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Comment by spacehome | Hacker News Reader

If an employee is pregnant, no one is forcing the employee to show up for work. When people talk about maternity leave, they usually don't mean the ability to not show up for work (which is a given in a free society), but rather the obligation of the employer to pay the employee whether or not she shows up for work. This meaning of 'maternity leave' is not a legal requirement of employment in the US, though some employers include it. Employers are not and should not be required to pay you for work you are not doing. If maternity leave is important to an employee, it's important to negotiate it when arranging employment, or failing that, negotiate a high enough salary that you can afford to save for a couple months without income.

As of 1993, companies with 50 employees or more must offer unpaid maternity leave.

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> If an employee is pregnant, no one is forcing the employee to show up for work. When people talk about maternity leave, they usually don't mean the ability to not show up for work (which is a given in a free society), but rather the obligation of the employer to pay the employee whether or not she shows up for work.

Well, there's two kinds of mandatory maternity leave:

Job protected leave, in which the employee is entitled to be returned to work after their leave, which may or may not be paid, and

Paid leave, in which the employee is entitled to pay while on leave, whether or not they are entitled to return to work (in principle; in practice, mandated paid leave is usually also job protected.).

The US (for some employees of some employers) has federally-guaranteed job protected maternity (and paternity) leave, but no federal mandate for paid leave for either. Some states have additional job protected leave mandates and/or paid leave mandates.

> Employers are not and should not be required to pay you for work you are not doing.

Most other developed countries seem to see that slightly differently. But ok, it is a stance you can discuss - however, it becomes enormously cynical when combined with the conservative aversion against welfare rights:

So you're pregnant or sick and happen to not have enough resources to live from savings for a few months. If neither the state nor the employers are obligated to help you, who exactly is?

America is known for practicing social darwinism as though it were a positive thing.

I remember an "ask a conservative" thread on reddit a while ago. What I found remarkable was that a lot of discussions that were ostensibly about "small government" or "promotion of conservative values", when challanged by a few counter-questions, shifted pretty quickly to population control along the lines of "if the poor get too much welfare they'll just have more kids".

Admittedly, this was reddit, so apologies if I'm misrepresenting real-life conservatives here, but that thread got me thinking that a lot of the political discussion might, at the root, actually be about social darwinism.

Yes you most definitely are misrepresenting the conservatives. None of it has to do with family values or anything other than the lack of understand on the left as to why your employer should not be forced to pay for everything you do or want to do.

Hell, most less-developed countries see that differently.

In America it is assumed you will think ahead and financially prepare instead of relying on the government. What actually happens is the more educated will be prepared and relatively unaffected while the less financially educated will go into debt

This doesn't work, for simple economic reasons. Companies will pay the lowest wage they can so they can reduce operating expenses. The lowest wage in many jobs will therefore tend to be the cost of a healthy, independent individual's living. So, anybody who isn't a healthy, independent individual will not be able to negotiate on an individual basis for enough pay, in the typical case. It's always going to be cheaper for a company to only hire people without kids, and without special needs, so unless you force them to do things differently, that's what they'll do - because it's simply not their responsibility to be nice to single mothers.

If you want to live in a socially darwinistic society, that's your bag. But don't pretend the people suffering it are 'uneducated'. You devalue both these people, and education in general.

Ignoring the role of financial literacy is troubling. If we don't teach people to save and invest they will never be prepared no matter how healthy.

It's often the case that victors feel their successes stem from superior characteristics, even in manifestly unfair games. Medieval nobles called themselves 'aristocrats', aristo meaning 'the best', in greek. Modern winners tend to think themselves very talented and financially prudent. The aristocrats, at least, were measurably better in some ways than their serfs: larger, more healthy, generally stronger, and so on.

> Medieval nobles called themselves 'aristocrats', aristo meaning 'the best'

Interesting, I didn't know that.

Sounds suspiciously similar to today's "meritocracy"...

Three men own the majority of wealth in the US by themselves. It's exactly the same kind of thing. Except instead of "ennoblement", we tell ourselves that we can strike it big and join those at the top.

and instead of trying to strike it big we sit on comment boards and make comments about why these supposed 3 individuals aren’t required to divide up their gains.

