I work for a large health care and insurance company, and while it's overall a great organization to work for, our parental leave policies kinda suck. As in I got six weeks of short-term disability (60% pay) and that's it. The rest of my time was unpaid FMLA. A colleague and I would like to encourage our company to adopt more family friendly leave policies (i.e. Paid leave) and are interested in what other companies offer.
So, if you don't mind sharing:
1. What type of paid/unpaid maternity/paternity leave does your company offer, if any? What about your SO's company? 2. What general industry are you in? If you work for a large, well-known company and want to share the name, awesome. 3. How many employees are there? 4. What general region are you in (or nation/worldwide)?
First of all, I'm sorry you get such crappy leave and I think it's great that you guys are willing to approach your company about it. I hope they listen and consider making some changes!
As for me:
My company is not family-friendly and my saving grace is that I live in California, a state with paid maternity leave. I work for a small company in the entertainment industry in the Los Angeles area, and since we have less than 50 employees, FMLA does not apply. My company offers no paid leave and no job protection.
However, what the state offers is quite different. The state's short term disability plan, which all w-2 employees across the state pay into, covers up to 4 weeks before your due date and 6-8 weeks after your due date depending on what kind of delivery you have. (I am 36 weeks and my last day of work is tomorrow.) The pay is around 60% of your income but it is not taxable, and since taxes here are high, it basically works out to almost the same as your take home pay. Those weeks under disability pay are job protected by the state - you cannot get fired during this time or have your benefits taken away because you're on leave. After the disability pay runs out, you can then get 6 more "baby bonding" weeks paid through CA through their paid family leave program, which is also at 60% but federally taxable and without job protection.
Since my job would not be protected past 6-8 weeks post delivery, I had to negotiate my leave with my employer - I am taking 5 months off, and about 4 of those months will be paid by the state. My company could still fire me come February because they have no legal thing stopping them from doing so, but honestly, I'm on the fence about going back and may look for something closer to home with more family-friendly policies, benefits, and hours.
SO's situation is *completely* different - he works for a well-known medium-sized tech company with around 2000 employees in various offices around the US and elsewhere. Since tech companies are always competing for employees by offering great benefits, ALL parents (moms and dads) at his company get 8 weeks PAID leave, and dads can also get the additional 6 weeks of baby bonding leave through California at 60% (and for him this would be job-protected because it falls under FMLA). So - SO gets 14 weeks of paid leave with job protection that he is encouraged to take and that he can use all at once or in bits and pieces. I am jealous. If he was a woman, he would be able to use the California paid leave (16-18 weeks) PLUS the 8 weeks from his company. Maybe I should go work for his company, haha.
I have a pregnant friend who works at Facebook and she gets 5 months paid leave. Insane. I need to go back to 2000 and tell my college self to become a computer science major.
Post by teachermomtobe on Nov 29, 2016 19:27:47 GMT -5
I am a teacher so our union has fought for pretty good leave. We can use up to 8 weeks of accumulated sick days in order to get paid. If you don't have that much accumulated you can take what you have as paid and get upaid for the rest. Because of FMLA we can take up to 12 weeks unpaid but it's not in addition to the paid leave, it's concurrent so you could get paid up to 8 and take the remaining 4 unpaid.
DH just left a job that had paid paternity leave but unfortunately we didn't look much into it and then he left. He currently is without a job so no idea what he'll get at a new job.
Post by ronniesgirl on Nov 29, 2016 21:13:47 GMT -5
I took 11 weeks FMLA. I got paid for about 1/2 by draining my PTO. My husband then also took 8 weeks paternity leave (FMLA) so we could extend the time before we had to consider childcare. He also used a bunch of his PTO.
We both work for the state or local government in Maryland. DH teaches and his union contract provides for 6 weeks leave without needing FMLA.
A friend in the UK is due in a couple of weeks and she just posted that she's done with work until 2018.
Also, I couldn't take 12 weeks FMLA because I used a week of FMLA for a failed OOT IVF cycle last year.
My company isn't great, but it is better than some.
We get two weeks 100% paid parental leave (I believe both men and women), then four weeks short term disability if the employee pays for the policy, then any remaining time is unpaid and/or vacation time.
Our short term disability is paid with post tax dollars so I was told by HR that my disability payments will NOT be subject to taxes. I just did the math on mine and I will only miss out on $200 of income for the 4 weeks of STD assuming no taxes are taken out and not having my benefits taken out.
Normally I would have to pay for my benefits out of pocket, but the letter I got from HR last week said that I didn't owe anything for December. I'm not sure why but I'm not asking questions.
Post by crazycatlady6 on Nov 30, 2016 8:09:10 GMT -5
I work for a large company that is international with thousands of employees. I was knocked to part-time last year so I get my 12 weeks FLMA because it's the law, my boss is not too thrilled with the fact that I am taking the entire 12 weeks since we are short staffed. Not my problem when you just finished going on a witch hunt and fired 2 full-time employees n the past month with nobody to replace them. In my territory of well over 100 people, there are less than 10 full-time employees so it goes to show that they do not want us to be full-time because then they would have to pay benefits.
DH works for a large accounting firm that has multiple offices in the US and India. He gets 2 weeks paid paternity leave and then he can take more time off, but it would be unpaid which we cannot afford.
Post by dancerspose on Nov 30, 2016 13:11:55 GMT -5
1. What type of paid/unpaid maternity/paternity leave does your company offer, if any? What about your SO's company? Basically none. My company doesn't pay into the short term disability, and I didn't know it was something I could/needed to opt into on my own. Basically I can use accrued vacation and sick time or leave without pay. I can invoke FMLA if I want/need to. I am lucky that I can carryover up to 6 weeks of vacation time and unlimited sick leave so I have enough leave to take 12 weeks off completely paid. I'm still working out a possibility of tele-working part time after the first 8 weeks. We'll see. DH has to invoke FMLA and use his sick time or leave without pay. The only saving grace is that he works 24 hours shifts then 3 days off so he'll probably only take off a few since even when he goes back to work he'll be around a lot.
2. What general industry are you in? If you work for a large, well-known company and want to share the name, awesome. I actually work for the federal government. DH is a firefighter for a city government.
3. How many employees are there? For me, hundreds of thousands across all agencies. For DH across the city probably a few hundred.
4. What general region are you in (or nation/worldwide)? Mid atlantic
Post by lastnamewithheld on Nov 30, 2016 14:10:53 GMT -5
My company's "maternity leave" is a joke.
1. What type of paid/unpaid maternity/paternity leave does your company offer, if any? What about your SO's company? 12 weeks FMLA and 6-8 weeks at 60% thanks to a short-term disability policy that I pay for with each pay. SO has to use vacation time if he wants to get paid for his FMLA time. 2. What general industry are you in? If you work for a large, well-known company and want to share the name, awesome. I work in the automotive industry, namely a auto repair shop/ tire dealer. (I'm HBIC in the office lol) 3. How many employees are there? 100-200 company wide 4. What general region are you in (or nation/worldwide)? Pennsylvania
IVF+ICSI March 2016 (6R/5M/5F - 3 embryos on ice) 4/7/16: first ever BFP! EDD: 12/17/16 DS Arrived via C-Section 12/19/16! FET #1 June 2019 - 1 embryo didn't survive thaw & the one that did didn't stick around. BFN FET #2 September 2019 - last embryo didn't survive thaw.
Post by teachermomtobe on Nov 30, 2016 16:34:45 GMT -5
I also should add as a teacher we do have the option of taking the remainder of the school year off unpaid. Example: if I had a baby in January I could take 8 weeks paid and then stay out until June unpaid. I'm having a June baby so that doesn't help me.
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