From: paul@hsh.com
Newsgroups: alt.president.clinton
Subject: Re: Family leave (wasL Re: Clinton's flip-flop on Haitians!)
Date: 28 Jan 93 17:14:16 GMT
 <1993Jan26.133949.29849@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> <randall.728180564@seashore>
Organization: HSH Associates

In article <randall.728180564@seashore>, randall@informix.com (Randall Rhea) writes:
> jlinder@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Jeffrey S Linder) writes:
>>>
>>>The problem is that many companies are run by people that cannot
>>>or will not understand that our society has changed dramatically
>>>over the past 25 years.  The working mother is a fact - a reality.
>>>Wishing for a return to the "good ol days" won't change anything.
>>>When your child gets sick, child care organizations and babysitters
>>>won't take him/her.   A parent must take care of the child in these
>>>cases.  To do so, you risk losing your job in many companies.  One
>>>can say, "just go to another company with a more progressive
>>>policy", but in this recession, that's difficult if not impossible
>>>to do.
> 
>>Baloney.  If that employee has made themselves worth keeping, the company
>>will keep them and their (sometimes substanial) investment in that employee.
> 
> This comment is naiive.  

To an _employer_, it makes perfect sense.

> Companies regularly dismiss/lay off 
> employees or allow them to go to another company, whether they have
> "substantial investment" in them or not.  They just get rid of 
> people, and they don't really care.   Conservatives tend to
> assume that labor is a perfectly free market, and that companies
> always behave logically.  Both assumptions are false.

So are you then implying that companies arbitrarily act against their best 
interests?  If so, how?  A valued employee will be offered perks -- yes, 
PERKS, not God- or government-given rights -- to the extent that the company 
values their services.  Such perks are called "incentives".  I'll be more 
than willing to provide family leave, IF that employee convinces me that his/
her worth to my company will repay what this perk costs me.  And yes, there
IS a cost, despite what you may have been told. 

> Few companies in the U.S. have a Family Leave policy.  Many have
> no leave policy at all, except for a vaction and holiday plan.  

Here's the meat of the fallacy.  Proponents argue that, since businesses are 
obviously too stupid to act in their own best interest, our all-knowing
government must (of course!) FORCE them to do what is "best".  And, almost 
without exception, the proponents have never owned/operated a business, had 
to meet a payroll, or had to conform to a zillion gummint mandates.  How 
'bout you?  Your sig sez you're a "project manager" -- how does that place 
you in your company's hierarchy?

> The average 
> vacation time per year in the U.S. is 10 days per year per employee, 
> the lowest in the western world.    (By contrast, Spain has 30, 
> Germany 25, and the UK 22.)   The U.S. is pathetically behind
> other countries in allowing employees free time, and there is
> no movement to change that.  

Perhaps, if a sizeable number of the US's work force thought it was such a
pressing issue, there WOULD be a movement.  Americans have shown they're not 
shy about speaking up for issues that _really_ concern them.  But despite
Clinton's bogus numbers and the worst lying about the economy in 50 years --
and bogus stats from partisans -- the US leads those countries in business
productivity.  In Germany, it's common knowledge that companies will make
every effort not to hire a newlywed woman of childbearing age--because she
will cost the company more than she is worth.  Since when is there some kind
of contest to cripple American business productivity? 

> There is now a Family Leave bill 
> before Congress because companies regularly terminate employees who miss 
> too much work time due to family problems.   

What's your source for this?  Is there a reputable source, not Patsy 
Schroeder or Marge Roukema?  Even if what you claim is so, So What?  Implicit 
in this legislation is that employees are too stupid to work out an 
arrangement with their employer.  Hell's bells, even *unions* don't see this 
as a crisis, else unions would be in the forefront of this movement.  No, 
this "crisis" was invented for political gain, not out of any concern.

> "Welfare capitalism" is being dismantled.  Large companies who
> have liberal benefits are laying off employees in record numbers
> and cutting these benefits.   Fully paid medical benefits, lengthy
> vacation time, company pensions, and other perks are going out the
> window.  There are few if any allowances for such things as
> "family leave" in today's cost-cutting environment.   The only 
> way to get companies to grant Family Leave is to force them to 
> do so.

This is quite puzzling.  On the one hand, you acknowledge the dire straits 
that business finds itself in.  (Do you acknowledge the _causes_ of their 
problems -- the weak economy and (surprise) a growing burden of gummint 
mandates -- or would you have us believe they're doing this out of some 
arbitrary corporate heartlessness?)  On the other hand, you say "we must
FORCE them" to offer this benefit.  Totally contradictory!  ...Unless you
really _believe_ that they're cutting back on benefits because they're
inherently greedy, rich, evil, etc etc etc.  Such an attitude reveals a lack
of first-hand knowledge of the core of business operations. 

No, what it comes down to is quite simply this:  if _employees_ want it, they 
-- singly or together -- will negotiate it with their employers.  It is no 
different from other perks, such as sick days or personal days.  If they
cannot work it out, and if the employees can get a better deal elsewhere,
they are perfectly free to look for work elsewhere. --And if you're now gonna
argue that 'the recession makes that impossible', I will point out that
family leave has been an "issue" since 1985! 

> Randall Rhea                                        Informix Software, Inc. 
> Project Manager, MIS Sales/Marketing Systems    uunet!pyramid!infmx!randall
- 
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Paul Havemann   (Internet: paul@hsh.com)

   * They're not just opinions -- they're caffeine for the brain! *
         ** (Up to 50 milligrams per cynical observation.) **
Newsgroups: alt.president.clinton