FMLA and other family leave

[houseelf]

Can't believe that I'm actually posting in here.... , but FMLA and leave has been at the forefront of my mind lately. I'm very fortunate because I work for a progressive State agency that permits 6 months (unpaid) leave after the birth of my baby with a guaranteed job to return to. Under my employer's plan, if I had to go on bed rest beforehand, this wouldn't count against this six months. :!: Yes, I thank my lucky stars that this is the case.


BUT... on an ivillage maternity board that I frequent, people are freaking out about this issue in both their personal lives and on a social policy level. Since all the members at that sight are a bunch on insanely pregnant women like myself , I was wondering what you all think of FMLA. Essentially, this law allows 12 weeks per year of job protection for an employee that has worked in a company of a certain size to take off time to care for a sick family member, care for a newborn or newly adopted child, etc. Make no mistake, there is no legally mandated pay for this time and it allows for 12 weeks per year total. Thus, if you take 5 weeks off to care for your dying mother, this would mean that you would only be entitled to 7 for any other reason, unless your employer voluntarily extends it.

Do you all think that this is fair or socially responsible? Is it a fair employment practice? Doe the law overlook an employer's needs to be competitive in an increasingly competitive global economy?

Since I posed the question, I'll timidly suggest that I whole-heartedly support FMLA and support extending and broadening the rights guaranteed under this law. In my humble opinion, a social policy of allowing individuals time off to manage their personal lives and family should prevail over businesses' fiscal needs. If the law is globally enforced, no single employer bears the brunt of this policy. This country sadly boasts the least amount of protection for its citizens for family leave in the entire Westernized world. This seems tantamount to placing business needs before individual citizen needs.

But....that is just my take on it and I could be mistaken.

soooooo........Do you all think that this is a fair law? Is it enough protection? Should employees be granted more or less protection. Does this policy represent a sort of socialism/governmental interference which is contradictory to our basic form of democracy?

(Remember, let's all play nice with one another and realize that we don't have to agree on everything to remain friends. )

Kelly

[Meenah]

I have to admit I have never really thought about it. I was at home when I was pregnant and my girls were small. I do believe employees need protection, but I don't know what is fair or not fair. Is it different for different sized companies? Now you have given me something to think about!!
Luanne

[DCJenn]

You know, this country has some serious hang ups about time off, for whatever reason. Just look at the mandated time off that other industrialized nations receive. I'd pay more taxes, I'd have more socialized medicine. Just give me 8 weeks off!!! Please, I'm begging.

We are working ourselves into a nightmare. It's killing our heath, our environment, our relationships, our psyche. (collective and individual)

So- FMLA- it should be paid time off. Period. Who pays for it? Why does it matter- this is a woman who has just given birth- and a newborn baby. or a family going through a healthcare crisis. or a family adopting a baby, or whatever. It's amazing that we still have to even have a 'debate' about this.

and yup, my husband had to pull extra duty when other residents took time off (all of 6 weeks) when they had their children. Who cares? That's what "it takes a village" is all about.

and yes, I'm more than a little annoyed that we have another 3 months of "non-leavable" rotations and therefore have yet more time that I'm stuck in DC, desperately needing to go someplace with my belvoed husband- so, at this point, I'm irrationally in favor of as much time off as we can manage.

Jenn

[SueC]

That would be sweet if it were paid! Aren't there some European countries that do pay a new mom for a year or so for maternity leave? I remember when Maya was born I was desperately trying to find a job I could do from home--it was so discouraging to want so badly to spend time with my baby and to have so many obstacles (mainly financial) standing in my way! The hospital I worked for (I was an OT) gave me only my sick time and vacation time and the rest of it was on my nickel. I can't imagine being opposed to the FMLA, though I suppose from the employer's standpoint it probably isn't always cost effective to keep a job open for 3 months. I still think they should--it wouldn't be fair for women otherwise. We shouldn't be expected to work and propogate the species without certain concessions being made.

[fluffhead]

While I'm glad the law exists (my wife's program wouldn't give her any time without being forced) for my own sake, I have to say that philosophically I don't believe the public should bear the cost of women choosing to have careers and children. And ultimately, if employers are forced to pay partial salary during maternity leave, that is what happens.
In a socialist country, this sounds like a fine idea, as does 70+% income tax. In a (purported) capitalist system, I don't see how we can justify this concept. I agree that some protection should be afforded to moms, such as job guarantees for X months off, and COBRA. The rest can be fought out in the marketplace - if company A wants to attract talented people, it will offer a more attractive maternity leave package than company B. This is already happening with residency programs, who want to have "family friendly" reputations, and offer more leave than is dictated by FMLA.
Government can butt out.

