Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year ... by sandworm101 on Tuesday February 05, 2019 @05:14PM (#19090511)

I'm in canada and there is an actual problem. I know of a lawfirm that suffered through a new hire. She had one kid, took the leave and then was pregnant with another within months of returning. The nasty part was that she made is known she intended on leaving the firm after the second kid. She did then leave. The firm effectively paid her for two years only to have her then walk out the door.

Women should get the time. I have no issue with them, and men too, taking the time. But given modern family planning, pregnancies are most often not a surprise. I don't like seeing an employee who plans and executes a multi-year campaign to extract as much money as possible from a program with the goal of then walking away once the tap runs dry.

There is no answer. Employers cannot interfere with family matters. Patents get the legally mandated leave. And they are free then to walk away. It only gets horrible when people start to leverage the program beyond the original purpose.

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Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year ... by muizelaar on Tuesday February 05, 2019 @05:42PM (#19090773)

Parental leave in Canada is paid by Employment Insurance not the employer.

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Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year ... by otoburb on Tuesday February 05, 2019 @05:58PM (#19090926)

True, but Canadian firms also compete with one another for talent, and many top firms (presumably more applicable to a whiteshoe law firm) offer "top up" the employe's parental leave salary to X% -- the best I've seen is 80%, but perhaps competing for top talent employers could offer up to 100%.

In this instance, both the government and the employers are shouldering that cost.

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Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year ... by sandworm101 on Tuesday February 05, 2019 @06:19PM (#19091106)

Exactly. Many law firms in Canada ensure paternity leave pays out at 100% of salary. Lawyers, like a great many other professions, also come with additional costs. Her dues, her training, insurance, her benefits package, all were paid. Not to mention, when she returns, it is at salary similar to what she would have expected had she stayed. So now they have a new attorney with no experience outside of law school, being paid the equivalent of one with 2+ year experience. All these costs add up.

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[dead]

Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year ... by thetrb on Tuesday February 05, 2019 @07:55PM (#19091693)

Wow, calling a pregnant woman "leech-like" is one of the most misogynistic things I've ever read on HN.

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Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year ... by charlie0 on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @09:49PM (#19102533)

I have no issues with maternity leave at all and I support it, with some exceptions obviously. I do have issues with people trying to game the system as this particular woman was.

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Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year ... by 908087 on Tuesday February 05, 2019 @09:59PM (#19092316)

They didn't call her "leech-like", they called her behavior "leech-like".. and it was.

Should pregnant women be exempt from any type of judgement regardless of their behavior?

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Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year ... by apexalpha on Wednesday February 06, 2019 @06:02AM (#19094206)

Or perhaps implementing a Canadian/European style parental leave program paid by taxes would mean this woman wouldn't have to act like this to get some support before/after having a child.

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Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year ... by 908087 on Thursday February 07, 2019 @09:58AM (#19105548)

Or maybe people should wait until they're in a position where they don't have to resort to such behavior in order to support their offspring.

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