As a rule of thumb, US companies don't care about workers. Employees are considered an expense to be tolerated.
Before someone tries to present a contrarian view, I implore you to run a thought experiment with your employer - if share price/margin/profits drop tomorrow, what will they do? Layoffs/cuts or ask shareholders to accept lower returns for some time?
Doing good things on principle is in dire need of being reinvented, perhaps on first principles again.
Eventually the doing for yourself ruins the whole world. We keep sliding down these chutes, ever more convinced to do for ourselves first, as things get worse & worse socially. Even Ford understood he needed to not just create workers for his factory, but a society affluent enough & well paid enough to buy cars. We no longer have that basic sense.
True. Having the retirement funds of gen-pop tied to the wellbeing of some unscrupulous mega-corps, leads to a prisoner's dilemma where governments and gen-pop are incentivized to ignore or even support the exploitation, societal damage and misbehavior of such "too big to fail" entities.
It becomes a form of mutually assured destruction: "you can regulate or fine us Uncle Sam, but you'll also be hurting the retirements of your citizens; are you sure you want to do that?"
From my taxes currently.
That's why you see shareholder lawsuits against their own company when management does something dumb/illegal and the stock drops.
Shareholder Theory wasn't even a social norm in the US until the 70s!
I would take a salary below the market rate if the job came with free childcare, because I'd still have to spend the money and I'd potentially save time on my commute.
This idea that companies "don't care about workers" is absurd. If anything other than the TC for a job has ever mattered to you, the company offering the thing that mattered has probably saved money on your salary.
I’m religious. I want my kids to have a religious daycare.
A friend of mine isn’t religious, but is an immigrant and wants her kids watched after by someone who can teach the kid their parent’s language.
Childcare is Gemeinschaft, not Gesellschaft.
Assuming companies don't want an entire workforce of parents for various reasons, paying at market and providing childcare benefits would be the only option. Then the whole shareholders win argument takes hold since income would go down. Most likely miniscule impact, but that satisfy some investor types.
Otherwise, government just has to require it for all companies over certain thresholds. And that becomes the cultural issue. For countries with smaller governments, I guess competition becomes the only venue. We are seeing more public-benefit corporations, which should be able to provide company benefits more easily than shareholder companies. And if startup performance finally picks up in this AI age (well, probably not ;), big companies might be incentivized to retain by providing more benefits.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/h...
In which countries do you think companies actually care about workers?
I live in Europe and none of the companies I worked for ever cared about the workers beyond the bare minimum they were mandated to by regulations and even there they were trying to weasel out of some (unpaid overtime, etc) because "the economy is bad" and "we're not competitive with cheaper countries". The moment I got a longer sickness I've been laid off.
Sure, some companies have more perks like Kindergartens for employees and pension plans but that's because they want to attract more competitive workers, not because they actually care about those workers. Their care about you is limited to the amount of added value you bring in, not on some moral or ethical grounds. Otherwise those same companies wouldn't be using sweatshop workers in the far east.
We're economic cannon fodder everywhere. The private sector exists only to provide innovations and return on investment to shareholders or owners, not to care about workers, that's the government's job.
Companies should not be what holds up society. It gives them too much power. It also amplifies the divide between haves and haves not.
The issue is the Right to Work states. If your childcare is tied to your employment, and you can lose your job at any time, you then can lose your childcare at any time. That sets up incentives that become rather ugly rather fast.
Add in that there are typically long wait lists for childcare, the emotional ties, childcare workers' incentives, and the costs that are universal for the US. It's not even close to a simple decision for anyone.
Personally, I wouldn't use such childcare if it were comparable to other providers. It would have to be significantly cheaper or free to consider it.
You don’t need childcare if you have free time due to not being at work..?
I'll add that about 40% of children are born to unwed mothers in the US.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/276025/us-percentage-of-...
And, again, many daycares have moths/years long waiting lists. Daycare is a super local thing in the US and, in my experience, not really all that tied to CoL standards. I've personally been in year+ lists and have had friends where you can pretty much walk in and get started. It's quite variable.
Meanwhile, I know several people limiting their family size due to economic constraints.
They want the benefits of it without paying.
It's the same as hiring/training juniors/apprentices (in all kinds of jobs not just tech) etc. Companies want experienced people but don't want to pay to train them, in that case the workaround is to poach someone after they've gotten experience.
Of course when every company is poaching and nobody is hiring juniors you start to see shortage of experienced people.
edit: maybe this is why everyone is trying rush LLMs into some roles.
1. Everyone wants the “best” for their kids. When I think of the “best” childcare, I imagine some specialized program with excellent caregivers and a multitude of enrichment opportunities. I don’t think of a company-run daycare.
2. Many people don’t live near work. You want your kids’ friends to live nearby.
3. You want to provide stability for your kids. Tying daycare to your job is antithetical to that goal.
You’re assuming two things:
1. The “best” thing is scarce.
2. Everyone agrees on what the “best” thing is.
People want to send their kids to the best place within the framework of their own opinions on what “best” is. Just because two people work for company X doesn’t mean they’re likely to agree on what a good daycare is.
> Secondly, how many people remember their daycare friends?
How is that relevant? When your kid wants a playdate, you want their friends to be nearby to facilitate that.
> Third, how offered something free tied you up?
Nothing is free.
Daycare and coffee just aren’t equivalent.
> If you provide childcare services to your employees, you may be eligible for this general business credit. It covers qualified expenditures for a childcare facility and for childcare resource and referral.
> The Employer-Provided Childcare Credit offers employers a tax credit up to $150,000 per year to offset 25% of qualified childcare facility expenditures and 10% of qualified childcare resource and referral expenditures.
https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...