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

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

#261

Post by mikestew » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 9:26 PM UTC

exelius wrote: post #227

mikestew wrote: post #216

"You will be shocked to hear that the updated policy was developed in part by a man who does not have children." You will be shocked to hear that even men without children can recognize the need to retain employees that they value, because you can be sure that your competitors in the employment market will offer less misogynistic polices. Sadly, I had to argue this very point years ago with my Microsoft coworkers. "W…

It sounds like OP works in academia. Unless you have tenure, the job market works in reverse in academa: you need them more than they need you. So they are free to fuck you over because there's always someone else ready and willing to take your place.

Yeah, I'm with you. I fully realize that I work in an industry that allows me to build a hell of a nest egg, and easily find a job elsewhere. Someone posed the question elsewhere in the comments about "what if your sick time runs out and you're still sick?" Easy, I tell my employer what the deal is and provide a doctor's note if requested. They don't like it? Fine, don't pay me. Fire me? That's fine, too, I've got a pile of money for such a contingency and I'll find another job later. (That does not, however, preclude seeking the advice of an employment lawyer should I view the company to have acted poorly. If not for myself, then for everyone else. EDIT: and for the record, none of that hypothetical has happened.)

But not all, probably only few, are that fortunate. And though as I grow older and have less need for such safety nets, I also grow to realize that shit needs to change for all.

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

#262

Post by logfromblammo » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 9:29 PM UTC

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.

It is.

But thanks to the accounting foresight of the employers, those costs are mostly borne by the employees. So the employers have all the leverage, and zero incentive to use it for anyone else's benefit.

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

#263

Post by the_ancient » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 9:33 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #246

the_ancient wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe both are selfish, I also do not believe it is any place for government to be involved. If an employer wants to have 1 day, or 365 days off that is up to them, that is part of your compensation package you should evaluate when you agree to take a job. Just like I believe it is a responsibility of those with money to help those with out. That does not translate in to supporting the use of government violence…

It appears that a lot of people think it is the business of government to force that on business owners. I think you'd do better if you could justify your position instead of just flatly declaring it as if it were an objectively verifiable fact.

It is a combination of how people look at employment, and how people look at government

Many(most) people have this entitlement mentality where by government, society, employers "owe them".

Employment is simply you selling your labor to the highest bidder. Company X needs Y labor done for them, you have the ability to perform that labor so you agree to a wage where by said labor gets done.

Nothing more. It is not a "family" you are not entitled to a job, or benefits of any type.

As for government, the only function government has is to prevent aggressive actions against me and my property and to provide a peaceful method of conflict resolution (aka courts)

It is not to inject itself in to the voluntary agreements of me and my employer, or anyone else.

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

#264

Post by mikeash » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 9:34 PM UTC

the_ancient wrote: post #263

mikeash wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears that a lot of people think it is the business of government to force that on business owners. I think you'd do better if you could justify your position instead of just flatly declaring it as if it were an objectively verifiable fact.

It is a combination of how people look at employment, and how people look at government Many(most) people have this entitlement mentality where by government, society, employers "owe them". Employment is simply you selling your labor to the highest bidder. Company X needs Y labor done for them, you have the ability to perform that labor so you agree to a wage where by said labor gets done. Nothing more. It is not a "…

Did you even read my comment? You just declared a bunch more stuff with no justification, as if you were reciting incontrovertible facts.

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

#265

Post by the_ancient » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 9:37 PM UTC

SCdF wrote: post #256

the_ancient wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe both are selfish, I also do not believe it is any place for government to be involved. If an employer wants to have 1 day, or 365 days off that is up to them, that is part of your compensation package you should evaluate when you agree to take a job. Just like I believe it is a responsibility of those with money to help those with out. That does not translate in to supporting the use of government violence…

I imagine we will never agree on this, as it sounds like our opinions could not differ more. To sum up with an example though: a few elections ago I voted for the political party who had stated that they would raise my taxes (in particular, the bracket I get paid in). I did so because I consider myself very fortunate to work in a clean ventilated office, and sit at a desk solving programming problems. I don't think i…

Allow me to sum up with a quote...

"It’s amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness.

People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered, and if we’re compassionate we’ll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint."

-- Penn Jillette

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

#266

Post by shas3 » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 9:38 PM UTC

trhway wrote: post #257

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…

>It's completely shameful and it's a stone age policy compared to the rest of the Western world [1] not that i agree with such policy. Yet logically i can see the other side of that - why encourage people to spend their time and effort during the most productive years of their life on basically their personal sideprojects - children - instead of contributing to the economy when US can "import" through immigration any…

Hope you are not trolling, because your assertions about the 'other side' are egregiously wrong and pseudo-logical. 1) Toddler's do contribute to economy (fertility rate, up to a point is positively correlated with economic growth). Ageing populations are bad for the economy [1], 2) Well-being and good policies are correlated and causally linked to better productivity [2].

