Make it a state disability fund, employer/employee funded. Easy.

Anonymous wrote:Unions! I had three months paid leave, but only because I was in a union.

Feds have a union, and still don't have paid leave

Anonymous wrote:
How many of you do it?

And if you don't, do you have the moral right to demand benefits from your employer that you deny your own employees?

This is a strawman argument. Even where great mat leave protections exist by law, employers below a certain size are typically exempted, because without a tax system that supports the leave, the impact on any individual employer is too great. A one-nanny or one-housekeeper shop is under that threshold everywhere.

Besides which, many of us want the tax system, not just the leave at our own particular places of employment.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The majority of DCUM is white collar office jobs. They force the rest of the employees to cover the woman while she's on maternity leave. It costs those companies next to nothing to offer maternity leave.

If my nanny wanted 12 weeks paid, I would have to hire a $$$ temp worker for 12 weeks.

It costs a lot in employee morale as other employees resent doing your job without extra pay. If other employees can divvy up your work then you are just extra baggage and no longer needed.

This is true and is the subject of discord in offices. But it happens in all periods of your life. I just covered for a mastectomy, cancer and a knee replacement for 50+ year olds. All were just as long as my maternity leave. People only complain about women having children though.

I lucked out. My colleague covered my maternity leave and I covered for her scheduled mastectomy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The majority of DCUM is white collar office jobs. They force the rest of the employees to cover the woman while she's on maternity leave. It costs those companies next to nothing to offer maternity leave.

If my nanny wanted 12 weeks paid, I would have to hire a $$$ temp worker for 12 weeks.

It costs a lot in employee morale as other employees resent doing your job without extra pay. If other employees can divvy up your work then you are just extra baggage and no longer needed.

This is true and is the subject of discord in offices. But it happens in all periods of your life. I just covered for a mastectomy, cancer and a knee replacement for 50+ year olds. All were just as long as my maternity leave. People only complain about women having children though.

Anonymous wrote:The majority of DCUM is white collar office jobs. They force the rest of the employees to cover the woman while she's on maternity leave. It costs those companies next to nothing to offer maternity leave.

If my nanny wanted 12 weeks paid, I would have to hire a $$$ temp worker for 12 weeks.

It costs a lot in employee morale as other employees resent doing your job without extra pay. If other employees can divvy up your work then you are just extra baggage and no longer needed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nannies, cleaning ladies, and tutors are not "your" employees. They typically work for a nanny service, cleaning company like merry maids, etc. and you are just the customer.

I work in sales, that's like asking why one of my many clients at work aren't asking for paid leave for me.

+1


I'm not their employer.

As a customer, the best I can do is try to vet that the company that I am a client of treats their employees well (which I do).

Many people hire nannies and cleaning ladies directly. But even if they hire through a company, the person still does work for them. The fact that they receive a paycheck are from someone else is just matter of accounting.

It's just so very interesting that people believe that their company has a moral obligation to pay them maternity leave benefits but then they turn around and deny maternity pay to people who work for them..

You're being intentionally obtuse.

We are not discussing me here we are discussing the fact that many people are demanding maternity benefits from their employees when they are not willing to pay a single penny in maternity benefits to people who work for them.

No, you are discussing that without recognizing that few people have full time directly employed household help. Your original list was "nannies, cleaning ladies and tutors." The nanny probably has a contract that spells out what benefits the position has. The cleaning lady is most likely employed by a company who pays her, vs. being paid directly by the people whose homes she cleans (likely once a week or maybe twice a month). She is not a full time employee of those people, nor is the tutor.

It seems that you do not understand how the gig economy works. I'm not saying that it's fantastic or that people working in those jobs don't worry about stuff like maternity leave and disability coverage, but in the same way that companies with only a few employees are not required to provide the benefits you're talking about, private individuals employing individuals in part time capacities are not required to do so either.

I have a small business, fewer than 25 employees, and in the beginning I gave four months FULLY PAID maternity leave. I had two women take the leave and then send their resignation when the paid leave ran out. I no longer offer paid maternity leave and if there is a choice between a woman of child-bearing age or older woman, I hire the older woman. Today's young women think an employer owes them a perfect life. NEWSFLASH! We owe you a salary for performing the job you were hired to do, nothing more.

The majority of DCUM is white collar office jobs. They force the rest of the employees to cover the woman while she's on maternity leave. It costs those companies next to nothing to offer maternity leave.

If my nanny wanted 12 weeks paid, I would have to hire a $$$ temp worker for 12 weeks.

