Shelby's Story: Why We Need Paid Family Leave

[Omaha Steve]

The latest video in the Workonomics series by Upworthy takes a look at Shelby, a mother who was forced to choose between taking care of her family and getting paid, a choice all too many workers in America are forced to make. The AFL-CIO supports expanding paid family leave as a way to make fewer Americans have to make such tragic and difficult decisions.

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Paid family leave fails to spread through states: http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2014/07/15/business/816709.txt

[pipoman]

1. Is there a limit to how much an employer

Should have to pay people who aren't at work? I agree that people's job should be saved in cases of family medical needs, for a reasonable and finite length of time.

[Omaha Steve]

3. In Paid Family Leave, U.S. Trails Most of the Globe

How is it even employers in developing nations can afford this and the US employers can't? Two stories below the map.




http://feministing.com/2013/01/10/map-of-the-day-the-state-of-maternity-leave-around-the-world/

As this interactive feature from NPR shows, the US is not just the only developed nation that doesn’t guarantee at least some paid maternity leave, it’s one of the only countries, period. We’re behind some 177 countries on this issue.

NPR’s map is focused on maternity leave policies because paternity leave policies are harder to pin down. They note, “In some cases, fathers can tap into the same benefits that mothers get; in other cases they have time specifically dedicated to them; and in many countries, fathers don’t have any time allotted to them at all.” The great parental leave policies in Australia and Sweden seem like utopian dreams in the US.

They shouldn’t. In theory, feminists and “family values” conservatives should be able to unite on this issue. (Fox New’s Megyn Kelly is on the right side at least.) And some states are slowly but surely moving in the right direction–though it still looks pretty bad out there. Still, Sharon Lerner recently suggested that we might be able to pass a national paid leave law by 2019. Here’s hoping.

Update: Just noticed this map was posted while ago, but still–we should be talking about the sad state of US maternity leave all the time until it changes!


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/23/your-money/us-trails-much-of-the-world-in-providing-paid-family-leave.html?pagewanted=all

By TARA SIEGEL BERNARD Published: February 22, 2013

There I was, on the day my six months of maternity leave had ended, pushing my son’s stroller with one hand, clutching a jumbo box of 174 diapers with the other, doing my best to navigate through piles of slushy snow.

It was time for his first day of day care, my time at home over in a blink.

Still, I knew I was relatively fortunate. The first eight weeks of my leave were paid, and I had tacked on another three weeks of paid vacation. Plus, my employer permits workers to take up to six months of unpaid leave.

A large majority of new parents in this country are not so lucky. It is no secret that when it comes to paid parental leave, the United States is among the least generous in the world, ranking down with the handful of countries that don’t offer any paid leave at all, among them Liberia, Suriname and Papua New Guinea.

FULL story at link.