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

#171

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 10:53 PM UTC

bluecalm wrote: post #159

dragonwriter wrote: post #131

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 as getting a new employee to the stage where they contribute value is a huge cost. So, OTOH, is a sex discrimination lawsuit, especially when you are blatantly guilty. Also, most Western jurisdictions with paid or even unpaid but job-protected parental leave policies apply them without limitation by gender. And thes…

>>So, OTOH, is a sex discrimination lawsuit, especially when you are blatantly guilty. Yeah, lawsuit or my children not being able to afford college. Oh the choices... I think I am taking the lawsuit, especially that it will be very hard to prove anything with just one employee. >>Also, most Western jurisdictions with paid or even unpaid but job-protected parental leave policies apply them without limitation by gende…

> Yeah, lawsuit or my children not being able to afford college.

I don't think you've researched the costs of the kind of lawsuit at issue for your business if you think that it's less than you'd lose by having the employee in the position take a year off on job-protected leave.

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

#172

Post by fzeroracer » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 10:53 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…

You're so close to coming to the grand realization of why parental leave and such works in European countries.

It's because they have a much stronger safety net. If your children get sick or if they need to go to college, it is significantly cheaper and less stressful.

It's a shame that your thoughts seem to be mirred in sexism though since you fear women having kids and ruining your business by taking time off.

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

#173

Post by sbov » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 10:53 PM UTC

x0x0 wrote: post #141

fzeroracer wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well your original post made no mention of this.

I know plenty of people with kids that have to travel for work. And they make it work.

FYI, retaliation over parental leave is a thing too. I have a friend who took 2 months parental leave. When he came back he was put on call for a year straight.

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

#174

Post by bluecalm » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 10:53 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #147

bluecalm wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 socie…

I am playing ball. I am working 10-12 hours a day. I don't take any benefits when I am sick. I am paying huge amount in taxes while almost not using very little infrastructure my country provides. It's of great benefit for people of my country to have me doing business here and yet the laws are such that my choices are either to be sexist when hiring, sacrifice my family well-being or not hire at all. I am currently doing the 3rd options because "the society demands". They get less in taxes and someone misses on a really good job. If I need anything I just hire contractors, usually living abroad so I don't have to deal with the nonsense. Great deal the demanding society got, truly.

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

#175

Post by scrumbledober » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 10:55 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #97

tathougies wrote: post #27

I am against one-year parental leaves. My wife and I want ten children. That means ten years off work? How can a company manage? What if I were a less moral man and got two women pregnant a year? I mean, it's not that difficult. Even for faithful men, we plan on trying again (last baby born in December) in a few months. Is it really fair to ask my company to pay for my sex life? More worryingly, what kind of incentiv…

> My wife and I want ten children This isn't the Soviet Union, nobody's going to give you a medal for that. > overall reduce the reproduction rate of society. This can hardly be said to be a good thing This is questionable in the era of global warming. Both society as a whole and maternity leave as a policy rely on very few people having a lot of children.

> This isn't the Soviet Union, nobody's going to give you a medal for that.

he's pretty much saying he doesn't want a medal for that.

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

#176

Post by sampo » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 10:56 PM UTC

bradlys wrote: post #47

Didn't know they had such an extremely generous benefit. 52 weeks of paid time off is a huge benefit. I think people here are underestimating how huge that is - it is far better than any country . I don't see any countries that offer 100% PTO for parental leave. Most cap it at $XXX/week or some percentage like 50-66% that is a far cry from 100%. (Which I assume still has a true upper limit but isn't well documented i…

Norway gives 14+14+49 weeks at 100% pay.

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

#177

Post by germinalphrase » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 10:56 PM UTC

erentz wrote: post #8

To be somewhat fair this is still an amazing benefit: “It’s now capping parental leaves at six months and giving parents a taxable $20,000 stipend to defray the costs of childcare.” In the context that they are doing this while few other American organizations do it, and not that many other countries do something this generous.

Agreed. Still sounds like a great benefit.

I’m a public school teacher and I receive only as much paid leave as I had accrued PTO (10 days a year). FAMLA prevents them from firing me for 12 weeks, but it’s not realistic to take anything beyond PTO.

I’d be happy to defer some number of months of Social Security for two months of SS payments now to allow for paid leave, but that’s not on the table either.

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

#178

Post by rytor718 » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 10:56 PM UTC

woodpanel wrote: post #161

CodeCube wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's surely doable in big organizations but small businesses it's an overwhelming cost And yet, there they are ... still having small businesses, and consulting shops, and all manner of people continuing operations in the face of such start conditions ;) edit: Holy crap, I hadn't even finished reading your comment > If I am looking for 3rd programmer in my 2 person small company I will not risk hiring a young woman…

Don't like the outcome of his thought-process as well but to be fair, it's just logical self-interest which is exactly his #1 job if he's running his own business. The answer to this in my opinion is a job-market with less job-security regulation (so that "getting new workers up to speed" will be the norm not the exception for companies) coupled with a tighter social security net (maternity leave paid for by the gove…

> it's just logical self-interest which is exactly his #1 job if he's running his own business.

This is precisely one of the cultural obstacles to correct. Dropping in a 1 year policy without substantial organizational preparation and planning is -- surprise -- doomed to fail. Like every single other aspect of organizational planning.

The problem in the US is we simply do not value these kinds of things. We value individuality foremost and I believe its among the top reasons parental leave is incomprehensible to many people.

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

#179

Post by dwild » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 10:57 PM UTC

bluecalm wrote: post #154

wvenable wrote: post #143

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 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.

Yeah, but you need to play the odds. If decision A means 5% chance you can't pay for a good college for your kid and decision B means 2% chance of being in that position which one do you choose? If I run 100+ people firm then the cost is small enough that I can eat it for making the world a better and fairer place and I also get benefits of more inclusive work place. If I run a small 2 people business I will weigh ev…

So you are saying that you have a higher chance that a young woman will carry a baby than having a young man change for a better paying offer?

I'm one of theses young one out of college and I can tell you, based around me, your stats are clearly wrong ;). Most don't care about babies, but they all certainly care about getting more interesting jobs. I'm Canadian too.

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

#180

Post by bluecalm » Tue, Feb 05, 2019, 10:57 PM UTC

celticninja wrote: post #145

bluecalm wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>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.

That's the problem. The laws are set in a way that I am either sexist or put my children well being below someone's else. The incentives are there to be sexists maybe let's think how to set them right.