How to approach MB about PTO RSS feed

Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:OP, these issues need to be addressed ASAP. Set a meeting time, and have your draft agreement ready, with an extra copy for them. There is no good reason to ignore these important matters. Slavery is outlawed in the US. As soon as you determine that you are ready to be treated like an adult human being, these people will treat you like one.
If it would give you more confidence, you can start looking at other job options.


To the poster who always defaults to the "slavery is outlawed, nannies are not slaves" position: Your comments are incredibly ignorant and insensitive. Slaves are property with no freedom to chose how they spend their days. Nannies are free to take and leave jobs as they please. Slaves do not get paid. Nannies may feel underpaid, but their wages are in fact driven by a free market. Show a little respect for yourself.


Change everything to present tense and I'll give a +1000000.

There are modern-day slaves, even here in the US. They come over on the promise of work and are forced to surrender their passports and wages to their "employer," trapped in a cycle of servitude and abuse. Some of them may even be performing childcare - others housework, manual labor, or farm work.

Slavery-poster, you are correct, nannies are not slaves. So we don't need to bring it up any more, k? We all understand what you're saying, but it is hugely disrespectful to everyone who has endured or is enduring the experience of slavery to suggest that an employer who takes advantage of a naive nanny is the same as a slave owner. Neither is a good person, clearly, but I think we should be able to agree that there is a distinct difference between the two.


There are still slaves in the US and around the world, so no, the above commenter doesn't need to change to present tense. Look up human-trafficking. It's underplayed but US is one of the biggest markets for human trafficking.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:22:12, you are missing the point. A nanny is not "losing a couple thousand dollars a year in employer vacatino time, early dismissals, grandparent visits, etc." unless you assume that she should be getting paid for work that she does not do, which is not a reasonable assumption unless a certain number of days of paid time off is priced into the hourly rate, just as it is priced into a professional's salary.

It is true that salaried employees have guaranteed minimum hours, meaning that we get paid for a full week whether we work it or not. But we don't get paid for hours we work over and above a standard week. In other words, we don't have a "separate hourly rate" when we have to work overtime to make up for our salaried time off. You do, and the cost of that benefit is either schedule shifting in lieu of guaranteed hours, or a lower rate to offset the "separate hourly rate" we have to pay you for hours over and above your usual week.


Yeah but you're choosing to take a week off knowing fully well that you will have extra work. Nanny is not. She doesn't choose to be off a week, her employer does. I understand the rest of what you're saying though.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Slavery-poster, you are correct, nannies are not slaves. So we don't need to bring it up any more, k? We all understand what you're saying, but it is hugely disrespectful to everyone who has endured or is enduring the experience of slavery to suggest that an employer who takes advantage of a naive nanny is the same as a slave owner. Neither is a good person, clearly, but I think we should be able to agree that there is a distinct difference between the two.


+1

back to topic - OP, you have a problem because these are all issues you should have negotiated up front. You are now trying to renegotiate on the fly. As an MB I would be really pissed at hiring someone on X terms only to have her keep renegotiating them only a few months in. It shows really bad faith and would make me feel scammed. (FWIW, my nanny does have guaranteed hours - for a specific hr range 5 days a week; vacation, holidays and sick leave paid so I'm not arguing that those benefits aren't good.) I would wait to 6 months and request a formal sit-down. You need to be apologetic for not bringing this stuff up when you negotiated at the get-go, but you can be honest that it is becoming an issue and you need a way to regularize your pay. MB may counter that she needs to pay you a lower rate per hour. That is not unreasonable and you need to be ready to be OK with that if your real priority is guaranteed hours - you are asking for a better compensation package than the one they offered you when they hired you. It does not automaticlaly fall to them to improve it just because you did not raise these issues when you were hired.


OP's employers are backing out on their originally verbal contract too. Coming into work two hours late on the regular and not even paying her for it. If anyone should feel scammed it's the nanny.

