What responsibility do businesses have for pregnant employees?
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Why should pregnant workers expect businesses to pay for special benefits open only to them?
Should not all workers be treated equally? Why do feminists feel that pregnant women should be treated better than a person who is temporarily disabled, for example?
I have read that here that some feminists feel that businesses should provide pregnant workers special benefits, such as 12 weeks of paid leave and should disregard the fact that the worker was absent when considering the group for raises, promotions, and bonuses ~ based on performance.
Why should businesses be expected to give this consideration only to pregnant women and not all workers?
(I will provide paid parental leave only when I can also afford to provide an equally long periodic sabbatical for childless (or those with adult children) workers.
draecoiram –
Help me understand: If new mother (or father) did not contribute to a major successful project because of parental leave, are you saying that a worker who made zero contribution should be given the same bonus as the one who made a significant contribution?
I submit that that would be completely unequal and unfair to the contributors and would create legal exposure where small contributors could claim they were discriminated against.
Baba Yaga – Yes, I’m the boss. When you’ve learned enough to make a few years of payroll, come back and we’ll talk.
In fact, sit down. Let me teach you something very basic. FMLA allows for 12 weeks of *unpaid* leave for *anyone* who needs it. It does not discriminate for or against anyone.
FMLA is *not* just for parents.
It’s for any medical situation, including caring for aged parents, a sick child, or a spouse.
Dog owner – confused as to what you are saying. Are you saying that any benefits pregnant women get should be made available to all workers?
If I understand you, that is what I am saying. I am not comfortable giving worker A 12 weeks of paid leave because she chose to get pregnant (she can take it unpaid via FMLA now) without allowing worker B to take 12 weeks of paid leave at some point. That is discriminatory, in my opinion.
It will be about 3 years before I can afford to provide the benefit for everyone. I will not do it for some and not for all.
Dog owner
Start a business where you have to figure out how to pay for the expensive benefits and salaries you demand and then see if you feel the same way about companies "cheating" their employees.
Carrie – I do provide ST & LT disability at no cost to the employee. I do FMLA.
Paying workers for a year who don’t work is financially untenable. Ouch!
I recommend that everyone who complains that companies don’t spend enough money providing benefits start their own business with 12 months of parental leave and hire only married women in their childbearing years as possible.
Anise
Don’t you realize that working class parents have been raising kids for decades by saving, budgeting, working together as families, and taking responsibility for their choice to have children.
Why is it that people feel that businesses are reservoirs of unlimited cash that they they *entitled to*?
Until you have to open your own checkbook you will not understand what you are really asking for.
Object Of It’s Ire –
How can European companies do it? It is their governments who are doing it with far higher taxes than the US (well over 50% in some cases).
That is also why US companies sell more American products in Europe than vice-versa.
Secondly – have you *ever* opened YOUR business checkbook to pay any employees and provide these benefits? Why don’t YOU put ‘YOUR money where your mouth is.’
Once you do that, *then*, come back and piously tell me state what companies should do.
Thirdly – once I can afford it, I do intend to offer paid parental leave. However, I will not discriminate against persons who chose not to have children. I will offer them a sabbatical after several years of employment at the same length of the parental leave.
Lastly, I started saving for retirement when it was over 40 years away. I do not intend to rely on the kindness of strangers when I’m old.
Carrie – I pay for performance, taking everything into consideration. The more profit the company makes, the more money there is for benefits.
I incent employees to maximize profits which ultimately benefit them. I am not trying to get rich, just trying to build something solid and stable that 1) my family benefits from, and 2) my employees benefit from.
Steve, I think too many of the people above are too sensitive about what you’re asking. You run a fine business, and provide all the allowable benefits under the law.
As I understand your question, you’re just asking how can other countries’ businesses afford to provide *paid* benefits to its employees who take time off, be it for pregnancy, sick family members, etc.? I wonder if their government assists in subsidizing the salaries of these workers taking time off.
In America, it would be difficult to give *anyone* paid time off over and above their vacation and holiday paid time off. I think the FMLA is well-written in that it only gives *unpaid* time off (eases the burden on the employer) to anyone who needs it for pregnancy or sick family members. The government does not subsidize anything for employers in America, therefore you cannot make a living paying people for not working.
