[PASSED] Protected Working Leave

[Cretox State]

"May is not a requirement."

"I fear I'm not quite understanding the point you're trying to make. Do you believe that national governments should not be allowed to decide if they want to cover the leave costs for large corporations?"

[Honeydewistania]

Oops, read that wrong. Never mind about that.

[Cretox State]

Minor edits and a bump.

[Cretox State]

Feedback bump.

[Boston Castle]

"I would ask, does clause 2(a) only encompass maternal leave or does it cover, more generally, parental leave?"

[Cretox State]

"I would ask, does clause 2(a) only encompass maternal leave or does it cover, more generally, parental leave?"

The latter.

[Boston Castle]

"I would ask, does clause 2(a) only encompass maternal leave or does it cover, more generally, parental leave?"

The latter.

"Then I will throw my support behind this, Ambassador. I'm glad that we have not chosen to neglect the rights of both parents to assist in the early months of their children's life."

[Cretox State]

Last call bump; will submit at some point.

[Honeydewistania]

Big support

[Auphelia]

I have concerns. Who gets to say what defines what burden is too much for a corporation to bear? At what salary or level of wealth must no government be required to provide a worker's salary? Or shall we subsidise the ever increasing wealth of the richest under claims of poverty by the corporation that hires them?

This proposal provides for no form of oversight for these corporations with their large and largely brilliant legal teams that will doubtlessly seek to subvert the intentions of this proposal. Where you give a lawyer a measure of reasonability, they can stretch it to include everything or nothing at all.

Small businesses must be protected, large corporations must be cut off from government help altogether, the wealthy must be made ineligible for government-provided monetary compensation, and some sort of oversight must be established to keep corporations and rogue WA nations that would allow their judiciaries to subvert the meaning of these vague clauses to benefit the corporate entities that run rampant.

[Cretox State]

I have concerns. Who gets to say what defines what burden is too much for a corporation to bear? At what salary or level of wealth must no government be required to provide a worker's salary? Or shall we subsidise the ever increasing wealth of the richest under claims of poverty by the corporation that hires them?

Thanks for the criticism! I'll try my best to address it. The proposal doesn't mandate that an employee's exact salary is preserved; I agree that that would be a bit ridiculous. The proposal mandates "compensation sufficient to financially support themselves and their dependents."

This proposal provides for no form of oversight for these corporations with their large and largely brilliant legal teams that will doubtlessly seek to subvert the intentions of this proposal. Where you give a lawyer a measure of reasonability, they can stretch it to include everything or nothing at all.

The WA has passed numerous collective bargaining and arbitration resolutions specifically intended to protect the ability of workers to have a strong bargaining position in the face of corporate entities- I should know, I wrote a bunch of them.

Small businesses must be protected, large corporations must be cut off from government help altogether, the wealthy must be made ineligible for government-provided monetary compensation, and some sort of oversight must be established to keep corporations and rogue WA nations that would allow their judiciaries to subvert the meaning of these vague clauses to benefit the corporate entities that run rampant.

This oversight already exists in the form of the Independent Adjudicative Office, multiple existing resolutions, and the fact that governments are directly incentivized by this proposal to have large corporations bear the costs of leave where possible. The clause you're complaining about is precisely what protects small businesses and prevents large corporations from abusing this proposal.

[Wallenburg]

"Against, this will kill small businesses and lead to the global domination of giant corporations and conglomerates, which is what we call a ‘No-No’."

"Curious. Capitalist plunderers have been saying as much for years against every pro-labor effort, and yet this has not happened. It really makes you wonder why they keep making this claim."

[Honeydewistania]

"Against, this will kill small businesses and lead to the global domination of giant corporations and conglomerates, which is what we call a ‘No-No’."

"Curious. Capitalist plunderers have been saying as much for years against every pro-labor effort, and yet this has not happened. It really makes you wonder why they keep making this claim."

"It appears that statement you quoted was rather outdated and ignorant, and we are presently offering our full support for this."

[Wallenburg]

"Curious. Capitalist plunderers have been saying as much for years against every pro-labor effort, and yet this has not happened. It really makes you wonder why they keep making this claim."

"It appears that statement you quoted was rather outdated and ignorant, and we are presently offering our full support for this."

