you and others are cool with paying for something you will never get, and in your case perhaps it’s a benefit to have to work extra time to fill in for someone getting that benefit you are paying extra for and will never get yourself, but I don’t think everyone would agree on this one. At a certain point paying more for something you won’t get AND having to do more work to fill in will grate on people.
Like I said, if this is just an advance on leave someone is already entitled too, then that’s one thing and I’m all for that…even if we didn’t have the policy I can tell you that as a supervisor I’ve allowed this in the past and wouldn’t hesitate to do it in the future (I’d do the same for someone in other situations than pregnancy as well in an even handed way). If we are talking about paid leave over and above what someone is entitled too, however, I’d definitely stick to the objections I’ve made.