I’m sorry people, but to pay someone for time off, regardless of their condition, would be to pay TWO people for the same job. The business would go under if they did this.
pregnancy is a medical condition. it should be treated as such, no more, no less. that means not taking the medical issue into consideration when evaluating the person’s performance.
as for paid leave (wherever it may exist), it would be for both men & women, "parental" not maternal.
so, it ISN’T just for pregnant women.
Japan’s population is shrinking. Know why? Because they don’t offer any concessions for absences related to pregnancy and maternity leave. So, women who don’t have wealthy husband’s and need to work put a huge financial strain on themselves by getting pregnant. Are you at least beginning to understand the benefits of pregnancy concessions?
I’m all for the benefits feminists want pregnant women to have as long as men can also receive those benefits, as it stands, women can get 17 weeks of maternity leaves while men only get around 3. It’s hardly fair and then they’ll complain that women are being paid less!
I think if we’re going to go giving pregnant women more benefits, why not also give them to men too?
Example: the benefit pregnant women should receive is 15 weeks of paid maternity leave. WHY in the name of God/Allah/Odin/Shiva, couldn’t we also give men 15 weeks of paid paternity leave? WHY?
Of course we could be fair and give extra benefits to both, men and women! Feminists, however, mostly only care about women! ”Fuck men” is what they say!
So, if the Government passes a law for pregnant women to receive extra benefits, then it should also pass them for men. Nothing stops them from doing it.
But as a Capitalist myself, I am against giving Socialist rights to people. If America continues in the direction it is headed in, it will soon turn into a Socialist country like Russia! And look at the condition Russia is in! it’s not pretty!
YOU’RE the boss??!! God help your employees.
Get your head out of your ass and look up the Family Medical Leave Act. It’s for everybody, like it or not.
Women get 6 months paid leave here in the UK, and so they should and if someone is temporarily disabled they also get sick pay. And as for childless couples they get a holiday entitlement its not as long as a pregnant women but there is a BIG difference in circumstances.
Legally NONE ~ It’s really a gift. I heard of low income women securing a job at companies offering such a gift, getting hired and pregnant. Low paying job + welfare + food stamps = decent income
We have too many people on the planet anyway.
To heck with rights!
Polluting the planet is not right!
I think that kids these days are ill-treated, spoiled when parents are home, and put in harm’s way when left to their own devices or left with inadequate caregivers.
Why should working women have children anyway?
So they can keep up with the Joneses?
Listen, this ounds harsh, and it is.
But my grandmothers did not have chopped meat from the store- they had grinders.
They did not have The Magic Bullet,
they had knives and boards and kids to help out, who would help out, because they loved their family, or feared them, and had a sense of responsibility for their place in the home and in the world.
Tell these mothers to get their priorities straight!!
And breastfeed as much as possible- who knows how many immunities and bonding possibilites they lose with that formula crap?!?!
Alright, here we go…
Let’s compare it to a medical issue. Like a serious illness or injury. This way it’s fair, since both men and women can have a medical problem to require leave from work.
But, here’s the other side of it – If you have no vacation time saved up or anything of the sort. Especially if you’re a new hire. Are you going to go running around in the snow with only underwear on while getting only 2 hours of sleep per night, only eat fast food and take no vitamins at all?
Basically, involving your self in highly risky situations that will most likely lead to injury or illness preventing you from working.
So… just like using a safety harness while mountain climbing. Keep the willy wrapped or out of your lap entirely unless you’ve planned things out. Saved up vacation time ect…. Sure, accidental pregnancy can happen, but it’s not too bad nowadays with all the contraceptives available.
And if you’re of some religion that doesn’t believe in contraceptives… quit screwing around until you can afford to!
Personal responsibility is really lacking these days. Guess we still want our hand held.
Here is how your thinking is wrong; if the business gives pregnant workers special treatment then that is GOOD for ALL employees. If an employee is being discriminated against because of an illness or an illness of a family member, then DON’T BACK UP by getting the pregnant people’s benefits pulled, ADD to it by demanding, (it’s the law where I live by the way) that they obey the labor laws.