"It appears you don't appreciate the slippery nature of time in this chamber. I must have been spliced into the timeline at a poor moment to update myself to your office's new stance. Mind that you don't leave any personal belongings here, they might just disappear into the future."

[Imperium Anglorum]

Re the sniping above:

"Curious. Capitalist plunderers have been saying as much for years against every pro-labor effort, and yet this has not happened. It really makes you wonder why they keep making this claim."

"It appears that statement you quoted was rather outdated and ignorant, and we are presently offering our full support for this."

Small businesses are probably negatively impacted by worker protections to a greater degree than large businesses. The ability to measure this impact empirically is very difficult, also due to the fact that small businesses are exempted from most real world reporting requirements on regulations because of fears of their negative regulatory impact. That said, I've always found the idea that small businesses are – in per cent terms – more negatively impacted than larger businesses, especially when a regulation imposes a large fixed cost (eg, setting up a series of rules and applying them en masse, which has a small variable cost), to be quite plausible.

The arguments entirely aside; the idea of appealing basically to fantasy as a justification for one's position about a policy almost certainly would have non-zero impacts is ridiculous. Saying that 'my RP implements these allegedly onerous regulations and there are no drawbacks' is almost uniquely uncompelling. To quote Gruenberg:

Arguments based primarily on RP are weak, because on some level anyone can RP anything. I could just as easily write a roleplay of some pirates attacking some Dark Star tourists out on their yacht and dismembering them, and using that to justify the law, at which point it seems to just become a case of who can concoct the most lurid fantasies. Gruenberg (as Dark Star Republic), NationStates viewtopic.php?p=23467721#p23467721 (10 Feb 2015).

[La Xinga]

"I'm not sure I'm reading the proposal correctly. If a parent gets an uncurbable disease that he/she needs needs to live with for the rest of his/her life, it seems that the proposal will allow his/her child to care for him/her, taking off from work for till the parent passes away. That can be for 50 Years+. Am I reading the proposal correctly?"

[Ardiveds]

"I'm not sure I'm reading the proposal correctly. If a parent gets an uncurbable disease that he/she needs needs to live with for the rest of his/her life, it seems that the proposal will allow his/her child to care for him/her, taking off from work for till the parent passes away. That can be for 50 Years+. Am I reading the proposal correctly?"

"Ambassador, clause 2 mentions 'reasonable duration'. We wouldn't call 50+ years a 'reaonable duration'."

[Honeydewistania]

"I'm not sure I'm reading the proposal correctly. If a parent gets an uncurbable disease that he/she needs needs to live with for the rest of his/her life, it seems that the proposal will allow his/her child to care for him/her, taking off from work for till the parent passes away. That can be for 50 Years+. Am I reading the proposal correctly?"

"Ambassador, clause 2 meantions 'reasonable duration'. We wouldn't call 50+ years a 'reaonable duration'."

"It then says 'to the extent necessary. I would say that it could be necessary for a child to be permanent caregiver for their parent."

[Bananaistan]

OOC because there's no reasonable IC justification for proposals being character limited.

I remain of the opinion that the technical details of employment law are not a suitable topic for proposals. Either you have extreme micromanagement with numbers of weeks being specified, or you have a pile of "reasonables" as is the case here which has still inadvertently resulted in "workers" in certain circumstances getting a life time of paid leave with the employer being obliged to continue to provide "all employment-related benefits". Someone spending decades out of the workforce to care for a relative is not a worker and the WA can no more make them a worker than it can make rain dry.

[Cretox State]

"It then says 'to the extent necessary. I would say that it could be necessary for a child to be permanent caregiver for their parent."

It says "to the extent necessary to adequately service." Giving a worker some time off to get their parent through the acute period and find them a permanent nursing facility would be sufficient under this.

[Kenmoria]

“I have voted in favour of this proposal. Labour rights are an often-neglected area of law, and I am very glad to see the WA address this topic. Though there is some vagueness in the legislation, I don’t think this prevent the proposal from being a positive addition to the GA’s pool of legislation.”

[Wellington Bingbong]

"We, the Oppressed Peoples of Wellington Bingbong, vote in favour of this proposal. The health of the child is what is most important. Developing secure attachments to any caregiver is beneficial in a multitude of ways, not only to the child, but to the caregiver in question. May the bonds between generations stand as a testament to Bingbongian virtues."

