False Premise: Maternity Leave
So here's my view: it's NICE if an employer can afford to have someone else take over for you if you become pregnant, but shouldn't be mandatory by law. You were hired to do a job. If you become unable to fulfill that commitment you made to your employer, why should your employer pay for it?
Now I agree that terminating someone just for being pregnant is stupid and should be illegal (maybe). Why? Because you have to show it is preventing them from doing their job. Pregnancy is temporary - it isn't a disability. If you are a reasonable employer, you'll make reasonable accommodations. What I don't want to see is the nonsense this article is pushing with the socialist maternity leave rules of Europe where both father AND mother get paid time off for up to like a year. That's ridiculous to me.
Now I agree that terminating someone just for being pregnant is stupid and should be illegal (maybe). Why? Because you have to show it is preventing them from doing their job. Pregnancy is temporary - it isn't a disability. If you are a reasonable employer, you'll make reasonable accommodations. What I don't want to see is the nonsense this article is pushing with the socialist maternity leave rules of Europe where both father AND mother get paid time off for up to like a year. That's ridiculous to me.
"One of the reasons women make less than men—16¢ per dollar less, according to the Pew Research Center—is that they’re clustered in lower-paying fields, or in positions where they work fewer hours."
They are in different types of fields and don't work the same hours. Men typically take higher risk jobs (that compensate them for the risk), work longer hours, and work in their field longer and more consistently - all which have value to an employer.
In my experience as a consultant in a wide variety of businesses I have known many effective women in many roles in businesses. There has been no evidence whatsoever that women or men are purposely passed over or paid less solely due to gender. However, both men and women are regularly discriminated against in hiring due to age (older and over qualified) and inexperience.
I have the problem of not understanding why anyone would want a long-term job. I weight turnover costs as low but cost of leaving me hanging the middle of something without warning very high.
I agree with the principle, but in my odd use of language a business managed by me *does* exist to serve customers, employees, and suppliers. Buying from someone or paying someone who isn't working out of charity isn't really serving them. Serving them is creating a framework where people's ability to create value thrives and then sharing some of that value with them, hopefully inspiring them to create more value. Many clients and employers have treated me this way. I try to pass it along.
I am not moralizing that people _should_ act this way, but I've seen this mindset make a small handful of people successful. I think much value in the world comes from serving other people in freely agreed-upon trades.
Yes. I never get this issue. I find the notion that you should be able to leave for maternity and not suffer any career setback to be an insult to the people who are were doing paid work during that time. It's saying they weren't getting any better at creating value. Maybe in an economy based on human muscle labor it could be true, but that's long gone centuries ago.
You hit the nail on the head with "reasonable people". People all the time make arrangements to work more or less to accommodate each other's needs. If you can't do that, you won't have a good relationship among employers, vendors, employees/contractors, customers, etc. No law will fix that problem.