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How My Employer Put the “FML” in FMLA

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

#191

Post by gglitch »

coryfklein wrote: post #140
gglitch wrote: post #118

Genuinely curious - where are the markets-should-be-completely-unregulated guys on this?

Well, the FMLA IS government regulation, and it isn't working so well. Besides, plenty of other governments regulate this, and they do things differently. Government regulation vs no regulation doesn't really weigh in here.

I guess I was thinking of the abstract question of how someone would convincingly argue that the plight of new parents would be better off in general with no government regulation at all. I agree that the FMLA is grossly inadequate, but not one of the businesses I've worked for in my entire career, so far as I know, has voluntarily offered anything better.

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

#192

Post by eli »

eksith wrote: post #174
eli wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's no personal information here. Everything you see was what she had posted at the very end of the article, her signature, and common knowledge "Duke City" is Albuquerque. What remains were DDG searches for the specific phrases she put into her article in quotes. I understand "outing" is a legitimate concern, but these are bits of information that she herself has revealed. The rest is conjecture, as I'm sure she…

Where she works is definitely personal information. And I don't think you should post that sort of conjecture. At best, you're revealing something the author didn't want to be revealed and at worst you are fingering the wrong organization.

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

#193

Post by eli »

MrZongle2 wrote: post #105
minimax wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a systemic problem here in the US. It would be counterproductive to try and single out one actor when the issue needs to be address comprehensively.

I disagree. Naming the bad actor would hopefully shame them into changing their policy.... which in turn would put other unnamed bad actors on notice and encourage further naming and shaming by individuals working for them . If you want to move the earth, starting a landslide is a lot easier than strip-mining.

Isn't that a decision for the author? Clearly she decided differently.

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

#194

Post by viewer5 »

michaelochurch wrote: post #31
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.

Outside of the Valley and New York, where there's less competition for talent, there are many companies that deduct sick days from vacation. This allows them to say that they offer 15 days (which, by US standards, is about average) of "PTO" in recruiting when it's actually less. When companies pull that shit, you see people getting a lot sicker, because people come into the office when they should be staying home. Th…

I'm at my first job out of college and it's like that here (taking off if you're sick = PTO)

Is that not the norm?

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

#195

Post by x0x0 »

chaostheory wrote: post #117
shawabawa3 wrote: post #24

I find the whole notion of "sick days" and accruing them bizarre. What happens if you're sick but don't have enough sick days saved? Are you fired? Stop getting payed? For comparison, this is how sick leave works in the uk: https://www.gov.uk/taking-sick-leave And I don't want to even get in to how fucked up it is to have to save up years of vacation days to take some time off when you have a baby

> And I don't want to even get in to how fucked up it is to have to save up years of vacation days to take some time off when you have a baby This is the trade off we pay for lower taxes. (Yes certain states like NY and CA have higher tax rates, but they make up for it with more state benefits.)

When you actually count the full tax load on American employees (federal, state, and local income taxes; property taxes; sales taxes; medical insurance; disability insurance; and retirement savings), we really aren't a low-tax country. In fact, we do not actually compare favorably to most of Europe when you consider the all-in price of life.

What we really pay for is $1T+/year on our military for bombing brown people and maintaining oil supplies.

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

#196

Post by dragonwriter »

opendais wrote: post #160
learc83 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Losing an income is kinda a big issue when you still have to pay cash for the medical insurance. ACA just fixed one issue.

ACA also expanded Medicaid eligibility [1] and includes income-based subsidies for insurance, so it addresses (to a certain extent) the having to pay cash for the insurance.

[1] Though several states successfully sued to create an opt-out for the expansion and have opted out, so in those states, the expansion doesn't exist.

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

#197

Post by eksith »

eli wrote: post #192
eksith wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no personal information here. Everything you see was what she had posted at the very end of the article, her signature, and common knowledge "Duke City" is Albuquerque. What remains were DDG searches for the specific phrases she put into her article in quotes. I understand "outing" is a legitimate concern, but these are bits of information that she herself has revealed. The rest is conjecture, as I'm sure she…

Where she works is definitely personal information. And I don't think you should post that sort of conjecture. At best, you're revealing something the author didn't want to be revealed and at worst you are fingering the wrong organization.

Hence, my prefix "Not saying it's University of New Mexico". Surely, the purpose of a discussion forum is to foster discussion? I didn't exactly go digging deep for this information and hitting the frontpage of HN would virtually ensure this exact line of reasoning will be repeated many places elsewhere.

The author strikes me as someone who carefully weighed the consequences of sharing the story.

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

#198

Post by dragonwriter »

learc83 wrote: post #54
ceejayoz wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find the whole notion of "sick days" and accruing them bizarre. Agreed. Companies here in the US are pretty stingy with them, too, causing people to come to work sick where they get everyone else sick too. > What happens if you're sick but don't have enough sick days saved? Are you fired? Stop getting payed? You stop getting paid and can be fired if the company wishes. Some companies are subject to FMLA, which pr…

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.

> I really think that a minimum number of sick days should be mandatory as a public health measure.

In some states it is, though the minimum number, when there is one, tends to be very low.

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

#199

Post by dragonwriter »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #115
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.

My experience in the real world is that people don't want to burn their valuable PTO, and continue to come to work when they have a minor illness. (I correct my employees if they do this) But this being the case, having the possibility of extra protection for protracted illnesses isn't going to do a whit for protecting us from coworkers passing around a cold or minor flu.

> My experience in the real world is that people don't want to burn their valuable PTO, and continue to come to work when they have a minor illness.

Forcing this tradeoff is the entire reason that firms have single-pot PTO; this isn't an issue when sick leave is separate from vacation.

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

#200

Post by bronbron »

cdoxsey wrote: post #163
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…

> In the US the only legal guarantee you get is that you can leave for 12 weeks unpaid and you'll probably still have a job when you get back. (1) Most companies provide better benefits than what is legally required (2) The US has a robust and very expensive welfare system (3) Unlike something like cancer pregnancy is not an accident. If you can't afford to pay for children, don't have them. FWIW most tech companies…

> Most companies provide better benefits than what is legally required

Cool, let's just bank on the generosity of companies.

> Unlike something like cancer pregnancy is not an accident. If you can't afford to pay for children, don't have them.

Did you even read the article? These people can obviously afford to have children. They can't afford to become unemployed because they had children. Short of being independently wealthy or raiding your personal savings, no one can afford to become unemployed for an extended period of time because they're raising a child.

Let's not even get into the fact that this is obviously disproportionately affecting women. I don't need to take sick leave because my wife gave birth - I don't have anything to physically recover from.

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