[The Jiangist Shanghai Clique]

"A proposal to ensure that workers need not compromise their economic security to care for their dependants. As always, any feedback is appreciated. We do understand that this proposal shares similarities with "Rights of the employed," but it is inherently more specific than the latter, and offers greater leave and protections. If this is insufficient to avoid issues with duplication or contradiction of prior legislation, we will modify the proposal accordingly."

Draft 2: Removed specific mention of 12 weeks, removed the requirement to provide the worker's full financial compensation, and shifted the burden of providing financial compensation to national governments unless the employer is able to afford it.

Protected Working Leave

Category: Regulation
Area of Effect: Labour Rights

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The World Assembly,

Understanding the importance of an economically and socially secure working class to long-term economic growth,

Believing that said security does not need to be mutually exclusive with the decision to raise a family or the need to maintain good health, and

Wishing to ensure that working people in all member nations have access to paid leave and job security in order to care for themselves and their loved ones, without unduly disrupting the operations of their employers, hereby:

1. Defines for the purposes of this resolution:
   1. a "worker" as any individual bound by a contract to perform work or services for an employer, whose employment contract mandates the work or services be performed specifically by that worker, involves an obligation for the worker to perform work and the employer to provide it, and implies the employer having some degree of control over the manner in which the work is performed; and
   2. "paid leave" as time during which a worker is not required to perform the work or services specified in their employment contract and receives:
      1. compensation sufficient to financially support themselves and their dependents, to be provided by the government of a member nation;
      2. all employment-related benefits which would otherwise be provided to that worker, to be provided by their employer; and
      3. the guaranteed ability to return to the same or a comparable job after the conclusion of paid leave, should their employer reasonably be able to provide such;
2. Declares that member nations must provide workers who request such with a reasonable duration of paid leave to the extent necessary to adequately service any of the following conditions:
   1. to care for a new child due to childbirth, adoption, or placement of said child in foster care should the child require such care;
   2. to care for a seriously ill or physically or mentally disabled spouse, child below the age of majority, parent, grandparent, or dependent should they require such care; or
   3. to recover from their own serious illness;
3. Forbids employers from discriminating or retaliating against workers for requesting or taking paid leave pursuant to section 2 of this resolution; such retaliation including:
   1. not returning said workers to the same or a comparable job;
   2. terminating employment;
   3. reducing compensation or benefits; or
   4. disciplining said workers;
4. Requires that workers:
   1. give their employer reasonable notice in the event of a foreseeable birth or adoption; and
   2. alert their employer of serious health conditions that are the reason for their requesting paid leave if practicable;
5. Clarifies that:
   1. employers may not impose unnecessarily onerous conditions on the granting of paid leave;
   2. any additional conditions by an employer on the granting of paid leave are to be implemented and enforced at the employer's expense;
   3. member nations may place the burden of providing financial compensation to workers over the duration of paid leave on said workers' employer should the employer be capable of providing such without significant financial strain; and
   4. employers, member nations, and World Assembly resolutions may implement policies granting workers more expansive paid leave than provided for by this resolution.

[Kenmoria]

-snip-

(OOC: In future, there’s no need to quote an entire post for just a sentence of feedback. To respond to your critique, I would refer you to the first perambulatory clause, which points out that an economically secure working class leads to long-term economic growth. Although this is expensive for companies in the short-term, it leads to positive results for the economy as a whole.)

[Retired WerePenguins]

First, I apologize for coming into this discussion at such a late date and I see it is going to pass anyway, but I have to vote against it.

(I just came back to the game after a relatively short period of inactivity and just restored one of my nations to the WA.)

There seems to be an implicit assumption that employment is continual and perpetual but that is not the case in the resolution, "a 'worker' as any individual bound by a contract ..."

The problem occurs when there is a combination of a non perpetual contract and a contract duration potentially shorter than the proposed leave periods.

A very good and classic example is the United States Census, which takes place every ten years. "Most positions are anticipated to last several weeks, but employment may end at any time or hours of work may be reduced if there is a lack of available work." But technically that is an employment contract.

The first problem is taking such a short term job and then applying for a leave equal to or greater than the actual contract period.
The second problem is the requirement not to terminate after what should have been the natural end of the contract period.