We Have Less Maternity Leave Than Pakistan? 5 Things That Would Make Your Job Humane

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/story/156310/we_have_less_maternity_leave_than_pakistan_5_things_that_would_make_your_job_humane/

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1. Adopt Mandatory Paid Sick and Family Leave

The statistics are raw: we are the only developed country without mandatory paid maternity leave. With our paltry requirements for unpaid leave (waived for small businesses) we stagger along behind places like Pakistan, Mexico and South Africa, which have paid leave requirements. Many Europeans countries have innovative programs that allow parents to split leave or even require fathers to take part of the leave. ThinkProgress reports:

/Out of 178 nations, the U.S. is one of three that does not offer paid maternity leave benefits, let alone paid leave for fathers, which more than 50 of these nations offer. In comparison, Canada and Norway offer generous benefits that can be shared between the father and mother, France offers about four months, and even Mexico and Pakistan are among the nations offering 12 weeks paid leave for mothers.'

***SNIP

2. Mandatory Paid Vacation and Flexible Vacation Policies


This is perhaps the most obvious policy that needs to change. Perhaps you've already guessed, dear reader, where the US stands relative to the rest of the world. From the Atlantic, this July 4:

'The United States is practically the only developed country in the world that doesn't require companies to give their workers time off. In Germany, workers are guaranteed a month. In the UK, they're guaranteed more than five weeks of paid vacation. In the U.S., unique in its class, there is no such guarantee.'

[xchrom]

1. I'll give this 1 kick. Nt

[Initech]

2. USA! USA! USA!

[marshall]

3. I didn't even know Pakistan allowed women to work!

Now that's progressive!

[Mutiny In Heaven]

4. As a non-American,

I posit that mandatory paid maternity leave is unlikely to be something that God-fearing Republicans would be down with, yet it's fairly obvious to me that such a tremendous lack of support for Mothers is not going to be something that helps bring down the abortion rate they profess to care about in some of their most abject delusions.

As George Carlin once said, "If you're pre-born, you're fine; if you're pre-school, you're fucked".

[woo me with science]

5. DU Rec