Tuesday, September 15, 2009

About my maternity leave...


Because a few of my international friends have asked, I wanted to outline my maternity leave, here in the US it differs. By law we can take up to 12 weeks off unpaid, through whats called the FMLA leave act, (Family Medical Leave Act) businesses are not required to pay you for that time but some places run on a "how long have you worked for us" bonus. My particular job offered me 1 month full pay two months half pay. Some places do not offer any pay at all, and I feel that is extremely upsetting, considering Canada gives you government paid leave PLUS paternity leave for the father of the baby, and in France ,I hear that you can take off up to a year paid, and they send a maid to your house for the first month to help with housework and such.

As much as my particular leave sucked (getting half of your salary when you already make next to nothing really hurts the ol pocket book,) i feel really lucky because they could have just as well not given me anything, so I am grateful for what I did get, I am not however getting paid for this week that I am taking here because I went over my allotment of what the company would pay for. But In the end it's very worth it to have a little more time with my cutie pie.

So I'm interested now, what is your maternity leave like in your country?

2 comments:

Mrs Munster said...

I think here it's usually in private companies bout 6 weeks you get around 90% of your salary and then go on for £520 per month as statutory maternity pay (don't quote me on this one and I think it's up to 9 months or so). I work for the national health service who has got quite good maternity leaves. I can take up to 1 year off, but 9 months is paid. 3 months 90% of your pay, 3 months half of your pay + statutory pay and last 3 months just statutory pay. I've had quite a lot off time off already as wasn't coping with the work load so I'll be going back to work when baby is bout 8 months old.

Julia S. said...

Heather, FMLA is only available for companies with more than 50 employees ... so when the time comes for me and if I'm still at the same company I won't even qualify for FMLA - so I would have to take short term disability. Still doesn't make sense that having a baby would qualify as a disability!!! Maybe I should just go back to Canada to have a baby!! :-)