Anonymous wrote:Nannies, cleaning ladies, and tutors are not "your" employees. They typically work for a nanny service, cleaning company like merry maids, etc. and you are just the customer.

I work in sales, that's like asking why one of my many clients at work aren't asking for paid leave for me.

Most nannies around here are employed directly by the families. Very few are employed by an agency directly. Most nanny agencies, except back up (e.g., White House Nannies) only help to place nannies. Look at the nanny forums here about the different payroll and tax services that people use for their nannies. These are just the agents of the families who are the employers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nannies, cleaning ladies, and tutors are not "your" employees. They typically work for a nanny service, cleaning company like merry maids, etc. and you are just the customer.

I work in sales, that's like asking why one of my many clients at work aren't asking for paid leave for me.

+1


I'm not their employer.

As a customer, the best I can do is try to vet that the company that I am a client of treats their employees well (which I do).

Many people hire nannies and cleaning ladies directly. But even if they hire through a company, the person still does work for them. The fact that they receive a paycheck are from someone else is just matter of accounting.

It's just so very interesting that people believe that their company has a moral obligation to pay them maternity leave benefits but then they turn around and deny maternity pay to people who work for them..

You're being intentionally obtuse.

We are not discussing me here we are discussing the fact that many people are demanding maternity benefits from their employees when they are not willing to pay a single penny in maternity benefits to people who work for them.

I posted this in another thread: I gave my nanny six weeks paid leave and two weeks unpaid maternity leave. I also have a small side business, and the part-time employees (15 hours a week, 1-2 employees) have flextime and work from home.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nannies, cleaning ladies, and tutors are not "your" employees. They typically work for a nanny service, cleaning company like merry maids, etc. and you are just the customer.

I work in sales, that's like asking why one of my many clients at work aren't asking for paid leave for me.

+1


I'm not their employer.

As a customer, the best I can do is try to vet that the company that I am a client of treats their employees well (which I do).

Many people hire nannies and cleaning ladies directly. But even if they hire through a company, the person still does work for them. The fact that they receive a paycheck are from someone else is just matter of accounting.

It's just so very interesting that people believe that their company has a moral obligation to pay them maternity leave benefits but then they turn around and deny maternity pay to people who work for them..

Fine. It's the same matter of accounting that results in me not needing to pay employees of Pepco or Comcast maternity leave wages. It's the same matter of accounting that results in me not paying into the STD fund for the Giant employees who stock and check out my groceries. It's the same matter of accounting that results in me not subsidizing the maternity leave of my 3rd grader's music teacher who had a baby a couple weeks ago.

People who hire nannies and cleaning ladies directly usually have contracts that spell out the benefits provided by the employer, including disability insurance, paid vacation, sick leave, etc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While reading the other maternity benefits topic about why women in US are not fighting for paid maternity leave and such...

Many women said they are not fighting because they are not CEOs, they only have one vote, they have no power, etc.

But how about your own employees? How common is it to pay maternity leave for nannies? Cleaning ladies? Tutors?
You have all the power to make that decision, right? Theoretically you can continue paying your tutors, cleaning lady, etc for first 12 weeks after she gave birth.

How many of you do it?

And if you don't, do you have the moral right to demand benefits from your employer that you deny your own employees?

I have never been in that position before. I have a cleaning lady who comes twice a month and she is beyond childbearing years, so it hasn't come up. My child goes to a daycare that has a 12 week maternity leave policy for their employees. This came up because my child's primary teacher had a baby last year and was out for 12 weeks. Because I am not her employer, all I did was buy a gift.

I think that your assumption that people have multiple household employees is pretty clueless, as was the other post asking what random working moms are doing to advance the wellbeing of mothers in general.

Clueless and privileged.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It should not even be a debate. It should be a standard benefit like short term disability.

Now clearly, not everyone is eligible for short term disability. But if your company has STD, you should have paid time to recover from child birth. I had a 4th degree tear, there was NO way I could have gone to work for at least 6 weeks.

So it should be just like a short term disability coverage where you are paid for 6-8 weeks post birth.

I was lucky that my company's short term disability DID cover 5 weeks of leave for me. But that is very clearly the exception and not the rule.

So my question is would YOU buy short term disability insurance for your employees? Or would you pay them if they needed to be on short term disability?

It should be covered under short term disability plans. So yes, I buy into that. But maternity coverage does not need to be "extra". It can follow the same guidelines. But I don't understand how someone who gets their gall bladder removed is covered but someone who has a BABY removed with a c-section is not. It's ludicrous.