Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 494 posts

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#391

Post by pg314 »

stealthmodeclan wrote: post #356
victor106 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The corporate tax rate has been reduced to something like 20%. Most companies in the US pay much less than that. The state is already subsidizing a lot for big corporations. Companies are nothing but made up of people. The irony is at one time or another these same people would have wanted the exact same benefits for themselves but they don’t like extending those same benefits to others. If they can’t act in the larg…

If they can’t act in the larger national interest on a few of these occasions then they won’t have a population to sell to. Apple sells globally, should Apple also pay for the welfare of the countries where it sells its product? The corporate tax rate has been reduced to something like 20%. Most companies in the US pay much less than that. The state is already subsidizing a lot for big corporations. Some part of whic…

> Apple sells globally, should Apple also pay for the welfare of the countries where it sells its product?

Yes. And they do in countries which charge VAT. They should arguably be taxed on the profits they make in the territories they sell in, but that is much harder to do in practice without international cooperation.

> Some part of which flows to investors who purchase securities. Capital gains and dividends are taxed.

Capital gains are only taxed when they are realized. E.g. Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway hasn't paid a dime in taxes on the 15.4 billion dollar capital gains on its 16.7 billion dollar stake in Coca Cola (a position he initiated in 1987). Since Buffett has indicated he isn't planning on selling Coca Cola ever, those capital gains won't ever be taxed.

> Companies can't earn record profits without government running deficit (by healthcare/infra expenditure) and without people running out of savings (by spending on the goods and services being produced)

Of course they can: by becoming more efficient or by growing GDP.

> Part of the value produced will be taxed in the US while the individuals and governments all over the world run out of saving and run into deficits respectively. All that flows to the US. Stopping this is much worse for the US.

Nonsense. If you had looked at the OECD government deficit data [1], you would have known that the US is running one of the biggest deficits in terms of % of GDP (4.94% in 2016 vs 1.546% for the EU as a whole, or a surplus of 1% for Germany). Similarly, personal savings are 2.8% in the US [2] vs 10% in the EU [3] or 50% in Japan [4].

Of course, this has little to do with the balance of trade, as you seem to be thinking. The US runs a trade deficit: it imports more than it exports. This is offset by capital inflows from abroad, meaning that a bigger and bigger share of the ownership of productive assets are being owned by foreigners. Returns on those assets will accrue to foreign investors.

[1] https://data.oecd.org/gga/general-government-deficit.htm

[2] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/indicators

[3] https://tradingeconomics.com/european-union/indicators

[4] https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/indicators

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#392

Post by pg314 »

nostrademons wrote: post #184
rayiner wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, we don't live in a world where a business is spared the cost incurred by that. We also live in a world where the stock market ceases to exist if there isn’t a new generation of consumers and workers. (Facebook’s stock price is predicated on the idea that 1 years from now there will still be young people to advertise to.) Children create internalized costs (to parents, to businesses that hire parents), but…

So here's a concrete example of the types of problems existencebox is highlighting: My sister was laid off from her employer of 8 years 3 months after her first child was born. She was a top performer, and they'd been throwing raises and bonuses at her before she got pregnant. Over the same year or so (there were 3-4 rounds of layoffs), every single pregnant woman or mother with kids under 2 that she knew at the comp…

> And my response is "Of course it's not, but if you've got a 3 month old newborn at home, have just been laid off, and are trying to conserve cash so you don't go bankrupt before getting another job (which, BTW, you will never get if you sue your former employer), are you really going to sue them? Where will you find the money? Where will you find the lawyer? Where will you find the time?"

That is one thing unions are good for.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#393

Post by awinder »

tinbad wrote: post #14

Personally experienced it. Wife worked at Google, had always positive performance reviews. Come pregnancy time she informed her manager, 3 days later they put her on a performance improvement plan. It didn't take long for them to realize they were making a big mistake, risking an expensive lawsuit so they let it go and let her have her paid 12 month leave. After returning she got the choice to do the PIP or take seve…

> the fact that they tried left us with a bad taste.

This is really one of the fundamental reasons that not taking care of mothers & fathers (and in fact: going after them) is just such a boneheaded move. It’s a statement of culture. Companies are full of mothers and fathers, and how you treat expectant mothers is a statement on your corporate values. If you need to put it into financial terms — which you shouldn’t — you will lose more value with a weaker talent pool and higher recruiting costs treating people poorly, than you will by doing the right thing.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#394

Post by awinder »

existencebox wrote: post #142
tptacek wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife interviewed at Google and was asked how she'd be able to meet the requirements of the job while taking care of young children; the discrimination persists even after pregnancy.

There's something that has always nagged at me in these discussions, and I've always been somewhat afraid to bring it up lest I misconstrue, but I want to try and figure this out. What's a state of affairs we can reach such that people don't become preemptively discriminatory for lack of being able to examine factors that would impact workplace performance? We agree, societally, that we shouldn't discriminate against…

So insurance actually is the vehicle that most companies utilize to protect against shortish-term disability (which does cover pregnancy). Second, tax credits exist for FMLA leave, which stack on top of normal favorable wage tax treatment. The financial burden is being collectivized already.

