IT’S THE WOMAN’S CHOICE, NOT HER FELLOW EMPLOYEES

My friend Linda has told me that she best likes the blogs where I deal with an issue that I am passionate about and share my view through a stream of consciousness. Today is time for one of my monologues and the subject is City of Chicago employees becoming pregnant.

First, some facts. On February 5, 1993, President Bill Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) into law. Below is an overview from the U.S. Department of Labor.

Family and Medical Leave Act

Overview

"The FMLA entitles eligible employees of covered employers to take unpaid, job-protected leave for specified family and medical reasons with continuation of group health insurance coverage under the same terms and conditions as if the employee had not taken leave. Eligible employees are entitled to:

Twelve work weeks of leave in a 12-month period for:

The birth of a child and to care for the newborn child within one year of birth; the placement with the employee of a child for adoption or foster care and to care for the newly placed child within one year of placement;to care for the employee’s spouse, child, or parent who has a serious health condition; a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform the essential functions of his or her job;

Any qualifying exigency arising out of the fact that the employee’s spouse, son, daughter, or parent is a covered military member on “covered active duty;” or

Twenty-six workweeks of leave during a single 12-month period to care for a covered service member with a serious injury or illness who is the spouse, son, daughter, parent, or next of kin to the employee (military caregiver leave)."

But is FMLA good enough for the City of Chicago? The answer is a resounding “No”, according to a city memo unearthed by the Chicago Sun Times,  “Importantly, the rules regarding the issuance of administrative leave must be reviewed, considering as well a maternity leave policy,” Chief of Staff Theresa Mintle wrote in a July 1 memo to Human Resources Commissioner Soo Choi.

The Sun Times also reported, “Ten years ago, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that City Hall has no maternity policy for its 10,767 female employees. Private sector companies typically offer women six weeks of paid maternity leave. The city offers no such maternity leave. That forces pregnant women to cobble together unused sick days, vacation days and unpaid family leave and rush back to work before they’re ready.”

City Hall does not need a new maternity policy because FMLA already exists to protect the jobs of people who take time off for maternity leave or for family health emergencies. It does not matter what private sector companies offer because the City of Chicago is not a private company!

If a woman decides she wants to have a child, she needs to plan for it financially! She can’t expect the taxpayers of Chicago to pay her salary for six weeks when she is not at her desk. Don’t we currently call a person who collects a paycheck without showing up a “ghost payroller?”

If a city employee can take six weeks off with pay, then there is no money in the budget to hire a part time person to replace them. The employees left behind have to carry the pregnant woman’s workload in their bellies.

Why limit the six weeks paid pregnancy staycation to just that category? Why is having a baby worth more than an employee who has to care for an ailing parent, spouse or child? Getting pregnant is a personal choice; it’s not fair to make others pay for that decision.

Bleeding heart liberals would scoff at six weeks if they knew what women in Hungary received for maternity leave. They get three years paid maternity leave with slightly reduced payments each additional year. I have a friend who worked in Budapest and on her first day on the job, one of her employees came to her, said she was pregnant and would be taking three years off. When the female employee returned three years later, she announced she was pregnant again and would be taking another three years off. What a great scam! It must have been invented in Chicago.