SocialDemocrat
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2014
- Messages
- 922
- Reaction score
- 309
- Location
- The beautiful Pacific Northwest
- Gender
- Undisclosed
- Political Leaning
- Socialist
You believe that people who can't afford to raise children should be encouraged to have them anyway and we should just subsidize them with more welfare? I'm sorry, but that's just stupid. There isn't a nicer way to put it.
We give away 'free' birth control and low cost abortions. People need to be responsible and use them if they can't afford to have children.
Encouraging a low birth rate is no better. Paid parental leave=/=welfare, and I fail to see how either this or a national daycare program will have negative effects poverty wise. I do believe that abortion and birth control should be free, but birth control isn't foolproof, those who identify with the pro-life movement aren't going to want to have an abortion, and there are people in lower income levels who, believe it or not, would actually like to raise a family.
It makes the worker deserving of the pay his skill and negotiating power can earn him. It does not mean his pay should be tied to the pay of the person taking all the risk or providing the skill and brainpower that makes the company profitable. And no company is controlling the lives of anyone. They are free to quit and start their own business any time they want.
They are controlling the lives of the employee because the employee is, most of the time, entirely or mostly dependent on the wages provided by the company, and will not be able to successfully transition to owning a small business. Hell, finding another job can be near impossible in this climate, and with all the unemployment benefit cuts going on right now, it's not getting any easier. You're also implying that the skill and brainpower of a CEO is inherently superior to that of their workers. Geniuses are born into poverty and never make it out, while some idiot can inherent millions of dollars and a whole lot of bargaining power. Money does not measure intellect.
They can create their own personal economic stability and guess what nothing can or should be a guarantee. That is why in the constitution it says pursuit of happiness and not just happiness
That's in the Declaration of Independence, which has no relevance to public policy making. Also, I'm not talking about guaranteeing happiness. I'm talking about eliminating poverty and providing a near-guarantee towards economic stability, which not everyone has the ability to do. You think that the millions of people in poverty could all get out if they just tried harder? That's an extremely naive viewpoint.
than it should be up to the company if they want to provide maternity leave. It is not the governments job to tell a company how to increase productivity.
And it most definitely letting people do what ever they want (having a baby) and making someone else ( the company) pay for it while that employ is at home providing nothing to the company.
There is a competitive disadvantage for companies who choose to provide paid leave though, because they will be making more expenses towards their employees, which on the surface puts them at a disadvantage, despite the productivity tidbit. And the mandate itself is designed to benefit the worker, not the company.
It is about rewarding the lazy (those who want to get paid while doing no work) and punishing the rich by making them pay an employee who is not doing his job. What else can you call it. And paid maternity leave is not a need necessary for life. People have got along just fine for hundreds of years without it. You just want more for doing less. Call it whatever you want but that is the truth of it.
You think that parents want paid parental leave so that they can lounge around all day? Raising a baby is work, and that simply cannot be twisted to mean anything different. And just because we've haven't been offering paid parental leave in the past isn't a legitimate reason not to. We have a low birth rate and higher poverty rates because this policy has not been in place.
Ok, thanks for sharing, but these proposals because of their complexity would be better for another thread so as not to derail.
It's not that one of those rights outweighs the other. It's that one exists and the other (the latter) does not. Children have a right to be provided for, but parents do not have the right to be given the means to provide for their own children.
How do you believe that corporations bringing in profits is going to benefit society? I don't have a problem in theory with the idea of corporations bringing in profit, but why is this a right, while parental leave is not? If children have a right to be provided for, but parents do not have a right to have the means to provide for their child, how exactly is the child going to be provided for? I don't see what you're getting at.
Your question (about repealing laws providing for unpaid maternity leave) is difficult, and particularly because it has already been in place. I don't know that I would advocate its repeal per se because there are much bigger fish to fry concerning employee benefits (mostly related to health insurance). Philosophically I would only agree to mandate that employers disclose upon hire the specific conditions of personnel policies relating to things like this. If the company decides you are guaranteed nothing after taking a couple weeks off to give birth, then that's their right but it should be clearly communicated so that a fertile 25-year old can think carefully about taking that job as well as think carefully about whether to get pregnant if she or he wants to keep that job long-term. Only mandate people receive full information so that they can make informed decisions about such important things as family and career.
Your suggestion sounds better than the status quo, but as I have mentioned in previous posts, the lack of a mandate is going to put those who choose to offer paid parental leave at a competitive disadvantage, and therefore discourage those in lower incomes from raising a family altogether.
I believe (and this is consistent with my personal experience) that some companies are financially prudent to voluntarily offer family-friendly policies because they want stable employees. Unstable and flighty employees and high turnover have big costs for some employers. It takes time and money and lost productivity to be continuously teaching new people how to do their jobs, and when you get a young family in a job, they are not going to quit on a whim and they are going to do whatever necessary to do a good job because they want to set down roots and provide for their families. That has value to employers and so it should be up to them to recognize that and offer compensation accordingly. It should not be up to a federal government to blanket the nation in that sort of policy, mandating it everywhere all of the time when it only makes sense some places some of the time.
Well it is not always going to make sense economically for the business to offer paid parental leave, because each situation is different, (I do think it absolutely makes sense for them to choose to do from a moral and ethical perspective however) but the goal of a mandate is not to help the business, and any parts of the mandate that do aid the business are positive side effects. The goal of the mandate is to aid the worker, and with the exception of those in upper incomes who aren't going to struggle financially from not having paid leave, and even then it won't hurt them, workers who are also new parents will benefit from the mandate.