If you’re talking about the general time treatment that parents have vs non-parents, then I don’t know what to tell you. 40 hours a week is pretty attainable especially with flexibility around work day, which a progressive workspace like google should be able to support. If the problem is that google is set up to expect people to work themselves to death, that’s not smart and they should focus on that problem instead.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#395

Post by colmvp »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #379
habosa wrote: post #55

This area is really tough. I feel terrible for women who experience this bias, but the solution is not nearly as obvious as with race/gender/age/religious/etc discrimination. In those cases the answer is: stop being biased. Let's say you're a small company and you can really only afford to have Even if they both plan to have 2 kids in the next 4 years, it's a biological reality that it will take the woman away from w…

Like I say in another comment, my partner works for a small startup of ~12 people, 7 of whom became pregnant and gave birth in the last five years or so, while working for the company. The company manages just fine. It's a small startup of a dozen people. Almost two thirds of their employees had babies and the company's productivity never suffered from it. Fact, one of the ladies had twins and came back after a month…

I know severely women in my family who had exceptional academic and early careers. Once they had their kids, their drive to work dropped dramatically. Even my female CEO has been a lot less consistent as a productive performer compared to what she used to be pre-kid.

That's not to say that I think all mothers are like that or that it's a bad thing per se since I'm all about work-life balance, but I can see where companies are coming from when it comes to trying to find someone who they can maximize output.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#396

Post by [deleted] »

jobigoud wrote: post #359
Spooky23 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The abuse is the compulsory, unpaid pager, and the expectation that you’re working 7a-9p. “Joe” with the young kids pushes back because he has to. You’re the sucker saying yes. The fix for this is easy. You pay for on-call, and have a understood system for assigning it. My brother in law is a fireman... he misses many holidays, but can plan around it because there is such a system.

> “Joe” with the young kids pushes back because he has to. Having children is just a choice of a hobby that takes a lot of time, but in our current culture it's reprehensible for me to say I can't fill in his hours because I have my own hobbies that I want to do instead.

[deleted]

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#398

Post by stealthmodeclan »

pg314 wrote: post #391
stealthmodeclan wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they can’t act in the larger national interest on a few of these occasions then they won’t have a population to sell to. Apple sells globally, should Apple also pay for the welfare of the countries where it sells its product? The corporate tax rate has been reduced to something like 20%. Most companies in the US pay much less than that. The state is already subsidizing a lot for big corporations. Some part of whic…

> Apple sells globally, should Apple also pay for the welfare of the countries where it sells its product? Yes. And they do in countries which charge VAT. They should arguably be taxed on the profits they make in the territories they sell in, but that is much harder to do in practice without international cooperation. > Some part of which flows to investors who purchase securities. Capital gains and dividends are tax…

Yes. And they do in countries which charge VAT. They should arguably be taxed on the profits they make in the territories they sell in, but that is much harder to do in practice without international cooperation.

GP mentioned the Corporate Tax.

VAT is an indirect tax. It's not a tax on profit but consumption, often paid by individuals.

Supplies used as input by companies are vat exempt.

Capital gains are only taxed when they are realized. E.g. Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway hasn't paid a dime in taxes on the 15.4 billion dollar capital gains on its 16.7 billion dollar stake in Coca Cola (a position he initiated in 1987). Since Buffett has indicated he isn't planning on selling Coca Cola ever, those capital gains won't ever be taxed.

I also mentioned taxes on dividends.

Buffet is not the only one operating in market.

Of course they can: by becoming more efficient or by growing GDP.

And how can they grow GDP or become more efficient without investment? Where does that money come from if not from the individuals (buying product/service) and government (spending on infra/healthcare)

Nonsense. If you had looked at the OECD government deficit data [1], you would have known that the US is running one of the biggest deficits in terms of % of GDP (4.94% in 2016 vs 1.546% for the EU as a whole, or a surplus of 1% for Germany). Similarly, personal savings are 2.8% in the US [2] vs 10% in the EU [3] or 50% in Japan [4]

Not sure what you are trying to prove by this random data.

US is the largest Foreign Direct receipent.

Yes, Europe the largest buyer of the US securities.

As US become more attractive to the foreign investors. The trade deficit will increase and will be financed by the foreign investors. Where is the problem?

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#399

Post by ensignavenger »

giantsloth wrote: post #205
ensignavenger wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone has to juggle various demands on their time. You could just as easily make the question more generic, and ask everyone "do you have a good track record or gameplan for keeping up with personal obligations and balancing them with your professional obligations as an employee?" Of course my answer to that question would be 'yes'.

This is an awful suggestion. Next you're going to be suggesting employers ask where on the Andre Walker Hair Typing System potential recruits fall so they don't have to ask whether or not they are black.

I have no idea what the "Andre Walker Hair Typing System" is or what it has to do with being black, but if it has anything to do with hair, it would seem completely irrelevant to how good of an employee one is (As is ones skin color). Further, the question I propose is a simple yes or no question, with the option to elaborate. And if you couldn't tell by my last sentence, I don't actually expect the response to be particularly meaningful in most cases.

Re: Pregnancy Discrimination Is Rampant Inside America’s Biggest Companies

#400

Post by yanslookup »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #379
habosa wrote: post #55

This area is really tough. I feel terrible for women who experience this bias, but the solution is not nearly as obvious as with race/gender/age/religious/etc discrimination. In those cases the answer is: stop being biased. Let's say you're a small company and you can really only afford to have Even if they both plan to have 2 kids in the next 4 years, it's a biological reality that it will take the woman away from w…

Like I say in another comment, my partner works for a small startup of ~12 people, 7 of whom became pregnant and gave birth in the last five years or so, while working for the company. The company manages just fine. It's a small startup of a dozen people. Almost two thirds of their employees had babies and the company's productivity never suffered from it. Fact, one of the ladies had twins and came back after a month…

> Fact, one of the ladies had twins and came back after a month

In most cases this isn't optimal for the baby, mother, father or society. Just because one family decides to do it that way doesn't mean we should support a system that punishes those that don't make the same decision.

Post reply on HN