This is precisely why Labor Unions were formed because employers try to cheat the employees out of anything they can.
I think that the system we have in Canada is ideal. Biological mothers get one year off. Biological fathers or adoptive mothers and fathers get one year less two weeks (I think. It could be three weeks). The reason biological mothers get slightly more time is to recover from the birth. The company is required to pay up to a certain number of weeks pay, then government benefits kick in.
What I think needs to be done is that we need to stop having a sub-class of people who are generally expected to do all the unpaid/low-paid labour, and have their careers suffer for it. I don’t think this entire burden should be solely on women. When I have a child, I would love to stay home with the baby for the first six months and have my husband take the last six months. (I have also seen studies that claim that if men take part of the parental leave, they are generally more involved with the child’s life well past its infant years, which is a great thing – I want my child’s father to be very involved with his or her life.)
Look, we need to have children to keep our society thriving. What we don’t have is a system that makes work-life balance easy, and those who take time off for their children get the sh!t end of the stick. Talking about promotions is a touchy subject, but hello, we’re talking about a year’s worth of time off here, not five or six… it doesn’t make THAT much of a difference. That’s why most large companies have annual Performance Evaluations, then all the performance evaluations are taken into account when the decision to promote needs to be made. What’s awful is when mothers are paid less, not hired, discriminated against, etc, because managers believe they will take more time off. As I said before, the best solution in my eyes is for more of an egalitarian family life, and that way employers will not be able to systemically discriminate, and companies will be forced to adopt a healthier and more realistic policy towards work-life balance. We just need to move away from 1950 and into the 21st century.
Well, that would mean that only wealthy people could afford to have families. Men are not unaffected by maternity leave practices, because it’s their wives’ jobs and their family’s income. I mean, I personally don’t think people should have children they can’t afford either, but with some it gets into religious beliefs and all that…but just so you realize, what you’re saying is that only wealthy people should be able to have kids, and a lot of people are not going to be OK with that. That’s part of why the laws are the way they are. Both husbands AND wives want to start families at a certain point (or at least, many people do) and it’s part of the give-and-take with employers to get paid leave when you’re starting a family.
when your preganet that is a medical condition!Also it’s not only the that person you need to think about,they arealso supporting another life!they have to make shure theier baby stays alive!!!!!
Who do you expect will wipe your bottom when you are too old and arthritic to do it yourself? Yes, that’s right – the next generation of taxpayers will pay the salaries of the nice people at the old folk’s home where you will drool away the last years of your life.
It’s not just ‘me, me, me…I, I, I…’
You are part of a greater community, whether you recognise it or not. You will not be young, strong and healthy forever.
Governments around the world are in despair; what to do to encourage women to give birth to more taxpayers? France has introduced humungous tax-breaks and achieved some measure of success. Scandinavian countries now have the highest birthrates in Europe. There are quality government-subsidized daycare spots available to all. There is paid paternity leave. Potential parents are offered more support and encouragement. It’s working, say the statistics.
Employers are much more generous in Europe – they have to be, it’s the LAW. How is it that European employers find it possible to offer these benefits – while American employer’s can’t? How much profit is enough profit?
Yes. That’s right. It’s called corporate greed. The benefits offered to European workers have been shown to benefit society in countless ways; cradle-to-grave. These cultures value the next generation, and they put their money where their mouth is.
Common sense dictates that ‘you get what you pay for’, which brings me full circle and back to my own question: "Who do you expect will wipe your bottom when you are too old and arthritic to do it yourself?"
Pregnancy may be considered as a medical condition but regardless it is voluntary and intentional.
Not one birth in the US has been an accident since Row V. Wade became the law of the land. Women who give birth do so intentionally.
Demanding maternity leave is simply demanding additional options for women without responsibility for their choices.
It seems that feminists want to blame and force the costs for pregnancy and childbirth on everyone BUT the only one person in the world who has the unilateral ability to make the decisions that lead to pregnancy and childbirth.