These are whole foods workers. they are not rocket surgeons, they can be easily replaced by stepping outside and finding the next person that walks by. These are the types of jobs that will be automated away in the near future due to stuff like this. Your average skillless worker won’t have a job to go to if they keep making themselves more and more expensive.

So the solution is that we just all become the next Steve Jobs?

> it's important to negotiate it when arranging employment

I'm going to guess that a very small portion of WFMs employees have the ability to successfully negotiate their employment terms

>I'm going to guess that a very small portion of WFMs employees have the ability to successfully negotiate their employment terms

A very small portion of all employees have that ability, much less an opportunity to attempt to negotiate the terms of their employment. I think a lot of people here overestimate the leverage that the average employee - including tech industry employees - actually have with their employers.

Maybe it’s because those average employees are, well average? if you’re worth a damn in your field you most definitely can define the terms of your employment or find a company that will let you

>if you’re worth a damn in your field you most definitely can define the terms of your employment or find a company that will let you

But this thread is about those average employees, and even exceptional employees in most fields have little to no power to set terms.

> So you're pregnant or sick and happen to not have enough resources to live from savings for a few months. If neither the state nor the employers are obligated to help you, who exactly is?

Why would anybody be obligated to help you if you've decided to take up a hugely resourceful personal project?

Kids and pregnancy is expensive, and should remain so. How is making a kid is different from taking your time to go on a trip around the world, or recording an album, or doing anything else like that?

If you can't afford it, don't do it. It's that simple. Cases when it's out of your control (medical conditions) are different, of course, but they are not the norm and conversation about pregnancy and kids should not be revolving around them.

"Welfare rights"?!

That's a great neologism. It's now a right to take other people's paychecks?

Yes, that is what a society is; we all work to support one another in one way or another.

The only real question is what that support looks like. For most of the Western world, it includes things like paying women for maternity leave, and not complaining or acting like this is a big controversial idea.

That's what you want it to be. Not everybody wants to live in that world.

If the goal of a society if not to provide security, then what exactly is it?

That's what society is; what I want looks quite different from what we have, but the basic elements are in place.

If you don't want to live in a society, there are certainly places on earth you could go to live out your days in isolation, and you might be happy there. Give it a try, hey, why not? If we miss you, we'll let you know.

getting pregnant or remaining pregnant is a choice. it’s not a disease you just contract without choice. why should an employer be forced to pay for your decision?

Because if not, you end up in a situation where only wealthy people can have kids -> ergo, population control.

This is why we can't have nice things.

I agree. Yet people keep voting for socialism.

The contemporary American conservative's use of the word "socialism" seems so meaning-free, it's a stand-in for "things I don't like" or "whatever libtards want".

Can you elaborate on what socialism you think people are voting for?

Cause right now we don't have free education--we have massive loans we award to children that can never be disposed of.

We don't have free health care--we have the worst of both possible systems, with only now a real national discussion about bringing our horrible health care in line with literally the rest of the western world.

Where's this socialism people keep voting for, and when's it going to start reaching us and affecting our lives in a meaningful way???

Maternity leave policies are a transfer of wealth from people who have fewer children to people who have more children.

They’re also a transfer of wealth from shareholders to employees (who have kids).

Awesome. Transfer that wealth. Shareholders add nothing of value to any economic system. Transfer it all to the people who are making a contribution.

But you said "people are voting for socialism" (in a discussion about some group unionizing) and that's just a bullshit claim. This country is so far from socialist policies, and no one's running on a socialist platform, it's just empty words to say anyone's voting for socialism.

>Employers are not and should not be required to pay you for work you are not doing. If maternity leave is important to an employee, it's important to negotiate it when arranging employment, or failing that, negotiate a high enough salary that you can afford to save for a couple months without income.

As if people have any negotiating power without unions, as if there is not a well-documented power imbalance in this country. Your attitude toward the common woman/man = why we can't have nice things. You and people like you labeling any thing that gives people a decent chance socialism = why we can't have nice things. Would you consider Denmark a socialist country?

Or maybe you were just being glib?

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