[1] e.g. http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/09/02/baby-boom-or-e... [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/opinion/sunday/do-happier-...

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

#267

Post by AndrewKemendo » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 9:39 PM UTC

I took a full month off of work after my last two children were born (couldn't do it for my first born, but that is a different story). Luckily my wife is a stay at home mom and we could pull it off with one income. I think most people underestimate the value to the family of having this time off.

As an employer though, I am conflicted about mandatory policies. Actually, let me rephrase that, I am conflicted about situations in which people take massive blocks off of work - for babies or otherwise. The reason is what you would expect: As an employer I probably cannot find someone who is a direct replacement for that employee during that period.

Depending on the stage, size and speed of an organization, having a key person out of the office could potentially break the company. I know for a fact that if our CTO took a month off of work we would probably go out of business. Now, we are a three man startup so that is clearly different than massive organizations like IBM etc..., but my guess is that the majority of companies fall into the category where losing a person for a month is crippling.

So the best thing I can come up with as a strategy for maternity/paternity leave is this: The person who will be taking the leave, upon knowledge that they are pregnant should work with their employer for the following months to identify a temporary hire who can do their work in their absence. Assuming the company could handle it, the company would absorb the new hire cost from hide, but if not a negotiation should be made about half-pay or some other compensation such that the company can afford the hire.

Without government or some other entity actually ponying up money that would compensate the company for the absence, I don't see any way to balance those books for up and coming businesses.

I should just add that at the end of the day, customers don't care that your employee just had a baby, they just want their product to work. Except in rare cases customers do not seem to be at a place where they are willing to absorb a cost like this so inevitably the cost is either born by the employer or is forced to be socialized (not a bad word here) through regulation.

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

#268

Post by Domenic_S » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 9:58 PM UTC

ska wrote: post #240

Domenic_S wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

One common view is that 4-6 weeks is, in fact, terrible. Of course it's all trade-offs, but the US is a long ways from most similar countries in this respect, and I can see people getting frustrated with it. In many places there are reasonable options to manage a combined year of parental leave, for example.

I dunno about a long way off... what I'm seeing are medium-long amounts of time and a paltry % of your pay, and often only for mothers.

Canada for example offers 50 weeks (wow!) of 55% pay (uh oh) with a 2 week waiting period (ooo..) up to a max of $501/week (eek). Costa Rica gives women 4 months at 100% (yay!) but only 3 days for fathers (boo). Japan is 14 weeks 60%, nothing for fathers. Examples are many at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave

It's certainly one area nobody's really solved since women joined the workforce.

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

#269

Post by Domenic_S » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 10:09 PM UTC

SeoxyS wrote: post #169

chaostheory wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.)

Maternity and paid sick leave policies have very little to do with tax rates. See the CA state budget here: http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/2014-15/Enacted/agencies.html The big-ticket items are the things affecting tax rates, like 11B on corrections, or almost 50B on K-12 education, and another 50B on health care services.

CA's PFL program is part of EDD, which spends $14 Billion: http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/2014-15/Enacted/StateAgencyBudgets...

Not all of it comes from California.

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

#270

Post by ska » Thu, Oct 30, 2014, 10:14 PM UTC

Domenic_S wrote: post #268

ska wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One common view is that 4-6 weeks is, in fact, terrible. Of course it's all trade-offs, but the US is a long ways from most similar countries in this respect, and I can see people getting frustrated with it. In many places there are reasonable options to manage a combined year of parental leave, for example.

I dunno about a long way off... what I'm seeing are medium-long amounts of time and a paltry % of your pay, and often only for mothers. Canada for example offers 50 weeks (wow!) of 55% pay (uh oh) with a 2 week waiting period (ooo..) up to a max of $501/week (eek). Costa Rica gives women 4 months at 100% (yay!) but only 3 days for fathers (boo). Japan is 14 weeks 60%, nothing for fathers. Examples are many at http://…

Sure, but you are comparing federally mandated minimums. Elsewhere in this thread there is a lot of hay being made about how your company may offer more.... The same is true here. For example, I know people whose 50 weeks in Canada has been topped up to 80%.

It's not just about pay either, but about what security (if any) someone has after maternity or paternity leave. In practice, I think you'll fund the in the U.S. This is much harder to do, not just compared to Canada, but to most of Europe.