Paid parental leave for federal employees - when would it begin?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The US taxpayer should not pay for your maternity leave or child care. Go private employer.

Dumbass. Paid maternity leave is better for mothers (and babies). Ultimately we’ll get better productivity of women allowed a proper period of time to heal their bodies from a major medical event. And this leads to more women in the workforce which means more taxes paid. So the piddly 12-weeks we are paying for women to recover is nothing over the lifetime of a Fed’s employment.

If you really want to get pissed about tax dollars, start lobbying to have Federal employment policies changed so that it is easier and quicker to fire the slackers. THAT will save you beaucoup bucks, not cheaping out on recovery from a medical event.

Hear, hear!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is terrible logic. Making things harder for Oct-Dec babies does not make anything more fair, nor does it help people with Sept babies. There has to be a start date. It could have been the date of enactment and there would still be people who missed it by a day.

I guess I should've been more clear in my post. I was trying to make the wording more lenient to grant leave for babies born within a year of October 1, 2020. The government chose that date so they can start budgeting. So using that date as a starting point, I figured anyone born AFTER October 1, 2019 (one year before the effective date in the bill) should get some leave.

I assume that OPM is going to make workers take all the leave within the first year. So there would be no way for your leave to overlap into month 13. So with that in mind, I imagined a "spectrum of grief" for missing the cut off date:

Amount of grief??????Low??????--------------?????High
?????????Date??October 1, 2019?--------------?September 30, 2020

Babies born earlier this year (around October 1, 2019) will be nearly one year old by the time the effective date October 1, 2020 rolls around, so the mothers should not have that much grief for "missing out" on a bill that gives leave within the first year. But for a baby born on September 30, 2020 the mothers would be livid to miss the cutoff!

So expanding on the examples from my original post:
?* Born on or before October 1, 2019: Sorry you missed the one year cut off
?* Born on October 2, 2019: You get 1 day of leave to use on October 1, 2020
?* Born on October 3, 2019: You get 2 days of leave to use on October 1 - 2, 2020
?* Born on October 4, 2019: You get 3 days of leave to use on October 1 - 3, 2020
?* ...
?* Born on December 31, 2019: You get 59 days of leave to use on October 1 - December 30, 2020
?* Born on January 1, 2020: You get 60 days of leave to use on October 1 - December 31, 2020
?* Born on January 2, 2020: You get 60 days of leave to use on October 1, 2020 - January 1, 2021
?* ...
?* Born on September 30, 2020: You get 60 days of leave to use on October 1, 2020 - September 29, 2021
?* ...

tl;dr: I'm trying to come up with wording to make the bill more lenient and give at least some leave to babies born between October 1, 2019 and September 30, 2020.

[Anonymous]

Damn it, those question marks were formatting issues. I cleaned up those portions.

Amount of grief Low -------------- High Date October 1, 2019 -------------- September 30, 2020

So expanding on the examples from my original post:
* Born on or before October 1, 2019: Sorry you missed the one year cut off
* Born on October 2, 2019: You get 1 day of leave to use on October 1, 2020
* Born on October 3, 2019: You get 2 days of leave to use on October 1 - 2, 2020
* Born on October 4, 2019: You get 3 days of leave to use on October 1 - 3, 2020
* ...
* Born on December 31, 2019: You get 59 days of leave to use on October 1 - December 30, 2020
* Born on January 1, 2020: You get 60 days of leave to use on October 1 - December 31, 2020
* Born on January 2, 2020: You get 60 days of leave to use on October 1, 2020 - January 1, 2021
* ...
* Born on September 30, 2020: You get 60 days of leave to use on October 1, 2020 - September 29, 2021
* ...

[Anonymous]

tl;dr: I'm trying to come up with wording to make the bill more lenient and give at least some leave to babies born between October 1, 2019 and September 30, 2020.

Why? I'm genuinely asking. I strongly support family leave and wish the bill had been more expansive. But if you tie it to birth date, there will always be a cutoff and there will always be people who missed it. I think that if we're coming up with things Congress should have done then one extra day of paid leave for an Oct baby is an oddly narrow focus.

For example, they could have created a new category of earned family leave (earned per pay period and carried like sick leave) to deal with family stuff of all kinds, in addition to 12 weeks parental leave starting in FY21. People could have that family leave advanced to them if they are delivering before the new parental leave starts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why?

The babies born between October 1, 2019 and September 30, 2020 are what I would call "edge cases." By including these the bill seems to be more holistic. What I mean is that the bill talks about the leave needing to be used within one year of the baby being born. One year from those birth dates I just listed overlap the October 1, 2020 effective date. If the bill talks about giving leave to all parents up to a year after birth and excludes these "edge cases" it doesn't seem comprehensive to me.

Anonymous wrote:I think that if we're coming up with things Congress should have done then one extra day of paid leave for an Oct baby is an oddly narrow focus.

I agree, it would be great for the bill to be more inclusive for more situations. My point about offering one extra day of paid leave was merely to show a pattern to describe how this overlap works. The idea of the "spectrum" reinforces the fact that parents closer to the cutoff (October 1, 2020) should be given more leave days than the ones further away (October 1, 2019).

* Born October 2, 2019: One year from birth overlaps October 1, 2020 in one day, so you are granted one day of leave.
* Born October 3, 2019: One year from birth overlaps October 1, 2020 in two days, so you are granted two days of leave.
* ... etc etc

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But if you tie it to birth date, there will always be a cutoff and there will always be people who missed it.

