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Importance of maternity and paternity leave
Importance of maternity and paternity leave
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“The Family and Medical Leave Act provides certain employees with up to twelve weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave per year.” FMLA is to help employees balance their family and work responsibilities. FMLA only applies to employees who have met certain requirements. “Some requirement that must be met are the employee has to work for a covered employer, has worked 1,250 hours prior to the start of the leave, work at a location where the employer has 50 or more employees within 75 miles and has worked for the employer for twelve months.” Some reasons to take leave include the birth of a son or daughter, placement of a son or daughter with the employee for adoption or foster care, to care for a family member who has a serious medical condition,
and a condition in which the employee is unable to perform certain functions at work correctly.
The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) provides certain employees with up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave and job protection for childbirth, adoption or foster care; to care for a seriously ill child, spouse, or parent; or for an employee’s own serious illness (Cañas & Sondak, 2011). It also requires that their group health benefits remain intact during the unpaid leave of absence. The employee must have worked for the employer for at least a year and must have earned 1,250 hours of service during the previous 12 months ((Cañas & Sondak, 2011, pg. 70).
The FMLA was passed to help families in the time of a crisis so that the individuals would not have to choose between work and personal responsibilities. The eligible employees are permitted to take unpaid, job-protected leave for specified family and medical reasons. The leave can last up to twelve workweeks in any twelve-month period. Reasons for leave include: pregnancy, prenatal complications, adoption/ fostering of a child, hospitalization, care of an immediate family member, or a health condition that makes the employee unable to do his or her job (Solis). This law applies to any employer “engaging in commerce” ...
This essay will first address the statute used and interpretation of the threshold test by the courts, and then focus on cases involving vulnerable children to assess whether the statute in The Children Act 1989 is sufficient in protecting these children from harm. I will look at the argument in favour of the current approach taken by the courts, and the counter-argument in favour of changing the current approach. The arguments are delicately balanced and the law is always developing, so it will be interesting to see how the Supreme Court resolves this issue in future.
The Fair Labor Standards Act The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was passed by Congress on June 25th, 1938. The main objective of the act was to eliminate “labor conditions detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standards of living necessary for health, efficiency and well-being of workers,”[1] who engaged directly or indirectly in interstate commerce, including those involved in production of goods bound for such commerce. A major provision of the act established a maximum work week and minimum wage. Initially, the minimum wage was $0.25 per hour, along with a maximum workweek of 44 hours for the first year, 42 for the second year and 40 thereafter. Minimum wages of $0.25 per hour were established for the first year, $0.30 for the second year, and $0.40 over a period of the next six years.
Currently in the United States, under The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, the federal government mandates a minimum of 12 weeks unpaid maternity leave to mothers who have a newborn or have newly adopted a child. Whether or not an employer chooses to pay the mother during this time is left to their discretion. This law only applies to about 50 -60 percent of working mothers due to firm size and duration of employment requirements. Currently, only 11 percent of private sector workers have access to paid maternity leave in the United States. The U.S. is the only industrialized nation that doesn’t mandate paid maternity leave to women. (Stearns, 2015)
“The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was created in 1938 to establish a minimum wage and a limit on the number of hours which may be worked in a standard work week. It also provides standards for equal pay, overtime pay, record keeping, and child labor.” This law was created during a time period of great financial and political turmoil.
FMLA claims that eligible employees are authorized to twelve weeks of leave in a 12-month period for reasons within these requirements:
Up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave (per calendar year) is permissible after the birth of a child or the placement of an adopted or foster-care child with the employee. Paid maternity leave is not offered at Fly Away Parts.
There are many laws in place to protect individuals in the work place and ensure that there is equality for all employees. There are laws that protect those with disabilities, protect against discrimination due to race, sex, religion or national origin and also laws to protect again discrimination because of gender or age. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, is an amendment to “Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit sex discrimination on the basis of pregnancy.” (EEOC, 2016) The Pregnancy Discrimination Act has helped “normalize” the pregnant woman in the workplace. (Boushey, 2011) In other words, employers cannot discriminate against women for pregnancy, but also have no legal duty to make things easier for them
“Our country's parental leave policies are woefully behind the rest of the world, and today San Francisco has taken the lead in pushing for better family leave policies for our workers” (Wiener) . Parental leave is when the companies/ government pay a worker to spend time with their newborn in the family. Recently the United States was acknowledged to be the only country to not have mandatory parental leave for parents of newborns. This would be arguable for whether or not it should be allowed and enforced as a new law. Reasons for parental leave would be financial issue, bonding time and educational increases. The last topic talks about the issues and cons of having parental leave for mainly mothers. The employers in the United States
I highly disagree with any notion that FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act) is an undue burden on employers. In the book it states, “ an employee must have worked for the employer for at least one year and must have performed more than 1,250 hours of service during the previous 12-month period” (Chessman). With this alone, you are guaranteeing yourself as the employer that the employee requesting time off is reliable and has shown his/her worth through over a years’ worth of dedication and hard work. Chances are, once that employee returns from the leave of absence they will work with twice as much pace to catch up or put themselves back into a profitable situation based off the amount of money they have missed due to the off. Had this
Paternity leave is not completely endorsed by law and many employers have the ability to deny males who request for leave. One account of an employer that does allow men to take leave is the civil service. The civil service allows men to take three days of paid leave after the birth or adoption of a child. Typically, when requesting paternity leave, a written request is required
Today the FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act) provides up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave. The PDA (Pregnancy Discrimination Act) states if you provide short term leave or benefits to employees with cancer you must provide those same benefits for for pregnancy disability
The website does a good job of interpreting these rules. For instance, they explain exactly what is guaranteed under the law such as, “The FMLA guarantees an employee, male or female, who has been working at least a year for a company with 50 or more employees the right to job-protected, 12-week, unpaid leave to recover from a serious medical condition or to care for a newborn, a newly adopted child, or a seriously ill child, parent or spouse”
To offset the unpaid FMLA provision, some organizations provide specific paid leave benefits for new parents. A 2013 survey conducted among U.S. human resource professionals illustrated that sixteen percent of organizations offered paid maternity leave, other than what is covered by short-term disability or state law, and 15% provided paid paternity leave (2013 employee benefits: An overview of employee benefit offerings in the U.S., 2013). The composition of family oriented benefits, like paid leave for new parents, has changed significantly within the U.S. and globally over the past few decades (Mathis, Jackson, &Valentine, 2014,