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Microsoft Will Require Business Partners To Offer Paid Parental Leave (washingtonpost.com)
Microsoft has unveiled a new paid parental leave policy on Thursday that will affect the more than 1,000 firms it does business with across the U.S. An anonymous reader shares the report from the Washington Post: Technology giants in the United States offer some of the country's most generous employee benefits, but the workers who mow the lawns or serve lunch in the company cafeteria -- jobs that are often staffed by outside firms -- tend to get far smaller packages. Microsoft announced a new policy Thursday that it hopes will shrink that gap, pledging it will ink contracts only with service providers who give their employees 12 weeks of paid family leave. Per the requirement, mothers and fathers who perform work for Microsoft -- biological and adoptive -- must receive 12 weeks of leave at two-thirds of their wages or up to $1,000 weekly. The announcement comes as Washington state, where the company is based, prepares to introduce paid family leave for workers, the fifth state to do so. Microsoft currently offers its direct employees 12 weeks of paid family leave at full pay, and birth mothers receive an additional eight paid weeks for physical recovery.
Seriously, paid parental leave should be obvious to society. Countless studies have shown benefits across the whole family when BOTH parents get time off to raise the child at birth. If this is the case, one can only assume that the price of these contracts will go up, which means that MS is willing to accept an additional cost in order to do the right thing. Good on them.
Amazing that it takes a private company to start going where every other Western country has been at for some time.
It's standard here to have up to 17 weeks pregnancy leave and up to 63 weeks of parental leave (by either parent). It's all unpaid with employment insurance covering 52 weeks of it.
This is paid leave, though. Why should you get paid for not working, ever?
The answer of course is that the US native reproductive rate has fallen below sustaining. If we want to survive as a society, we need to be encouraging each woman to have slightly more than 2 kids. Not to mention that both parents are generally pretty damn useless until the kid starts sleeping through the night, so you might as well deal with that reality.
We sure need to do something to keep professional parents from waiting until nearly 40 before having kids - that's almost certainly the reason for the spike in autism. Personally, I'd like to see a cultural shift in the US to "bust your ass in your 20s, work part time for the rest of your career". I doubt it will happen. but IMO is the correct way to address work-life balance, strategically.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Norway: 70,812.48
Canada - 51,315.89
US - 53,128.54
Of course we only have 59 weeks or parental leave (at 80% salary or 49 weeks at 100%) following the 12 week maternity leave. Oh and it has none of these silly $1000 a week caps. So, if you're a CEO and you have $500,000 a year salary, you'll receive that the whole time you're out.
Though I'll admit, the job offers I get in D.C. (typically about $300K+) or in S.V. ($250K+) or in NYC ($200K+) are considerably more than the $128K base salary I make now. Though I do get overtime and I have side work for an extra $50K. I do pay A LOT more taxes here than I would there. But the standard of living is substantially higher here than over there. I didn't have to spend month interviewing day care nannies to ensure they won't diddle or beat my children. I didn't have to spend months applying to private schools to keep my kids away from the school shootings. I didn't have to put a penny in the bank for my kids college educations. I didn't pay for the lenses in my childrens glasses. I've never paid for a doctor or dentist appointment for my kids. Honestly, I take home a lot more in the end than my American counter parts.
My daughter dreams of going to MIT one day... I'll have to pay something for cost of living, but I won't spend a dime on the school itself. And she's well on track to get there too. If I lived in the U.S., I'd have to plan taking a second mortgage to cover her education even on those high salaries.