How My Employer Put the “FML” in FMLA • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by bryondowd » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 5:37 PM UTC

dsr_ wrote: post #87

learc83 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really think that a minimum number of sick days should be mandatory as a public health measure. The amount of lost productivity caused by sick people infecting their coworkers per year has to be immense.

If you're in Massachusetts, please vote Yes on Question Four next week. Question Four mandates that employees who work for employers having eleven or more employees would earn and use up to 40 hours of paid sick time per calendar year, while employees working for smaller employers would earn and use up to 40 hours of unpaid sick time per calendar year. Without it, there are people making your food who are working whi…

Having worked in restaurants, I wonder whether this would actually make more than a marginal impact on the number of food workers coming in sick. If I'm a cook and I am told I get 40 hours per year (so 3-6 shifts, depending on your hours) to get paid to stay home 'sick', there's a pretty good chance I'm going to come in anyway with a cold, so that I can take off for more important reasons, like family occasions or a court date. Since I don't get paid vacation days for these things, I'm going to call my boss, cough a few times, and use a paid sick day.

Note: I'm not against the idea, just think it's too little to meet it's stated purpose.

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

#152

Post by eli » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 5:38 PM UTC

eksith wrote: post #35

cafard wrote: post #7

There should a name and shame on this one. What is the university, and what does it think it is doing?

Author info at the end says "Karen W. is a Duke City denizen..." I'm not sure if that's misdirection, but "Duke City" is another name for Albuquerque, NM. Edit: This is interesting. Not saying it's University of New Mexico, but it is in Albuquerque and this includes a reference to her exact phrase "pregnancy or prenatal care" : http://policy.unm.edu/university-policies/3000/3440.html And, on their FAQ under #21: http…

Please don't do that. Posting personal information about people who did not wish to have it public is super uncool. I'm sure if she wanted to name the university she would have.

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

#153

Post by jacalata » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 5:40 PM UTC

zhte415 wrote: post #119

In China, maternity leave is 5 months paid at the salary of the average of all employees of the company, and is taken at a flexible time before or after birth. This can mean a rise of a cut in income. Paternity leave yet has to make such bounds.

Wow, that's a really interesting way to set the payment level.

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

#154

Post by josho » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 5:42 PM UTC

drostie wrote: post #122

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…

I normally really like you and upvote your comments as thoughtful, but in this case I really have to disagree. Eugenics arguments are deeply flawed. They are based on an assumption that the nature-vs-nurture debate is decided firmly in the nature direction, and that assumption is wrong. "[A] point-of-view is worth 80 IQ points. If we're born in 10,000 BC with the IQ of Leonardo [da Vinci]... not a lot is gonna happen…

If you are born poor in America the statistics show that you will stay poor. Despite the belief that there is mobility between classes in the US, that is largely decreasing. Thanks to cutbacks on public schools, a regressive tax system, etc the upward mobility in the US has been steadily decreasing.

The parent's point has nothing to do with genes, but rather their hypothesis is that the poor as a % of population in the US will grow. While the educated white collar demographic will decrease.

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

#155

Post by Florin_Andrei » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 5:43 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #150

learc83 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really think that a minimum number of sick days should be mandatory as a public health measure. The amount of lost productivity caused by sick people infecting their coworkers per year has to be immense.

For large companies the minimum number of sick days should be the number of days for which a doctor verifies you are unfit to work through illness. Such companies who also have morals will make allowances for a certain number of uncertified days of illness (you don't get a doctor's note for flu, going in to work when you're too weak to stand up and can barely concentrate long enough to take meds; or going to work and…

> The USA looks less and less like a democracy _for_ the people the more I learn about it.

It's what people get when they come up with their own fancy interpretation of the meaning of the word "freedom".

Enjoy a lot of individualism? Well, better be prepared to live with the consequences.

N.B.: I grew up under communist dictatorship, so I know the other extreme too. Both are pernicious.

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

#156

Post by eli » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 5:43 PM UTC

To put a positive spin on this terrible story, offering generous leave and other benefits is one way startups can punch above their weight when hiring. With regards to maternity & paternity leave it's also just the right thing to do.

I think my single favorite part about being a founder is that I get to create the kind of company that I want to work at.

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

#157

Post by yardie » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 5:45 PM UTC

> 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

This opinion would not be out of place on this site where some users complain about other workers not working hard enough simply because they had the gall to leave at their contractually appointed time.

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

#158

Post by rhc2104 » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 5:45 PM UTC

Domenic_S wrote: post #143

minimax wrote: post #39

At this point, the male students would nod and go on about their days, and the female grad students would stick around in an increasingly panicked state to ask about that whole saving annual and sick leave thing, since their contracts don’t include leave. I was 100% like the male students until fairly recently when my girlfriend and I started having serious conversations about having children. The conversation was so…

"Zero paid leave" is not quite true, it's left to the individual States to decide that. CA, DC, NJ, HI, NY and PR each have paid family leave. If your state isn't in that list, complain to your state government. It's still complicated though. I took paternity leave last year in CA and it was like this: there's a 7-day waiting period, so the first week was straight PTO. Then PFL pays 55% of salary up to I think $1k/we…

To add, you get more time off for disability if you're a birth mother in California.

http://www.edd.ca.gov/disability/FAQ_DI_Pregnancy.htm

So from 4 weeks before birth to 6 weeks after, you can also get 55% of salary, up to $1,075/week. Then you can take on the additional 6 weeks of paid family leave.

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

#159

Post by sipsop » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 5:46 PM UTC

Just want to point out that (while rare outside of government jobs I imagine). Some employers offer very low cost insurance you can take out that guarantees you pay, for up to a certain number of months off, if you pay into it. My wife and I are in the age range where most people procreate so she will put money into this until we decide we will no longer be considering child birth. Unfortunately, I cannot recall exactly what the term for this is, but I do know it's about 9 USD a month for us and guarantees us that she will receive full pay throughout the 12 weeks for FMLA. We are located in MN and this is a government job. My main point is always make sure to be aware of what options are available. Things at most places make just having a child incredibly difficult for families (as if it's not inherently difficult enough) so do as much research as possible, until we have a better, mandated system for protecting women who are giving birth (and nursing which is a whole other subject where we need to make some serious changes for women's/families' rights).

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

#160

Post by opendais » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 5:46 PM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #139

sarah2079 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another thing that makes it even worse is having health insurance that is tied to your employment. So if you get cancer and can't manage to keep your time off to less than 12 weeks plus your accrued sick days then you can be fired and lose not only your income, but your health insurance as well. It is an unbelievably awful system.

Doesn't the ACA largely fix that? Isn't losing your job a qualifying life event that allows you to sign up outside of the normal open enrollment period?

Sorta but the people that find themselves in that situation will [usually] run out of money before the Cancer either:

A) Kills them B) Is Cured

Losing an income is kinda a big issue when you still have to pay cash for the medical insurance. ACA just fixed one issue. It didn't fix the underlying problem of:

Major Health Event == Bankruptcy Due To Loss of Income

It fixed it for many middle class folks [e.g. programmers] that can save enough to survive that kind of event. I doubt someone making $10-12/hr can save enough.