Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves • Hacker News Board

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#141

Post by x0x0 » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 10:38 PM UTC

fzeroracer wrote: post #129

bluecalm wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>We hire interims or share responsibilities between other members of the team. It happens all the time and we rarely find an issue with this. Sounds nice but in practice it means people who don't have children or have less children do more work. As someone who doesn't want to have children I wouldn't want to work for a place where I am expected to do more work when others get pregnant. There is real cost even if gov…

Can you actually point out to instances of having to work more in practice due to people taking parental leave? Other countries tend to have much stronger labor protections so the end result, surprisingly, is often that you're not really doing more work especially if the company is prepared. I just went through an example myself where my relatively small team had a senior developer take parental leave for a few month…

Not leave -- and note that I'm not opposed to the leave policies -- but I worked at a place that involved travel. The parents always managed to get out of it. I ended up leaving because what would have been a reasonable amount of travel split 4 ways was an unreasonable amount split 1 way (me) with 3 parents who did virtually none of it.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#142

Post by bluecalm » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 10:39 PM UTC

celticninja wrote: post #115

bluecalm wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's surely doable in big organizations but small businesses it's an overwhelming cost even if the government pays the salary of the worker on a leave (the only way it can really work). Maybe the answer to that problem is that really important employees who make a lot of money shouldn't be hired as normal workers but as contractors. Something like: if you get 3x more average salary then you are important but you only…

Maternity/Paternity leave is the norm all over Europe and it works. The USA is not a special case, it would take a law to require it though because businesses are never going to add things like maternity leave with it being mandated by the government. Your admission of sexism leads me to believe that your family consists of male children. If you had a daughter perhaps you would realise that "not giving a job to a you…

>>Maternity/Paternity leave is the norm all over Europe and it works.

It doesn't really work that well. Young women face blatant discrimination in hiring and small employers and sadly it's for good reasons as here a lot of women go on medical 2months into pregnancy and then take the full leave.

>>. If you had a daughter perhaps you would realise that "not giving a job to a young woman because she may decide to get pregnant" is pretty much the worst reason to refuse someone employment, regardless of the law, you are happy to discriminate against a person just because of their genitalia. That's a sad state of affairs for you, your company and your family.

I hear your moral outrage but I put well-being of my family first. I prefer to be sexists if my children don't need to worry about food and good school than being gender neutral and worrying about how I am going to pay for a good school or for the treatment if they get sick.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#143

Post by wvenable » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 10:39 PM UTC

bluecalm wrote: post #95

unavoidable wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprisingly few people are actually trying to answer this question on this thread. The answer is straightforward: you either structure your organization so that there are enough overlapping responsibilities to account for parental leaves (e.g. good business practice of not making a fragile organization), or you hire a temporary employee explicitly on a 1 year "parental leave" contract. The labour market is quite goo…

It's surely doable in big organizations but small businesses it's an overwhelming cost even if the government pays the salary of the worker on a leave (the only way it can really work). Maybe the answer to that problem is that really important employees who make a lot of money shouldn't be hired as normal workers but as contractors. Something like: if you get 3x more average salary then you are important but you only…

> If I am looking for 3rd programmer in my 2 person small company I will not risk hiring a young woman as getting a new employee to the stage where they contribute value is a huge cost.

Anybody can leave at any time for any reason. I had much worse luck young male developers out of school and them leaving after a few months than with a developer leaving on maternity leave and coming back.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#144

Post by CloudNetworking » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 10:39 PM UTC

WorldMaker wrote: post #127

bluecalm wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's surely doable in big organizations but small businesses it's an overwhelming cost even if the government pays the salary of the worker on a leave (the only way it can really work). Maybe the answer to that problem is that really important employees who make a lot of money shouldn't be hired as normal workers but as contractors. Something like: if you get 3x more average salary then you are important but you only…

Do you make the same tough decision and avoid hiring members of the US National Guard, or the Army/Navy/Air Force Reserve, as well, simply because they may be called away for a year or so to serve their country and similarly expect their job to be there when they return? (This is not a facetious question. I think that these are comparable and at least equably honorable. Parental leave is a form of serving your countr…

Or humans. Does he hire humans? humans can and do fall sick from time to time. Ew.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#145

