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posted by n1 on Thursday October 23 2014, @09:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the 18-weeks-of-diaper-change dept.

The Center for American Progress reports:

Change.org, a website that allows users to create petitions, announced on Monday that it will be changing its family leave policy, increasing the paid time an employee can take for the arrival of a new child from six weeks to 18. Parents of both genders, as well as those who have a child through childbirth or adoption, will be eligible for the leave.

The company claims that it is the most generous paid family leave policy in the tech world, and that may be true. While as of last year Google offered 22 weeks [ NYT Paywall ] paid leave for biological mothers, fathers and parents who adopt only get seven. Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit offer both parents 17 paid weeks. Yahoo! offers mothers who give birth, adopt, use a surrogate, or foster 16 paid weeks, while fathers get eight.

Related Stories

Colleges Consider "Trigger Warnings" in Curriculum 55 comments

Raw Story summarizes a New York Times report that Colleges across the country this spring have been wrestling with student requests for what are known as "trigger warnings," explicit alerts that the material they are about to read or see in a classroom might upset them or, as some students assert, cause symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in victims of rape or in war veterans.

The debate has left many academics fuming, saying that professors should be trusted to use common sense and that being provocative is part of their mandate. Trigger warnings, they say, suggest a certain fragility of mind that higher learning is meant to challenge, not embrace. "Any kind of blanket trigger policy is inimical to academic freedom," said Lisa Hajjar, a sociology professor, who often uses graphic depictions of torture in her courses about war. "Any student can request some sort of individual accommodation, but to say we need some kind of one-size-fits-all approach is totally wrong. The presumption there is that students should not be forced to deal with something that makes them uncomfortable is absurd or even dangerous."

Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said, "It is only going to get harder to teach people that there is a real important and serious value to being offended. Part of that is talking about deadly serious and uncomfortable subjects."

A summary of the College Literature, along with the appropriate trigger warnings, assumed or suggested in the article is as follows: Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" (anti-Semitism), Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway" (suicide), "The Great Gatsby" (misogynistic violence), and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (racism).

Note: The Raw Story link was provided to provide an alternative to the article source, the New York Times, due to user complaints about the NYT website paywalling their articles.

NYT paywall by Anonymous Coward
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by compro01 on Thursday October 23 2014, @10:23PM

    by compro01 (2515) on Thursday October 23 2014, @10:23PM (#109389)

    Up here in Canada, the legal minimum is 50 weeks paid leave, 15 weeks for the mother and 35 weeks shared as the couple sees fit.

    • (Score: 2) by aclarke on Friday October 24 2014, @01:10AM

      by aclarke (2049) on Friday October 24 2014, @01:10AM (#109432) Homepage

      Right. That hardly makes change.org's policy the "most generous paid family leave policy in the tech world", does it.

      • (Score: 1) by evk on Friday October 24 2014, @07:32AM

        by evk (597) on Friday October 24 2014, @07:32AM (#109501)

        In the US tech world. Over here we have 18 months to share between the parents. But 3 months are reseved for each parent.

  • (Score: 1) by Username on Thursday October 23 2014, @11:01PM

    by Username (4557) on Thursday October 23 2014, @11:01PM (#109395)

    I hear all the time that these companies use h1bs all the time, so do they get this benefit as well? or is it some kind of shell contracting company separating them?

    Some get paid under $2/hour, sad stuff.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23 2014, @11:52PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23 2014, @11:52PM (#109410)

      The top 10 employers of H1Bs are not just contractors, they are out-sourcers. [epi.org]

      But places like google generally hire H1Bs directly.

  • (Score: 1) by TK-421 on Friday October 24 2014, @01:23AM

    by TK-421 (3235) on Friday October 24 2014, @01:23AM (#109434) Journal

    As the parent of four I can say that the first born will likely result in both parents wanting to take every bit of the 18 weeks. For most it is an amazing experience and should be enjoyed. The new family needs time to adjust to the fact that they are now a family.

    The second born, both parents will likely take the full 18 but they won't freak out at the thought of not taking every bit.

    The third will most likely have the parents bickering a little as to who is going to stay for 18 weeks and who is going back to work early.

    After three both parents will likely agree that 2 weeks off is more than enough time to be away from work. After the fourth my spouse was ordering me to go back to work after a week. Don't get me wrong, all four are a gift but after so many the birthing experience loses it's luster outside the walls of the hospital.

    As for the company being the first..that's great, more power to them. However, I just don't see myself actually using that much time. I suppose if there were complications from delivery that would be different and it would be a blessing.

    Ugh, so I bothered to read TFA on this thread. I'll be honest, the thing read like Change.org was doing this as an internal initiative and then TFA finishes with quotes from POTUS talking how this kind of thing is a "need." I get the impression that CNN got to the end of TFA and realized they hadn't put any spin on it yet and here come the POTUS quotes. If a private company wants to do something above and beyond federal regulations I don't see why POTUS should be getting any credit. This problem reaches back beyond the current POTUS so don't jump me for bashing this one.

    • (Score: 1) by GeminiDomino on Friday October 24 2014, @03:20AM

      by GeminiDomino (661) on Friday October 24 2014, @03:20AM (#109466)

      Well, change.org has been pretty tightly coupled with the current POTUS. He was the first one to have a quasi-official website where people could voice their concerns to be utterly ignored.

      --
      "We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture"
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @03:16PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 24 2014, @03:16PM (#109589)

      An alternative hypothesis is that the affections your wife has for you have been decreasing exponentially relative to time or children. She just wants to spend less time with you.

  • (Score: 2) by pnkwarhall on Friday October 24 2014, @02:29AM

    by pnkwarhall (4558) on Friday October 24 2014, @02:29AM (#109453)

    This is an interesting counterpoint to this post/thread [soylentnews.org], particularly the discussion about the seeming lack of appreciation for work/life balance that the companies offering the 'egg freezing' perk had.

    --
    Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
  • (Score: 2) by moo kuh on Friday October 24 2014, @08:52AM

    by moo kuh (2044) on Friday October 24 2014, @08:52AM (#109508) Journal

    In the US, parents are only required by law to get 12 weeks of UNPAID leave for a new child. This only applies to employees working for their organization at least a year. It only applies to organizations with more than 50 people.

    Source:

    http://www.dol.gov/whd/fmla/ [dol.gov]

    Mothers who have not worked for their employer a year often get a few weeks (usually around 6) of short term disability which is usually roughly 50% of their salary.

    Daycare quality for babies (in my area anyway) is terrible. Babies are often stuffed in baby buckets (bouncy seats, play mats, etc) for longer than they should be. They don't get the naps they need because of the noise and not being fed enough How can one person feed, change, play with, and put to sleep 4 babies every 2-3 hours?. Daycare "teachers" as they call them here are paid next to nothing, often with no benefits. The only good option for American parents is to have one parent stay home or have a friend/relative take care of the baby. Unfortunately, not everyone has those options.

    TLDR:

    US law doesn't take care of parents or babies. I wish more employers would do this. What really needs to change is the FMLA.