[PrincessFiona]

I have to say that I support FMLA..and I had my first child while working/living in Germany. We did indeed get 'paid' a small stipend to stay home for the first year...but society there is set up much differently.

BTW, no one paid 70% tax in germany. We actually paid pretty much the same amount that we happen to be paying now....42% when it's all totaled up (federal/state/local). Thomas and I calculated our tax burden this year and compared it with what we would be paying in germany and we discovered that in Germany we would be paying ~1000 more...but we wouldn't have to pay property tax there...so at the end of the day we'd be almost even.

We were not allowed to work 6 weeks before the birth and for 8 weeks afterwards in order to protect our health and that of the baby. To encourage moms to stay at home we were paid a small stipend for one year. Employers are required to hold a woman's job for 3 years..until the child starts preschool. If a woman has another baby at the end of that 3 years the employer has to hold her job for 3 more.

Now for the CONS: (YUP....there are some huge negatives!)

In countries like this there is no traditional 'daycare' as we know it. Preschool starts at age 3 though and is partial day/every day and fully funded (currently, though that system is changing). In addition, elementary school is also only partial day and every other Saturday. The challenges that women face are many:

1. Employers don't want to hire a woman of childbearing age for a job where she is needed but will likely take leave for several years.

2. Lack of availability of childcare means that even if a woman wants to work she will have great difficulty. She will also be viewed as a very bad mom for having outside interests/needs. Think Dr. Laura on crack. As a result, less and less women are having babies. The birthrate doesn't match the death rate anymore. At least in Germany they are not producing enough new babies to meet the demand . As a result, they are trying to sweeten the pot by offering more money to families that have more children. Someone has to pay for these politicians to get nursing home care, right?

3. With school being only half days, even when the kids are in school it becomes difficult to even go back to work part-time.

In any case, women are either delaying having babies or are not having them at all.

Do I think society should help out here at home? (ie do they have a moral responsibility?) Yes..because ultimately these children will be paying for the war in Iraq, and funding what is left of social security. How we go about supporting moms and dads is another story. I think a semi-paid 6 month leave is acceptable because we give lipservice to the idea that parenting is the most important thing on the planet, etc. Let the bonding take place, the routines be set....and then let mom or dad return to work for full pay.

[Auspicious]

Ehhh, I don't know. It would be interesting to hear what a human resources professional has to say about all this.

Here's the thing: I don't think you can really set this up as a case of "the warm fuzzy nurturers" versus "the cold faceless corporation" because I don't think that's how this actually plays out in practice.

In both of the companies I've worked for, when a position is temporarily unfilled (because the person is on vacation, has an extended illness, has quit and it's taking several weeks to re-fill the position etc. etc.) it's not "the company" that pays the price, it's your colleagues in your department. And they have families they'd like to get home to promptly at the end of the day, as well. I've never worked with anyone who had a problem with stepping up and helping out when a coworker was out for a legitimate reason, and I've never worked with anyone who didn't consider the situations covered under FMLA good, legitimate reasons. But I don't think it's all cold-hearted to need to put limits on it.

I always thought six weeks was too short (didn't it used to be six weeks?)--six-week-old babies are still really little! Twelve weeks sounds about right to me when I think about holding a family situation in one hand and an office situation in the other .

AND I'm definitely in favor of seeing paternity leave normalized in our society. If a mother and father each took twelve weeks off in succession you could have a parent home with the baby full time for the first six months of his or her life and that burden would most likely be split between two workplaces. And it would greatly alleviate the way women are disproportionately punished for wanting both children and jobs.

It's tough because I think a lot of this stuff is worked out on a case-by-case basis depending on the type of work involved, the structure of the company, the financial health of the company, the skills and flexibility of the person taking leave--tons of factors. So while I certainly agree that all workplaces need to make considerations for their employee's lives outside work, it's tough to say what the law should be.


(I swear I've been in plenty of debates where I'm the pro-child/pro-parenting side . . . honest!)