Post by celticninja » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 10:40 PM UTC

bluecalm wrote: post #142

celticninja wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maternity/Paternity leave is the norm all over Europe and it works. The USA is not a special case, it would take a law to require it though because businesses are never going to add things like maternity leave with it being mandated by the government. Your admission of sexism leads me to believe that your family consists of male children. If you had a daughter perhaps you would realise that "not giving a job to a you…

>>Maternity/Paternity leave is the norm all over Europe and it works. It doesn't really work that well. Young women face blatant discrimination in hiring and small employers and sadly it's for good reasons as here a lot of women go on medical 2months into pregnancy and then take the full leave. >>. If you had a daughter perhaps you would realise that "not giving a job to a young woman because she may decide to get pr…

Yet you call out others for sexist behaviour and then behave that way yourself.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#146

Post by erk__ » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 10:42 PM UTC

bluecalm wrote: post #130

simion314 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If I am looking for 3rd programmer in my 2 person small company I will not risk hiring a young woman Men can get parental leave in European countries, so in this case your strategy is not working.

>>Men can get parental leave in European countries, so in this case your strategy is not working. Depends on the country. In mine women get much more time and men usually take none or just a few weeks at most. I think that's the case in most countries.

Men do now have 2 months of parental leave, if they do not use that they lose it. This is per a new EU law from last year.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#147

Post by eropple » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 10:42 PM UTC

bluecalm wrote: post #134

eertami wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I will not risk hiring a young woman Not everyone wants or will have children.

I am not allowed to ask though. That's the whole point: extended maternal leaves cause discrimination when hiring women. I would love to be able to hire on merits alone but if I am facing much higher risk of not being able to put my children in a good school when hiring a women then I won't do that. No amount of moral outrage is going to put someone's children above my own. If you want me to not discriminate then ple…

An equally effective way to remove that incentive is to break your business in half when you decide to avail yourself of it.

It is unfortunate that we have, as a collection of societies, largely forgotten that the fictitious entity that is your company exists at and only at the sufferance of the society that decides it's a good idea to let it exist--and that we-the-society can demand that you play ball with the society that grants you your charter.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#148

Post by x0x0 » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 10:42 PM UTC

chefkoch wrote: post #82

simonsarris wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In tech, you do not commonly hire people in pairs. If you need a DBA you hire one. If he quits or dies you hire another one. If he leaves for a year, what do you do?

>he quits or dies you hire another one. And in the weeks/months until you found one ? It's not like babies appear over night, you have months to prepare.

As has been quite clearly stated elsewhere, hiring a dba who wants a gig for 6-12 months rather than an indefinite gig is either much harder or much more expensive than hiring a dba on the indefinite plan. Same reason consultants get paid a lot more; the person you hire knows they're going to be job searching shortly.

There's often specialist work than can be delayed or performed more slowly by other team members. I'm not sure how that's relevant.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#149

Post by muizelaar » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 10:42 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #93

simonsarris wrote: post #11

> [heading] How do they manage in Canada? > In Canada, companies have had no option but to make 52-week parental leaves work, when requested, since 2000. The question Canadian companies ask isn’t “Can we do it?” but “How do we do it?” Okay, so... how do they do it? They never answer the question. If you have say, a CFO or a specialist mechanic (that you only need 1 of, but definitely need) and they take a year off, w…

I'm in canada and there is an actual problem. I know of a lawfirm that suffered through a new hire. She had one kid, took the leave and then was pregnant with another within months of returning. The nasty part was that she made is known she intended on leaving the firm after the second kid. She did then leave. The firm effectively paid her for two years only to have her then walk out the door. Women should get the ti…

Parental leave in Canada is paid by Employment Insurance not the employer.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#150

Post by irrational » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 10:42 PM UTC

bluecalm wrote: post #130

simion314 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If I am looking for 3rd programmer in my 2 person small company I will not risk hiring a young woman Men can get parental leave in European countries, so in this case your strategy is not working.

>>Men can get parental leave in European countries, so in this case your strategy is not working. Depends on the country. In mine women get much more time and men usually take none or just a few weeks at most. I think that's the case in most countries.

I live in the USA and at my company (albeit a large one) both men and women get 6 months of paternity/maternity leave.