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Microsoft will require suppliers to offer paid parental leave
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- s73v3r_ 8y agoThis is great, but it still is incredibly sad that only certain people get this benefit, instead of it being something given to everyone in the country like in most of the civilized world.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoProgress by any means necessary. It would be absolutely phenomenal if legislation fixed this for everyone today, but until that time, there are a lot of people who will benefit from this who otherwise wouldn't.
- s73v3r_ 8y agoThat's what I said?
- toomuchtodo 8y agoI think we agreed but that wasn’t what I understood. Apologies!
- cprayingmantis 8y agoI find it incredibly interesting that a company can make these sort of demands for a change that the determine is better for society. Wonder if people will consider this a grass roots change for worker good or the unwanted imposing requirement of a a mega-corporation.
- tomatotomato37 8y agoEh, can't really have the latter if a supplier is also a mega-corporation. You don't need to be a household name in order to be a market leader
- bluntfang 8y agoJust think what could be accomplished if software engineers unionized. If all the SREs at amazon went on strike for 6 hours, the world would descent into chaos. I really don't understand why that group of people don't want to leverage their power to change the world.
- selimthegrim 8y agoDid you actually type that with a straight face?
- baq 8y agoWhy do you take HR for granted but somehow can't imagine an IT union?
- selimthegrim 8y agoNo, I meant the part about the world collapsing.
- dang 8y agoCould you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?
- lovich 8y agoThe other reply to this comment is why software engineers don't unionize. Many think they're better off without a union, but a large number go even further and are adamantly opposed to the existence of unions
- dominotw 8y agothey'd prbly be against h1b first.
- ikeboy 8y agoThey going to stop producing in China then?
- freeone3000 8y agoWhy? State Council Decree No. 619 gives 14 weeks of paid parental leave to all Chinese.
- ikeboy 8y agoNo, they only give it to women
- Maximus9000 8y agoThat does seem to be the case. It seems like men get 2 weeks: http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2017/04/06/maternity-leave-allowance-china.html http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2017/04/06/maternity-leav...
- s0rce 8y agoIt says US based suppliers with > 50 employees will be subject to the new requirements.
- humantiy 8y agoNope. They keyword in this was 'U.S.-based' suppliers so they are only doing this in a place where for the most part this is already practiced or where they have very few suppliers in the first place. As you hinted probably most of their supplies are coming from China.
- linuxftw 8y agoNice sentiment, but that will invite behavior to cut costs. If this doesn't apply to part time workers, some suppliers are likely to cut full time positions into part time positions. This could also cost an employer (either real or perceived) productivity, and result in wage stagnation or lack of hiring new full time employees. Additionally, and most importantly, full time employees will be fired and converted to 'contractors,' they'll fill their previous role for less money and benefits and not technically be 'employees.'
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- staticautomatic 8y agoThe fact that a given solution won't or can't solve all problems shouldn't prevent us from enacting it. Consequential problems can and should be addressed if and when they arise. We shouldn't let fear get in the way of doing the right thing.
- Arubis 8y agoConversely, this is an invitation to renegotiate prices. If a client is going to require you to do something expensive, you calculate how much that's going to cost you, and pass that cost along to your customer. You can even tell them that's exactly what you're doing and what the numbers look like, and if your customer isn't terrible they'll appreciate the transparency. Frankly, that's a potential PR win for MSFT, as well: "we're requiring our suppliers to do this, and it's increasing our costs by $X; we're putting our money where our mouth is & invite you to do the same".
- pkaye 8y agoHow do renegotiate prices when Microsoft is not your only customer? Just increase the prices on Microsoft or on all your customers to pay for these benefits?
- Nasrudith 8y agoLarge customers often demand bulk discounts seperate from the standard pricing plan. Usually it is lower but demanding extra standards can cause it to be higher if say tighter tolerances are demanded.
- yspeak 8y agoWhat a terrible precedent. Can't wait to see what other unfunded mandates other companies will start requiring for each new fad benefit. C'mon Apple, Facebook, Google. Let's require all suppliers to offer free tuition to employees. Also free housing especially in Bay Area. And of course free food. And of course salaries won't suffer because companies have unlimited funds.
- zerohp 8y agoUnfunded? They are suppliers. It's just another cost of doing business with Microsoft.
- crunchlibrarian 8y agoYou act like Wal Mart hasn't been mandating all sorts of things, in the other direction, for 50 years. The only thing new about this is which way the compass is pointing.
- minikites 8y ago>fad benefit Everything (including a wage or salary) was a "fad benefit" at one time or another. We can do better than medieval serfdom.
- mr_overalls 8y agoYou're indulging in a massive slippery-slope argument here.
