Posted on 09/23/2002 6:56:26 PM PDT by EveningStar
Gov. Gray Davis signed a law Monday that makes California the first state to offer workers paid family leave.
(Excerpt) Read more at story.news.yahoo.com ...
Maybe some facts are in order...Under the current law, available vacation time has to be used up as part of the leave before the leave takes effect...Paperwork must be filled out by a medical specialist for the leave to be legitimate...And there is recourse by the employer to immediately appeal the leave request...
The multi-million dollar employer that I work for has just over 50 employees, qualifying it for the leave program...We have had less than 1 leave per year since the program has been in effect...Maybe because employees can't afford to be off without pay...The new Kaliphornia paid leave plan makes it look pretty attractive tho...
I can't imagine taking less than 3 days off for the funeral of a loved one...Funeral arrangements, grieving, etc...I would probably take more than 3 days...Even if I owned the business...
The employer with more than 50 employees is required to keep the job open for the paid-vacationer!
The medical specialist won't be hard to find, though. Doctors give patients what they want, or they won't have them as repeat customers. A cottage industry in unscrupulous doctors will spring up who will approve a disproportionate number of these requests. It always works this way.
There is no free lunch. The California legislature consistently proves that they believe otherwise.
They'll blame Simon win or lose.
I agree, but even with those facts considered, the socialists still don't understand that they are destroying their core Labor-cushion, the salaried job.
Take my business, for example. My company provides two services, programming and technical staffing. When I get a new software contract, however, I don't rush out to hire new programmers. Instead, I bid out the work to see if my competition is hungry-enough to do this one new job. If they aren't, then I farm out the work to programmers who've worked with me in the past on a contract basis. Only when I can't find reasonable contractors or outsourcing do I try to hire an in-house salaried employee to knock-out the programming work.
Likewise, when one of my client firms needs extra staff, I pay my recruiters a commission for finding said staff. Other staffing firms might pay their recruiters a salary.
But why? Why pay people a salary for their "time" at work? Why not simply pay people for their performance? Find the right programmer for my client, get paid a commission. I don't care how much or how little time my recruiters spend hunting down good candidates, so why pay my recruiters a salary for that time?
I do care that they find good candidates, so why not pay them for their production? Which is of course what I do. They find the right candidate and then they get a commission.
And with no "salary", I'm in no more danger of this California-style piece of socialistic "family leave" law than I would be of paying a plumber to not fix a leak in my house for six weeks while he spent time with his family.
This trend can be extrapolated, too. Why pay secretaries a salary (and be "on the hook" for laws like the one in this thread) when you can pay them based upon how many documents they type up? Why pay salesmen salaries for their time (and be "on the hook" for laws like the one in this thread) when you can pay them based upon how much they sell? Why pay geologists for their time (and be "on the hook" for laws like the one in this thread) when you can pay them for the oil that they find?
Alvin Toffler talks about this very thing in his magnificent tome Future Shock of 30+ years ago. Laws like the one in this thread will hasten the demise of salaried jobs, to be replaced by contracting and other forms of payments-for-performance.
How many California sports teams are going to be competitive nationally when football, baseball, and basketball players on those teams take six weeks of "family leave" in the middle of the season, with the LAW requiring that their jobs remain open to them when they return?
California is killing the salaried job, one law at a time. Lord only knows how they are going to handle paying attorneys for taking 6 weeks off. Are past clients going to be on the hook, or will the state simply borrow more money to pay Tobacco-company-level payouts? With the right timing, trial attorneys and sports players could very well extend their lucrative careers by six paid work-free weeks, all at the tax-payers and/or past clients' expense.
Paying people for NOT working has always been a bad idea (ridiculous and predictable sob-stories notwithstanding). Perhaps this law will bring that fact more clearly out into the open...
That's why socialism has always sounded so good. Who doesn't want a free ride? Who wants to have to work? Doesn't everyone want to be born rich, and if not, then made rich by something magical happening?!
Enter politicians promising things for free. Fully paid maternity leave for a year? Heck, why not double-pay for two years?? It's "overtime" to actually have to take time off, right?! Where does the madness stop? Paid time off. "Free" day care. Free prescription drugs. Free health care. Free houses. What's next, free cars??
Heaven forbid that a politician actually get elected without promising a bunch of slackers a lot of money from other hard-working taxpayers...
Interesting statement. In AA, there is talk that the alcoholic cannot or will not generally quit abusing alcohol until he or she "hits bottom". Would a Davis win allow the dems in California to "hit bottom"?
And at the same time, the state will discriminate against non-parents.
Having many friends in the building trades, I can concur that there will be a number of employees taking advantage of the opportunity to get a "free lunch", much as is done with unemployment at times. And you're correct; the fees collected will not even come close to paying for the costs of the program.
Wake up people, there has been 70 some years of practiced communism and if you haven't been living on the planet Pluto, it has failed.
Sheesh.
5.56mm
This is particularly, but not exclusively true with democrats. They are really trying to get 51% of the population to live for free off of the other 49%'s earnings. Of course, it goes without saying that the 51% would presumably be democrat voters. I love paying taxes to support my enemies.
I think I know why a few repubs seem so wishy-washy at times.
No flame, but I can tell you have never worked for the Post Office. FMLA opened a can of worms there. Almost everyone took advantage when the angles got figured out. ;0)
It ain't just the post office, though it is probably more pronounced in that instance. I have a friend working there as well and he could tell you a few stories. Quite a few.
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