Filthy Commerce

How to get maternity leave in the U.S.A.

It is really not enough to keep arguing, "Everyone else is doing it, so why can't we?" when it comes to paid parental leave. That is the kind of argument that, on a micro level, usually gets rebutted with "If everyone else were jumping off a bridge, would you?" and given what passes for civic discourse these days, I would not put it past our elected officials to break out the bridge argument as a matter of policy.

Instead, let's focus on how one can actually get maternity leave in the U.S.

We're Number Last!

The U.S. is one of three nations of 181 studied by Harvard and McGill universities that don’t guarantee working mothers leave with compensation, and researchers say it pays the price in lost productivity and health risks for children. The two other countries are Papua New Guinea and Swaziland. 

-- "America Last Among Peers With No Paid Maternity Leave," Bloomberg News, Feb 21, 11

A 2007 article had the U.S. keeping company with Papua New Guinea, Swaziland and Lesotho. Good to know that Lesotho -- home of the $1600 annual gross domestic product -- has changed since then.

A whopping two U.S. states offer paid family leave benefits:

New Jersey and California, have leave programs that offer parents cash benefits, while Rhode Island, Hawaii, and New York provide some disability payments to new mothers. Meanwhile, Washington state, which passed a paid parental leave law but has so far been unable to pay for it, is in limbo. Without any income to keep them afloat during their time off, a substantial minority of those covered by the federal leave law don't wind up taking the leave to which they're entitled. Some 2.73 million workers surveyed over an 18-month period said they didn't take FMLA leave because they couldn't afford to.

-- "The Confusing State of Family Leave Policies," Slate, Aug 17, 10

I got to take sixteen weeks paid leave, thanks to a combination of circumstances: I live in California; I had a c-section, thereby making me eligible for two weeks more of paid disability than I would have gotten had I delivered vaginally; I have an employer who also offers paid disability for giving birth; the employer also offered a week of paid leave for "bonding," and that same employer also has a vacation policy that links seniority and vacation time off, so I was able to dip into the 20 days a year I get annually to stretch my leave out to the full sixteen weeks.

My employer is not stupid: BLS data has shown that employers with generous family leave policies do a better job of retaining workers than their stingier counterparts, and any workplace expert will tell you that retention is typically cheaper than churn. But my situation -- which is a perfect collision between geography and corporate policy -- should not be special, or an exception. Should it?

So, it's time to learn how to make our kids' toys?

Among my many reasons to dislike the parent-industrial complex -- the ceaseless pimping out of your personal information, the sales pitches that alternate between provoking guilt and panic, the ubiquitous imposition of external gender constructs from day one -- here's another one:

The companies that make things for children view their customers' safety as too expensive to be worth bothering with. And by "customers," I mean children.

In "Child Product Makers Seek to Soften New Rules" (NYT, Feb 21, 11), we learn that:

-- Toy manufacturers, working in concert with members of the House of Representatives, are hoping to spike the public database the Consumer Product Safety Commission is scheduled to launch in three weeks. Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) cites the whole "you can't trust anything you read on the Internet" argument and, to ensure that there's no way to ensure the validity of anything in the database, pushed through an amendment to strip financing for the database.

-- Rep Mary Mack Bono (R-CA) and Rep John Dingell (D-MI) think it's totally unfair that the U.S. government require third party testing of toys and chidren's products. Why can't we just take the word of these companies that their products are safe? Why should we make them pay for proof that their products aren't unsafe?

-- The Toy Industry Association and the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association are both opposed to the database and the third-party testing. Amusingly enough, the TIA has a section on corporate social responsibility urging its members to pay attention to toy safety, and when you click on the toy safety link ... well, it's less about "Hey, maybe we should make toys safer" and more along the lines of "Here are our lobbying efforts regarding current federal regulations." The Juvenile Product Manufacturers Association has taken a different tack: It is promoting its own safety standards. (No word on whether the JPMA gets any money from companies that submit their products to its testing and certification process.)

Nobody is arguing that Mattel is a nonprofit (well, not right now ...). But to argue that it's bad for business for companies to be accountable to anyone other than themselves? That's truly caveat emptor. And it's one thing for the buyer to beware, but what about the buyer's children?

RIP, New Austerity (2008-2010)

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to eulogize the conviction that it's tacky to spend it if you've got it. ("For the Wealthy, A Return to Luxury Spending," USAT, Feb 21, 11) Higher-end retailer stocks have rebounded, which is a bellwether of spending among America's top 5%.

Other signs that the New Austerity is over, despite surveys asserting the contrary: Hotel room rates are back on the rise; the restaurant industry is expecting sales to rebound; men's underwear sales are picking up again. One can argue that the underwear thing is merely replacement-level shopping, but you can't make that argument with either eating out or staying at Holiday Inn Express.