And since Clausewitz said “war is the continuation of politics by different means,” I presume the OP is outraged at the political use of your leave to go fight a war?
Never mind public employees and taxpayer money. I’m waiting to hear all the outrage over employees of private and publicly-held corporations spending company money on frivolous things like vacations, bereavement and illness. There’s no way that should be tolerated!
It would be trivial to find money analogies that imply the opposite: e.g. imagine when paying taxes you got to say which state programmes the money went to. Everyone would get a fair choice, but it would lead to a very unfair situation. It’s better to let a department fairly distribute that money, just like annual leave should be fairly distributed.
But in my view, it’s simply very misleading to compare annual leave to money.
Firstly, why do you say tiny percentage?
Secondly, the number of people contributing is irrelevant to whether it’s a problem or not. If someone is vital to the operation of the company then it’s a big problem if they happen to be popular and can take as long as they like off work.
You keep missing the point. In this case, the money doesn’t belong to the department, it doesn’t belong to the state, and it doesn’t belong to the taxpayers. This analogy doesn’t hold.
Make an argument for that point then.
Because it shows you how large the organization is.
The point is that in a large organization there is unlikely to be (and there should not be) a situation in which the eight month absence of a single person is crippling.
Why do you think it is that it is large organizations that offer leave banks in the first place? It’s because those are the kinds of organizations that can accommodate it.
I have no problem with the donation of leave whatsoever, but I should point out that your incredulity is misplaced. Any county, city or state employee in Florida has compensation that’s public. That means that you, I, or any person can request the salary information, including donated hours, for a given employee. We can also then request the records of the donating employee, the purpose of such a scheme being obvious: it allows the public to be an auditor, and to ensure that the government employees are not enriching themselves with hours donated from non-existent employees. So each and every hour donated is public information, and that’s (in my opinion) as it should be.
I assume, without proof, that this works much as it does in my organization: there is a way to donate leave, but there’s also a gatekeeper function. That is, you can take leave only if your supervisory chain approves it. So for her to take the leave, I assume that not only was she “popular” enough (and I’ll leave aside the extended commentary and only point out that I’m sure she would trade all this popularity for a live son) but that her management approved her extended absence.
What more should be necessary?
Well yes it is certainly relevant in this and any other case. The Family Leave Act is for personal medical leave or for the care of a family member.
So again, people may have donated 8 months of potential time but she would still have to qualify for it’s use. It doesn’t mean she will get to use all of it. I don’t see a debate hear unless people want to debate the donations.
That helps, but it doesn’t change my opinion that this system is ultimately flawed and unfair. What happens to the leave that cannot be distributed because it is not approved? Is it returned to the donors?
Of course. The OP notwithstanding I have been talking about donating leave in general. I don’t have a problem with TM’s mom, and I’m sure just about anyone would rather have the loved one back that extra annual leave.
Governmental positions traditionally have never paid like the Private job market, but it always has had far better benefits. In States where benefits are determined by collective bargaining, you will find an even greater benefit package.
Its not unusual to have paid leave. Typically, he amount of time you have is based on how much time you bank through lack of use, and years of service
My point is that annual leave should not “belong” to someone in such a way that they can donate it to others either.
What I’m saying is, if leave is a commodity like money in the US, it shouldn’t be, it should be treated like permission to do something, which generally cannot be donated.
From the sound of things, plus what Bricker added, situations where it would cause a problem are explicitly blocked.
So employers are aware that it would be a problem if leave were donated freely in any kind of organization, which was my point.
What does it matter with you if I take 8 hours off, or the guy next to me? As long as the time I donate is deducted from my account. Leave is donated by time and not dollars as well. If my hourly rate is $30 an hour, and I donate 8 hours, and my admin takes that 8 hours, it pays at $15 an hour. The organization just saved $15 dollars an hour in budget.
EDIT: We are capped at 1 day donation every open enrollment.
You mean like the ‘stand your ground’ law? Yeah, that’s my issue too.
So the OP is all bent because of a potential for ‘pressure’ to donate, real or imagined, without any evidence, such a thing, ever occurred. And totally skeeved by the unfounded assumption that the Mom is intent on a political agenda. Yeah, because it couldn’t just be as simple as a grief strickened Mom wanting some good to come out of her son’s death. That’s never happened before.
The OP is thinly disguised political comment, presented without the ownership a spine might have provided. No need for all the dancing around, grow some ovaries and just say what you really want to say. No need for all the window dressing, to disguise it as a leave/ethics issue. And based entirely on the OP’s projection of their own fears and issues, pretty clearly.
I give it a 1 out of 10, lacks a beat, and you can’t dance to it.
Why, because people have too many choices this way? This gives people the option of doing something nice for someone. What does that bother you so much?
It doesn’t bother me, I’m just saying it seems unfair.
If the thread was about people who drink lots of coffee even though they didn’t pay into the office coffee fund, I might say “gee, that seems unfair”. That doesn’t mean I can’t sleep for thinking about it.
I didn’t see this (and my apologies up front if it was posted) but what are the requirements or limitations of giving or taking leave in Florida?
For example, can I ask for leave to be donated so that I can go skiing for nine months, or is there a restriction?
I’d be surprised that one could collect leave from other workers to go on a world tour for nine months, but who knows?
I have heart ache with it to a minor degree because I do think she taking leave to support a political issue. This may be partially her way to grieve, but it’s not all that. But if there are no restrictions, than it’s a non-issue. The guidelines are the key to my ire, or lack thereof.
I’m not seeing the distinction here. Either way, you still haven’t offered any argument for why it’s unfair for individuals to be able to give something to an individual.
Fair enough.
I am having difficulty trying to understand what is unfair about it
Could someone help me connect the right-wing meme dots? I’m having a bit of brain fog in this particular case, for some reason. We’re supposed to care that she’s taking paid leave for “political reasons”… or to go to Fiji, or to join “Dancing with the Stars,” or whatever the hell she wants to do, because:
a) It shows she isn’t *really *grieving, therefore she must not care that much about her dead son, therefore we shouldn’t either,
b) It shows she’s just another low-class black trying to game the system, and we all know the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, therefore Trayvon got what he deserved,
c) ???
So many have made this a political issue whether mom wanted it to be or not.
JMHO, I believe it to be both politics and grief. I can tell you this, so short after a child of mines death, I sure wouldnt be trade marking things about the death. We all grieve differently I guess.
This is not The BBQ Pit and you are out of line.
Knock it off.
[ /Moderating ]
What I’ve said is that it is unfair because it distributes leave at least partially on the basis of popularity, rather than need, or an equal distribution.
The counter argument has been that it’s just like donating money. And my counter to that is it isn’t, or shouldn’t be: it is permission to take a day off work and still get paid. Permissions aren’t normally tradable / donatable.
But thinking about it, I’ve been too hard on this scheme.
In a way it’s genius: it means that instead of any upward pressure on the amount of holiday companies give, or states mandate, all the resentment goes to your colleagues.
It was their fault you had to come to work the day after your close relative died.