From: learn@gargoyle.uchicago.edu (William Vajk (igloo))
Newsgroups: soc.men
Subject: Re: Smelling The Roses
Date: 9 Apr 92 03:53:32 GMT
Reply-To: learn@gargoyle.uchicago.edu (William Vajk (igloo))
Organization: Dares No Organization Like Dis Organization

In article <2694@unisql.UUCP> wrat@unisql.UUCP (wharfie) writes:

>	What about it, Bill?  Would you be in favor of a $100.00 per head
>poll tax dedicated to subsidizing women's year-off-to-have-a-baby programs?

I have no problem with some amount dedicated, as was the old once-upon-a-time
highway tax, to such an end. I am not aware of real numbers, so I can't
in good conscience agree to the figure you arbitrarialy pulled out of
someone's hat. Could be less, could be more.

The eastern block solved the problem neatly. Employer paid (in some cases
still does) half the normal income (for up to a year) to a new mom.

>ps - If I hired a consultant, and 3 weeks
>into the job she told me she'd need a year off
>to have a baby, would you expect me to pay her
>contract even though she's not doing the work,
>or perhaps hold the project up for a year until
>she wants to come back?  Why not?

I expect this sounds really bad to most entreprenaurial sorts. But it
sounds reasonable if all employers are in the same boat, eg, they don't
come to your firm in particular cause you pay where others don't. And
the reduced pay scale generally prevents employes "taking advantage."
There is the incentive of full pay to get them to return to work sooner
if possible. Affordable (subsidized if necessary) day care also helps.

It all evens out a whole lot better when viewed as a universal condition
of employment. There are lots of employers at present who don't provide 
any fringe benefits at all. Imagine no health insurance or paid holidays
for full time employees. Lots of folks are stuck in these circumstances.
Their employers tell us they can't afford health insurance for their help.

If this is to be a rational discussion, one needs to look at the entire
system at one time, not snipe at tidbits of this and that. We're far
behind several other industrialized nations when we discuss the concern
showed the people. The newly de-socializing nations of the former eastern
block will, without a doubt, be retaining whatever of the subsidized
health care/child care systems they possibly can as there has been a 
general concensus that these aspects have real value regardless of the
rest of the approach taken to running their economies.

When you ask about support for child bearing by employers or society as
a whole, citing the generally voluntary nature of the circumstance, I
ask you about support for tobacco related injury/illness/disability
which is probably several levels of magnitude more voluntary and a helluva
lot less universal than persons participating in sexual acts. Does your
firm have a policy regarding long term disability for illness such as
lung cancer possibly (probably) induced by smoking? Individuals who have
surgery to remove a lung and receive chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy
generally have a disability of some months. Is it the policy at your firm 
shut off their income when they don't produce? Take the balance of your
PS questions and play them in this different scenario.

Bill Vajk
Xref: sparky soc.men:8530 soc.women:9052