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

How My Employer Put the “FML” in FMLA

the-toast.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 332 posts

Re: How My Employer Put the “FML” in FMLA

#41

Post by benihana »

ceejayoz wrote: post #33
PeterisP wrote: post #8

Pretty much every country in the world, both 'first-world' and poor countries, has it better than USA in this regard. Let this serve as a warning for young (age-with-a-potential-to-have-a-family) people who might be tempted to relocate to California - you have to ask for a significant premium in salary, since even in good companies (the OP lists multiple items where her job is considered 'above average') you're simpl…

Yup. http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BnDi8KlIIAA750F.png US provides zero weeks paid maternity leave. Pakistan provides 12. Venezuela manages 18. Canada does 50. Per Wikipedia, the US joins Papua New Guinea, Suriname, and Liberia as the only countries to not provide paid parental leave of any kind.

Who pays for it? The State or the employer?

Re: How My Employer Put the “FML” in FMLA

#42

Post by scrollaway »

michaelochurch wrote: post #25

The takeaway from all of this: employers in the U.S. do not care about mothers of young children at all, unless we’re consumers of their products. It might be more accurate to say that they view us as horrible useless burdens who need to be ushered back to full-time work as swiftly as possible. They will do anything in their power to keep employees from exercising their federally guaranteed rights to twelve weeks of…

https://xkcd.com/603/

You guys need education, not eugenics.

Re: How My Employer Put the “FML” in FMLA

#44

Post by Osmium »

PeterisP wrote: post #8

Pretty much every country in the world, both 'first-world' and poor countries, has it better than USA in this regard. Let this serve as a warning for young (age-with-a-potential-to-have-a-family) people who might be tempted to relocate to California - you have to ask for a significant premium in salary, since even in good companies (the OP lists multiple items where her job is considered 'above average') you're simpl…

> Let this serve as a warning for young (age-with-a-potential-to-have-a-family) people who might be tempted to relocate to California

It's interesting. This is a difficult conversation to have. I have good personal reasons for wanting to relocate to California (I'm British/not American so this is difficult), though logistically it doesn't seem like that will/can happen. What I don't understand though is why so many people want to move to the USA just because. From a purely outside perspective, it seems like it's fairly low down in terms of standard of living/worker's rights/healthcare/etc. For the lucky few (of which those reading here might be over-represented) it's great, but otherwise... I just don't understand. Even for salary I don't see it–I'm entering a short postdoctoral programme at the moment and my salary in the UK is about 1.7 times what I would expect in the states, and it's not like my salary in the UK is even that good(!) and I know full well I'd be worked to death over there too.

I just don't understand. But it's such a can of worms (personal politics, patriotism etc.) that it's difficult to talk about. I will say this though, it really is a beautiful country/continent, and all the people I've met seem pretty happy.

Re: How My Employer Put the “FML” in FMLA

#45

Post by wil421 »

rdtsc wrote: post #3

Aside from police brutality, all the spying and erosion of privacy, corruption at high level (like regulatory capture), the medical and insurance situation points more to the fact that this country -- US, is not a civilized country. It is a country with a high GDP, strong military, good natural resources, strong manufacturing. All those nice things. But it is still not a civilized country.

Its unfortunate that there are not laws preventing things like this from happening. Too many people in the US do not want the government to impose laws or regulations just because they oppose any government interference what so ever. Even if the interference will benefit everyone.

People have a choice where they work. Had this happened to me I would be high tailing it out of there but professors dont have that luxury.

Re: How My Employer Put the “FML” in FMLA

#46

Post by moconnor »

rdtsc wrote: post #3

Aside from police brutality, all the spying and erosion of privacy, corruption at high level (like regulatory capture), the medical and insurance situation points more to the fact that this country -- US, is not a civilized country. It is a country with a high GDP, strong military, good natural resources, strong manufacturing. All those nice things. But it is still not a civilized country.

As a counterpoint from civilized Germany, after the birth of a child both parents are granted 14 months paid leave (at 2/3 salary up to ~$3k/mo) to split between them. Usually the mother takes 12 and the father 2 concurrently. The state pays for this, not the employer.

You also have the right to 3 years unpaid leave (extended with further children) and the employer must find you a similar position when you return to work.

So far this has neither economically crippled the nation nor made it impossible for its companies to compete on the international market, nor driven all the manufacturing and blue-collar work abroad.

I'm just astonished how such different systems can coexist. What are the benefits of the American system and who receives them? A lower tax burden? Is it really that much lower to be worth it?

Re: How My Employer Put the “FML” in FMLA

#47

Post by greedo »

gambiting wrote: post #20

It's completely insane that US doesn't have unlimited sick leave like EU does. It's just backwards and ridiculous - if someone is ill, then they are ill, what if they don't have any sick leave left? You fire them? I literally can't stomach this. When I was little I always thought I would emigrate to the States to work - now I would pay not to go.

Yep. Discovered I had cancer in the fall of 2005. My firm told me they would be so generous to keep me employed throughout my treatment. Got fired the week before Christmas (while still going through chemo) because the company was being sold and they wanted to minimize headcount. And companies wonder why there's no loyalty anymore.

Re: How My Employer Put the “FML” in FMLA

#48

Post by maerF0x0 »

PeterisP wrote: post #8

Pretty much every country in the world, both 'first-world' and poor countries, has it better than USA in this regard. Let this serve as a warning for young (age-with-a-potential-to-have-a-family) people who might be tempted to relocate to California - you have to ask for a significant premium in salary, since even in good companies (the OP lists multiple items where her job is considered 'above average') you're simpl…

Learned this the hard way. My rough math is this for SF:

1.5xCurrent Salary -- Because everything is expensive here

+ $10k / marginal tax rate -- for relocation and flights home

+ 500/month forEach dependent spouse -- Medical Dental Vision

+ 250/month for each child dependent -- Medical Dental Vision

+ X -- to replace spouses's Salary because they cant work

+ Y / marginal tax rate -- spending money to keep spouse sane because they cant work and cant stay home all day doing nothing

Edits: small clarifications, gross Y up by tax rate

Re: How My Employer Put the “FML” in FMLA

#49

Post by _dark_matter_ »

supercanuck wrote: post #11

I wonder how being a woman at Netflix and other such companies with their unlimited vacation policy is like .

Not sure about Netflix, but I know that when I was at Twitter they offered 12 weeks of paid vacation leave (paternity and maternity). Some of this was mandated, and paid for, by the state.
Post reply on HN