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On Tuesday, August 4th, Neflix announced on their blog that they would begin offering new parents a progressive parental leave policy:
...Today we're introducing an unlimited leave policy for new moms and dads that allows them to take off as much time as they want during the first year after a child's birth or adoption.
The Boston Globe picked up the story earlier today and compared Netflix's new policy to Google's, which offers 18 weeks of paid maternity leave and 12 weeks of "baby bonding" time. The Boston Globe also notes:
The US and Papua New Guinea are the only countries among 185 nations and territories that hadn't imposed government-mandated laws requiring employers to pay mothers while on leave with their babies, according to a study released last year by the United Nations' International Labor Organization.
This new policy "covers all of the roughly 2,000 people working at [Netflix's] Internet video and DVD-by-mail services, according to the Los Gatos, California, company."
However, not all media voices are pleased with this change. Suzanne Venker, author of the recent book The Two-Income Trap: Why Parents Are Choosing To Stay Home, writes for Time :
Offering new parents full pay for up to one year is akin to putting a band-aid on a gaping wound. The needs of children are huge, and they do not end at one year. On the contrary, they just begin. Taking a year off of work to meet those needs merely scratches the surface.
What does Soylent think? Should companies offer new parents lengthy paid leave after they bring a new bundle of joy into the world, or do generous policies do more harm than good?
(Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday August 06 2015, @06:55PM
It's not amazing. Most publicly owned corporations routinely act against their own best interests in order to get marginally better results for the current quarter. And it's hardly unheard of for companies like Kodak and GM to just about run themselves out of business doing it.
Things like healthcare have been going away for ages now because the cost of employees being sick doesn't have a line item on the budget. Same goes for sick days, employees that don't have sick days have to choose between coming into work and losing the pay. So, they'll generally come into work, do a shit job and make other people sick who themselves come back to work and do a shit job.
In an ideal world, companies would do things that were in their best interest, but they don't. The frequently screw over the employees for a short term boost in share price even when it means they have problems with efficiency and productivity later.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Friday August 07 2015, @12:20AM
Things like healthcare have been going away for ages now because the cost of employees being sick doesn't have a line item on the budget.
I feel that it's more complicated than that.
In an ideal world, companies would do things that were in their best interest, but they don't. The frequently screw over the employees
I believe the greatest cause of deviation from the ideal is the wielding of the club. Just putting the club down would make the world much closer to ideal.
I say this as someone who has personal been screwed over a few times and has had a lot of friends and coworkers screwed over as well.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2015, @02:31AM
Sorry, but no. The club has been picked up because its necessary due to far too many actors actively fucking people over. Putting it down, as has been happening over the past few decades through massive deregulation of everything, has done nothing but destroy the economy and make everything worse for everyone, except for a tiny number of people who benefit greatly by fucking over everyone else.