And in the idea I presented I still want to maintain the October 1, 2020 cut off. I just would like it done in a more fair way. The people who missed out in my proposal are the ones outside the year of birth. I think that it was smart for Congress to narrow the focus of the bill to only within a year of birth, otherwise it would really expand the number of people that feel unfairly cut off. As us mothers know, the first year is definitely critical and this bill makes a great first step to benefiting us.

[Anonymous]

I haven't checked but I heard that this isn't really a benefit: that it gets taken out of your social security so not really paid leave. You're just paying for it later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Paid FMLA for feds would also have covered other caregiving--everyone who needs time off to care for a parent, or a very sick child, for example. So overall this is a pretty limited and sort of discriminatory "benefit"

There is an emergency leave bank. Not to mention, sick and annual leave can be used. I’ve actually met a Fed who needed leave to take off to care for a parent or sick kid and couldn’t cover it. Maternity has been a different story.

There are also STD and LTD policies.

Yep we can use the leave bank for sick family or emergencies but not maternity. The head of HR is a close friend of mine and she said the biggest reason it can’t be used for maternity is that the leave bank would be completely out of leave too fast. She said very few people had enough leave to cover maternity

Correct. Leave bank is for medical emergencies. You can only use it during maternity if it's to cover a medical event - say you have a complication from the birth and you need follow up surgery. OB has to sign paperwork and give specific info on the medical issue and procedure.

Incorrect- there is no across the board policy and it varies by agency. Many will let you use leave bank for at least the first 6-8 weeks for a standard birth if you don’t have enough leave to cover it and some will allow more than that.

At my agency you can request leave from the leave bank to cover the portion of your leave that would fall under sick leave (the first 6 or 8 weeks depending on the birth). However, you have to exhaust all of your accrued annual and sick leave before using the leave bank, and many fed moms have enough accrued leave to cover the first 6/8 weeks. Also, at my agency there is a strong norm that the leave bank should be used for medical conditions that are not related to pregnancy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I haven't checked but I heard that this isn't really a benefit: that it gets taken out of your social security so not really paid leave. You're just paying for it later.

What? How would this even work? I have not seen or heard anything like this so you might want to be careful about spreading a very weird and most likely false premise.

[Anonymous]

Just more goldbricking by federal employees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Paid FMLA for feds would also have covered other caregiving--everyone who needs time off to care for a parent, or a very sick child, for example. So overall this is a pretty limited and sort of discriminatory "benefit"

There is an emergency leave bank. Not to mention, sick and annual leave can be used. I’ve actually met a Fed who needed leave to take off to care for a parent or sick kid and couldn’t cover it. Maternity has been a different story.

There are also STD and LTD policies.

Yep we can use the leave bank for sick family or emergencies but not maternity. The head of HR is a close friend of mine and she said the biggest reason it can’t be used for maternity is that the leave bank would be completely out of leave too fast. She said very few people had enough leave to cover maternity

Correct. Leave bank is for medical emergencies. You can only use it during maternity if it's to cover a medical event - say you have a complication from the birth and you need follow up surgery. OB has to sign paperwork and give specific info on the medical issue and procedure.

Incorrect- there is no across the board policy and it varies by agency. Many will let you use leave bank for at least the first 6-8 weeks for a standard birth if you don’t have enough leave to cover it and some will allow more than that.

At my agency you can request leave from the leave bank to cover the portion of your leave that would fall under sick leave (the first 6 or 8 weeks depending on the birth). However, you have to exhaust all of your accrued annual and sick leave before using the leave bank, and many fed moms have enough accrued leave to cover the first 6/8 weeks. Also, at my agency there is a strong norm that the leave bank should be used for medical conditions that are not related to pregnancy.

As it should be. When I donated leave it was for seriously ill people or for someone with a seriously ill spouse or child but definitely not for maternity leave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I haven't checked but I heard that this isn't really a benefit: that it gets taken out of your social security so not really paid leave. You're just paying for it later.

What? How would this even work? I have not seen or heard anything like this so you might want to be careful about spreading a very weird and most likely false premise.

That was Ted Cruz or some other GOP plan during the last election. Totally separate from this.

[Anonymous]

Any updates on the rules for when the leave goes into effect?

Any update on what’s going to happen for agencies providing a 6-8 week short term disability plan covering maternity? Will there be 4 or 12 weeks of leave added onto the STD period?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The original language had it only applicable for babies born after October 1, 2020. I haven’t been able to find the latest agreement, though. They should be voting today. So we’ll find out shortly.

SIGH. I would be very surprised then if this was earlier. It would have been SO NICE not to have to use all my leave and take time unpaid. Also, to have my husband (we're both feds) be able to spend some real time home with the baby as well.

Yup. I'm on maternity leave right now. It will be nice for others and I don't begrudge it to them, but it will be bitterly disappointing to use up all of my sick and annual leave, take a 10% pay cut for the year due to unpaid FMLA (I've only been a fed instead of a contractor for 1.5 years), and miss paid leave by a hair. Like, that's such a huge cost i would probably have waited a year to get pregnant if I'd known.

Stop calling it maternity leave. It implies it’s a paid leave benefit and it’s not. Simply refer to it as “unpaid leave”. Make sure to do this at work.