From: betsyp@apollo.hp.com (Betsy Perry)
Subject: Re: Why do Americans get so little vacation time?
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 18:38:12 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <1992Sep18.160416.4427@weyrich.UUCP> tnet.com!weyrich!orville writes:
>In article <1992Sep14.193530.19337@leland.Stanford.EDU> cjb@vega.stanford.edu writes:
. In particular, your table that gave
>the "maternity leave" benefit for the U.S. as 0 should be where that
>"sick leave" is placed if you don't want to put it as paid vacation.
>
>Partly because of EEO, companies do not offer explicit "maternity leave",
>but treat it as a medical condition and give paid sick-leave. Now if a
>woman pops out a baby every 9 months, she's going to use up her sick
>leave pretty fast. But more typical would be one baby per 2 or 3 years.

I think you are misunderstanding the distinction between maternity 
leave, disability leave, and sick leave.  

"Maternity leave", as implemented in many European countries, allows
an employee to take paid leave for a period of *months* following the
birth or adoption of a child.  In the Scandinavian countries, this
leave is available to both parents of a child.  This leave is not
related to the parent's physical condition.  

"Disability leave", by contrast, allows an employee to remain absent
from work only while the employee is physically incapacitated; when
the employee is healthy, he/she must return to work or lose the job. 
Most companies require employees to use up some fraction of sick leave
before going on disability, so that disability is only used for
illnesses lasting more than a week or so. Not all employers offer
disability leave, and it is up to employer discretion to determine how
long a particular medical condition disables you for.

"Sick leave", finally, accrues at the rate of a few days per year,
and is generally expected to be used for minor illnesses.  The three
are completely different kinds of leave, and are not interchangeable.

Let me give you an example of the difference.  Let's suppose a European
employee, who is pregnant, catches the flu.  She takes sick leave 
until she recovers;  then, when she delivers, she takes maternity
leave until it expires.  Now let's imagine a typical American,
also pregnant, and who catches the flu.  She probably comes in 
to work, because she's saving her sick leave to use after she
delivers the baby.   

>So do you put the "sick leave" under maternity as about 3 weeks, or
>put it under vacation as about 5 days? I don't have a strong preference.
>But you have to put it somewhere, or you are stacking the deck.

Both are incorrect.  The U.S.  has no mandatory category called
"Maternity leave", and it deserves its zero.  American women who become pregnant
are dependent on sick leave or disability leave if their jobs offer them,
and many jobs don't.  That's why some of us crypto-Socialists thought
the Family Leave Act, although not sufficient, was necessary.

By the way, your math is off; even if you do put "sick leave" under
maternity, you only get to credit 5 days a year toward maternity,
just as you don't get to credit 20 days a year toward vacation,
working on the theory that sensible employees only take a vacation
every other year.  The comparison is leave-per-year versus leave-per-
year.
-- 
Betsy Hanes Perry   (note P in userid)     betsyp@apollo.hp.com
Hewlett-Packard Company
"It seems to us that the readers who want fiction to be like life are
considerably outnumbered by those who would like life to be like fiction."
Xref: sparky misc.jobs.misc:6823 misc.taxes:3215