- mikestew 8y ago"unfunded mandates", I don't think those words mean what you think they mean: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfunded_mandate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfunded_mandate Whereas you used a phrase typically reserved for government regulation, this here is your free market at work. The "money provided for fulfilling the requirements" part is Microsoft writing a check to pay the invoice. It is up to you, the business person, to decide to eat the cost or pass it along to someone else.
- Nasrudith 8y agoThe market is self correcting here even for large buyers. No matter how big of a matket presence you are you can't buy $10 for $9.99.
- cosinetau 8y agoThey already support parental leave by supporting ICE.
- MR4D 8y agoThis sounds great until it comes time to set up a new supplier contract and they go to India. When they outsource something to India because labor in the US is "too expensive", I'm going to give them hell for it. For what it's worth, I'm not against the policy, but the second-order effects are going to suck for some.
- cududa 8y agoThis is wrong minded. Microsoft is requiring this of the companies that offer their janitorial services, cooking, etc - which is HUGE
- jbob2000 8y agoJanitorial company keeps 20% of staff full time with parental leave benefits, 80% are temporary contractors that don't qualify for parental leave. At least that's how companies in Canada get around the requirement.
- baq 8y agoStill better for the 20%, right? It would be 100% temp workers otherwise.
- MR4D 8y agoRight, so now the cost of maintaining the office space of a US worker has increased and that goes into something called “fully-burdened FTE cost”, which is basically the whole cost of putting an employee on he payroll in the US. The more you raise that cost, the more likely you are to use offshore labor, even if the salaries are the same. Utilities, insurance, and taxes are three other costs in the fully burdened rate. Salary is only one piece.
- jitix 8y agoActually in India maternity leave is mandated by law.
- potlee 8y agoWhat’s wrong with new supplier contacts going to India?
- jl2718 8y agoDo people not realize that leave benefits decrease wages? Some will abuse this. Most will not use it at all. Why does anybody need paid leave? Are we unable to save money for planned vacations and life events?
- SandwichTeeth 8y agoMany US employees are literally living paycheck to paycheck. Not being given paid leave would mean not taking leave at all as they cannot afford to miss a paycheck.
- EliRivers 8y agoWhy does anybody need paid leave? Are we unable to save money for planned vacations and life events? There is evidence indicating that to be the case, yes.
- crysin 8y agoI think there is also a psychological effect. Knowing you're getting paid while vacationing is a lot more comforting than thinking about all the hours of pay you're not getting. I think this would fall under a similar effect to how JC Penney removing their sales pricing and just pricing their clothing accurately caused a decrease in sales because people didn't get that feeling of victory that they're making a strategic purchase.
- squirrelicus 8y agoDefinitely. Though I'd expand on one dimension These benefits must necessarily cause at least one, but often more than one of: - increase in product price - decrease in product quality - decrease in liquid compensation - decrease in profit margins For those that argue along the lines of "profit margins ought to be reduced" should also take into account that the profit margins are already often set as low as possible by the nature of market competition, so there's often not a lot to work with. Most companies globally don't get the luxury of holding everything constant but cutting costs of goods sold like we do in software because most companies don't catastrophically overspend in costs of goods sold like we do.
- geodel 8y agoIndian government passed a new law which provision for 6 month paid maternity leave. Sounds very progressive. But 2 things: 90% of women work in unorganized sector so no effect on them. Employers have started showing reluctance in hiring them and about 12 million women could lose jobs due to this new law.
- deadalus 8y agoRelated article : https://money.cnn.com/2017/03/30/news/economy/india-maternity-leave-law-employment-hiring/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2017/03/30/news/economy/india-maternit...
- Someone1234 8y agoThat's why parental leave should apply to both parents/all genders. I believe one of the Nordic countries has a law on the books that gives a fixed period of time per child and parents can split it between parents as they wish.
- fastbeef 8y agoIt’s been in place since the late 70’s. 480 days per kid, each parent had ~20% earmarked and the rest is up to the parents to divide up.
- alkonaut 8y agoSweden has 480 days to share (part of that is with lower pay), but 90 days for each parent cannot be transferred so the minimum for dads is effectively 3 months per child. This has had great effect. If you are going to leave work for 3 months you can just as well do 6 or 12 with little difference to the employer.
- alkonaut 8y agoThis is why you need parental leave to not just be possible for both parents but actually used by both parents. If it’s actually called maternity leave rather than parental leave that’s a warning sign.
- dang 8y agoUrl changed from https://www.axios.com/microsoft-require-suppliers-offer-paid-parental-leave-dc573198-123c-4c51-ab78-432863003165.html https://www.axios.com/microsoft-require-suppliers-offer-paid..., which has more information.
- h4b4n3r0 8y agoThis needs to be transitive or it won’t work. It’s trivial to set up a front which complies and subcontract everything to the old (but perhaps renamed) company that does not.