[mommax3]

I haven't given this one a whole lot of thought. When I had my first, my paid maternity leave = how many sick days I had saved up. I think I could have taken a school year off and still had my job, if I had wanted to come back. Young teachers don't make a whole heck of a lot, so for me to take more time off would have meant that I was married to someone with an income (DH was a med student at the time, so I wasn't) and by the time I would have paid for daycare and figured in the aggravation factor, I don't think I would have even been making minimum wage teaching music/choir to adolescents......which takes a LOT of energy, believe me!

Having paid leave sounds really good, if I'm not the one paying for it. I agree with Fluffhead's statement

The rest can be fought out in the marketplace - if company A wants to attract talented people, it will offer a more attractive maternity leave package than company B.

I don't know how much that is happening, though, because I have been out of the work world for so long and in some ways feel like I was never in it because teaching is its own peculiar institution.

Julie said

AND I'm definitely in favor of seeing paternity leave normalized in our society.

I heartily agree with that. When DH was a resident, I watched him suck it up when his female colleagues (again and again 8O it was a big program) took their six week leaves, and frankly, I was a little resentful, because IF the gods were smiling upon us, DH might be granted a week off when I had a baby.....if a company has a policy of a six week leave (paid or not) for moms, it should appy to dads as well, in my opinion.

Sally

[houseelf]

Thanks for the thought provoking posts.

The fiscal conservative in me and the parent reconcile these two compelling interests by believing that I am 100% for extended job protection of up to 6 months, pay is another story that I'm grappling with internally. FMLA is NOT just for maternity reasons. In fact, I think paternity leave should be standard policy. Fathers are 50% of the parental equation, right? It is ridiculous how little regard this country gives to paternity leave. There will NEVER be equality in the home or workplace until such time as paternity leave becomes the norm.

But there are a thousand other reasons besides maternity leave that should not be ignored in this conversation. I would be interested in a statistical breakdown of what percentage of FMLA is used for maternity leave vs. other leave.

If the employer/government/whoever didn't have to pay the worker who was off taking care of business at home, it could afford to hire a temporary worker or intern or pay its other employees overtime. Yes, I realize that this would then become a socioeconomic concern as to who could afford to take the protected time off, but that is kind of how it is now. There are people who financially have to work even though there spouse is dying of cancer or some other extremely horrible situation.

Regardless of what changes occur, they should be implemented very slowly over a several year period to defray the increased cost and confusion. For example, perhaps FMLA protection should be extended by 2 weeks every year until it gets to the proposed 6 months of job protection.

Soooooo.....that is my take on it. But I realize that this is not a clear cut issue and that there are burdens to be born with whatever option is chosen.

Kelly

I'm childless (so far) and a former Human Resources professional, and I'm staying out of this one. My opinion is a little harsh, I'm afraid.

Having personally benefited from FMLA, I probably have some bias in being in favor of it. (But I'm sitting here wondering if my former employer's leave policy actually changed because of it...I think not).

I agree with you, Kelly, that the amount of leave is a separate issue from the amount of pay. When Bryn was born, I took off 3 months with the first six weeks being paid at 60% through my employer covered short term disablity plan. I used some vacation and sick time after that but went for at least 4 of those weeks without pay. I felt that was a small price to pay to stay home longer.

As with any employer policy regarding leave, vacation, or sick time, common sense and courtesy dictates. Out of fairness, an employee going on leave should make efforts to assure that their work is covered while they are gone and get a few other people up to speed on their projects. There will always be an employee who abuses this or some other policy which can spoil the experience for everyone.

I was not a HR professional but did work with our HR division quite a bit (I took care of some HR stuff "in the field"). Employee retention was a hot topic (until we started laying everyone off!) and family-friendly leave policies can be a good way for a company to distinguish itself from others. I think that if companies show an employee some respect for their outside lives and needs, most of the time, that employee will be a better employee for it. We never, that I can recall, had any big problems with people abusing FMLA.

[DCJenn]

I'm definitely seeing the world throught my current situation. In order to guarantee that I get a Saturday off, we have been told we either take vacation on Friday and Monday or accept the fact that we may be sent out on a weekend. (so, my HR friends, aren't there limits to the extent that salaried people can be pushed???)

Also, the military is very generous in GIVING leave, they're just stingy about when my husband can take it. He has already maxed the total number of days he has in his leave bank and at this point is going to start losing days! UGHHHHHH

Jenn

(so, my HR friends, aren't there limits to the extent that salaried people can be pushed???)

I've been out of that world for a while, but....no.