OP, I'd just find another job. But if then DONT wait six months. Five months is already to much, you need to raise the topic now before she gets even more comfortable with this ridiculous arrangement. Not paying you for your extra time, and not paying you when SHE decides she doesn't need you is not okay.
Anonymous
Unpaid labor?
And who thinks some nannies are not victims of the US slave trade?
Anonymous
This is the Op I'm planning on qutiting..lousy not sure how or when to do so....here is my updated post

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/nanny-forum/posts/list/276552.page
Anonymous
A nanny is not "losing a couple thousand dollars a year in employer vacatino time, early dismissals, grandparent visits, etc." unless you assume that she should be getting paid for work that she does not do,


I do understand the perspective of the lawyers on here like PP who pointed out that they are either contract workers paid only when they clock hours or else bill hours for their firm so need to make up the time somewhere no matter what. I can see how the concept of paying a fixed amount may be tough for you - But I think it's penny-wise and pound foolish to not give your FT nanny guaranteed hours. If you used a daycare you would pay the same fixed amoutn all the time, regardless of whether you use them or not - I have always seen my nanny's pay as the same. I also realize she has a family and that if I let her go at noon some day and ask her to work it on Saturday that that is a hugely negative trade for her since then she: a) gets time off when her kids are in school and in exchange b) has to now work on the weekend when she'd like to be spending time w/ them.

That said, I'm also 22:36 so think most of the problem in this case rests w/ OP for not negotiating items she needed at the get-go and now trying to rework the deal months into it.
Anonymous
This is the OP. I do understand its partly my fault for not bringing these things up in the beginning. If I thought I would get anywhere I would stay. But at the end of the day I've figured out that people are gonna do what works best for them and no matter how great I take care of there kids at the end of the day i don't matter. Us nannies are replaceable. I'm learning that I too can be picky about who I work for and what I want and not want to do. That's why in my more updated post I've decided just to move on at some point once I get what I need to get together.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:22:12, you are missing the point. A nanny is not "losing a couple thousand dollars a year in employer vacatino time, early dismissals, grandparent visits, etc." unless you assume that she should be getting paid for work that she does not do, which is not a reasonable assumption unless a certain number of days of paid time off is priced into the hourly rate, just as it is priced into a professional's salary.

It is true that salaried employees have guaranteed minimum hours, meaning that we get paid for a full week whether we work it or not. But we don't get paid for hours we work over and above a standard week. In other words, we don't have a "separate hourly rate" when we have to work overtime to make up for our salaried time off. You do, and the cost of that benefit is either schedule shifting in lieu of guaranteed hours, or a lower rate to offset the "separate hourly rate" we have to pay you for hours over and above your usual week.


Yeah but you're choosing to take a week off knowing fully well that you will have extra work. Nanny is not. She doesn't choose to be off a week, her employer does. I understand the rest of what you're saying though.


Yes, but the nanny was presumably given an estimate of how much unpaid time off she would have each year, and she chose to take the job anyway. Not a bit of difference, really.
Anonymous
Nannies: Guaranteed hours are not necessarily the be all, end all. What matters is the overall annual compensation. You need annual compensation that you can live on and you need to amortize that annual compensation over the number of hours you actually worked to make sure the pay per hour actually worked feels fair.

My nanny was offered a choice between guaranteed hours with the understanding that the offered rate was on the low end because of all the paid time off, or a higher rate plus time and a half after forty hours, with the understanding that time off would be unpaid. She chose the higher rate. We asked a few months later if it was working for her, and she had no interest in guaranteed hours.

Anonymous
"people are gonna do what works best for them and no matter how great I take care of there kids at the end of the day i don't matter."

you seem bitter. It is not necessarily the case that your MB thinks you "don't matter" simply becuase she viewed this as a truly hourly job and you want the more normal perks given to nannies in the DC area, but did not negotiate for them up front.
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