- duxup 8y agoI wish this was more common. I worked for a company based out of the valley. One year they announced their awesome new paid parental leave policy. My wife and I were expecting and I was excited. I submitted for paid parental leave..... denied, unpaid leave only. The paid parental leave was only available to employees in California... because that is the only place they were required to do so. The lesson was that many companies will only do it if they are forced.
- thenewwazoo 8y agoI think your company may have been advertising a "benefit" in a disingenuous manner. In CA we pay into a state disability fund (SDI), from which you can draw for maternity/paternity leave, sort of like unemployment insurance. You can only draw on the SDI if you pay into it, and it's unavailable to you if your employer pays some maximum portion of your salary (for example, I was ineligible because I was paid during my leave). It sounds like they were trying to pull a fast one on CA residents and hoping nobody was paying attention.
- duxup 8y agoExactly they absolutely were advertising it in a semi truthful way. It was totally announced as a company wide policy.....but like a lot of things they really were only talking about the valley. When a layoff happened years later I got less because "that only applies to CA employees" despite repeated announcements with no qualifications.
- pnutjam 8y agoI got two weeks paternity leave from HP. Too bad they are a hollowed out husk called DXC now...
- duxup 8y agoI with some former HPers, they were always bummed about what HP turned into.
- imgabe 8y agoOne thing I didn't know that I learned recently - in countries where paid parental leave is mandated by law, the government reimburses companies for most of the cost of the employee's salary while they're on leave. At least, this is what I was told about the UK (I think it was like 90% of the cost that the gov't reimbursed). That makes a huge difference. Of course every company would be offering it if the cost to them were minimal. If we want to this to happen in the US, it needs to happen at the voting booth to approve a program like that. Unfortunately it would most likely have to go on a state-by-state level. But, I think this should be brought up every time someone complains about how US companies are so barbaric that they don't offer this paid leave. Well, duh, of course they don't because it would be an enormous cost to them that it's not elsewhere in the world.
- dustinmoris 8y agoLol, 90% reimbursed by the government? No it's definitely not in the UK, not in Austria, not in Germany and any other European country I know. It's quite simple, the government introduces a law of minimum leave and all companies in the country either oblidge or have to leave. Not being able to serve a rich market like Europe is not an option, so that's really incentive enough for them to follow the rules.
- heeen2 8y agohttps://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umlage_U2 https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umlage_U2 In Germany companies get reimbursed100% 6 weeks before and 8 weeks after birth, which is motherhood protection leave during which mothers are not allowed to work with regular pay (part of which comes from health insurance, the rest from the employer) Parental leave is unpaid but you cannot fire someone for or during taking it.
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- dominotw 8y agoI am struggled with caring for a parent in the past and its far more burdensome( mentally and physically) than having a baby( which i also experienced). Why can't everyone get equal paid time for 'life events' instead of just for having a baby.
- jpttsn 8y agoCould be a hard wired mammalian thing expressing as policy.
- dominotw 8y agoOr cater to young families and people they are tying to woo. It another big fuck you to older employees that have to care for their ageing parents, would be a good excuse to fire them.
- ohthehugemanate 8y agoI work at Microsoft (full time employee). We are offered some time for life events, including moving, death of a family member, etc. Also, a part of the benefits package (in Germany) is a company that helps source elder Care. Iirc it's partially funded, too (but don't quote me on that). When you're negotiating your job, ask the recruiter about the HR concept. Some companies, like MS, really try to take care of employees and gear packages for the long term. Others focus on lifestyle, or on cash compensation... The benefits package is one of the more important ways a company should align with your needs.
- linuxftw 8y agoPaid time off is merely a component of salary. Some employers might be willing to pay more $$ for less PTO, others more PTO than $$. Personally, I'd rather have the extra cash, and take only unpaid leave. I'd rather have the extra cash and buy my own health insurance. You are already being paid at your market rate, it's up to you to plan for these unforeseen life events and save accordingly.
- dominotw 8y ago
- BrandonMarc 8y agoNext on Hacker News: Microsoft suppliers now hiring more contractors and less full-time staff.
- trumped 8y agoWhy do you expect them to do the wrong thing?
- BrandonMarc 8y ago> Why do you expect them to do [this]? Economics --- No less "wrong" than Nike moving its shoe factories out of the USA and into China, Vietnam, or anywhere else that doesn't have OSHA, EPA, minimum wage, labor unions, ACA, etc. --- I've read on HN about Facebook doing similar things. They brag up and down about the amazing benefits they give employees, while at the same time moving headcount to contractors who don't get to eat the free food ... literally. [edit] found the article: Facebook's underclass: staffers enjoy perks, contractors barely get by https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15350600 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15350600 ... heh, one commenter even mentions Eloi and Morlocks.
- trumped 8y ago"Capitalism" was the answer that I was expecting
- toast_coder 8y agoWhy is it the wrong thing?