[PASSED] Repeal: "Protected Working Leave"

[Goobergunchia]

Hey. Feedback appreciated. This resolution does not intend to undermine workers' rights. Also, the format is weird yeah, I'm just experimenting.

And to be clear, I have asked Tin about their repeal of GA#527. No response other than "I'm sure we'll figure it out soon." I asked them 11 days ago. I don't blame Tin for this, but I informed them about this.
reference: https://www.nationstates.net/page=WA_pa ... /council=1

Edit: Replace here.

Lauding [resolution=GA#527]GA#527[/resolution]'s intent to protect workers' economic and social security, yet aware of GA#527's many shortcomings, the General Assembly repeals GA#527 for the following reasons:

1. GA#527 contains a slew of imprecise, vague, and exploitable language, including but not limited to:
   
   1. guaranteeing workers returning from paid leave the same or a comparable job as to what they had before "should their employer reasonably be able to provide such," effectively undermining the goal of that subclause by allowing employers to hurt workers with unjust demotions per the word reasonable,
   2. "serious illness" and "seriously ill," allowing workers to request paid leave on a whim per the vagueness of the words serious and seriously,
   3. requiring workers to give "reasonable notice" or alert their employers of any "serious health conditions" that may require them to take paid leave, yet more poor wording that causes unnecessary workplace trouble in the case of notices that disallow employers to adequately adjust, on top of the concerns for using "serious" as listed in the above bulletpoint,
   4. how employers may not impose "unnecessarily onerous conditions" for paid leave, an easy way for employers to restrict workers' rights and prevent employees from taking paid leave per the ambiguity of unnecessarily onerous,
   5. how member nations may place the burden of compensating workers on paid leave onto the workers' employer if the employer can provide it "without significant financial strain," which could result in small businesses and large corporations carrying the same weight, increasing bankruptcy risk among small businesses and thus creating social and economic instability for the owners of said bankrupt smaller businesses and its employees,
   6. the vagueness of a "comparable job," which doesn't specify how the job is comparable, thus opening the door to salary decreases, a change to a field the employee is uninterested in, a different necessary skill set for the job, a combination of these factors, or other factors, and
   7. how subclause 5a only protects workers from "unnecessarily onerous conditions" from employers, leaving room for malign member state actors to oppress its workforce due to the lack of restrictions on their placing of conditions upon workers filing for paid leave,
2. GA#527's definition of worker fails to differentiate between employees on perpetual contracts and non-perpetual contracts, ultimately allowing employees on time-limited contracts to request paid leave on the first day of their employment and remain on paid leave until the end of it,
   
3. GA#527 forbids employers from not giving employees the same or comparable jobs on return even when impossible but additionally allows exceptions for when it is both impossible or "unreasonable," contradicting itself, and
   
4. Clause 2 of GA#527 states employers must give workers "a reasonable duration of paid leave" if they request it under certain poorly-worded conditions; one example being "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 [to the extent necessary to adequately service this condition]." Such wording allows for excessive paid leave; a worker caring for their infant offspring (who cannot live independently) will receive paid leave for years, and a worker caring for their mentally disabled parent (who again needs care) may receive paid leave for even longer. Moreover, a business, perhaps one with considerable leverage over an employee, may argue "reasonable" and "adequately" to mean, for example, a period that wouldn't allow an employee to recover fully from a "serious illness" to not endanger their fellow employees. The lack of a minimum or maximum paid leave length requirement only worsens this.

[Minskiev]

Lauding GA#527's intent to protect workers' economic and social security, the General Assembly nonetheless repeals GA#527 for the following reasons:

1. Clause 2 of GA#527 states employers must give workers "a reasonable duration of paid leave" if they request it under certain poorly-worded conditions. One example would be: "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 [to the extent necessary to adequately service this condition]." Such poor wording opens up the opportunity of excessive paid leave; a worker caring for their infant offspring (who cannot live independently) will receive paid leave for years. Additionally, a worker caring for their mentally unstable parent (again necessitating care) may receive paid leave for even longer. Moreover, a business, perhaps one with considerable leverage over an employee, may argue "reasonable" and "adequately" to mean, for example, a period that wouldn't allow an employee to recover from a "serious illness" and not endanger their fellow employees. Furthermore, the lack of a minimum paid leave length requirement only worsens this,
   
2. GA#527 contains a slew of additional imprecise, vague, and exploitable language, including but not limited to:
   
   1. guaranteeing workers returning from paid leave the same or a comparable job as to what they had before "should their employer reasonably be able to provide such," effectively undermining the goal of that subclause by allowing employers to hurt workers by unjustly demoting them,
   2. "seriously ill" and "serious illness," allowing workers to request paid leave on a whim,
   3. requiring workers to give "reasonable notice" or alert their employers of any "serious health conditions" that may require them to take paid leave, yet more poor wording,
   4. how employers may not impose "unnecessarily onerous conditions" for paid leave, an easy way for employers to restrict workers' rights and prevent employees from taking paid leave,
   5. how member nations may place the burden of compensating workers on paid leave onto the workers' employer if that the employer can provide it "without significant financial strain," which could result in small businesses and large corporations carrying the same weight, increasing bankruptcy risk among small businesses which would create social and economic instability for the owners of said bankrupt smaller businesses and its employed workers,
   6. the vagueness of a "comparable job," which doesn't specify how the job is comparable, thus opening the door to salary decreases, a change to a field the employee is uninterested in, a different necessary skill set for the job, a combination of these factors, or other factors, and
   7. how Clause 2 mandates that the state must provide paid leave if the reasoning matches the listed conditions, yet subclause 5a only protects workers from "unnecessarily onerous conditions" from employers, an embarrassing oversight,
3. GA#527's definition of worker fails to differentiate between employees on perpetual contracts and non-perpetual contracts, ultimately allowing employees on time-limited contracts to request paid leave on the first day of their employment and remain on paid leave until the end of it, and
   
4. GA#527 forbids employers from not giving employees the same or comparable jobs on return even when impossible but additionally allows exceptions for when it is both impossible or "unreasonable," contradicting itself.

[Tinhampton]

Alexander Smith, Tinhamptonian Delegate-Ambassador to the World Assembly: Mr Russell, while I would like to reaffirm my support for any and all repeals of this monstrocity, I remain convinced that you could have written something much better than a reheated version of an unfortunately-defeated repeal by Maria van Nysen - my good friend, former ambassador and current Prime Minister of Daarwyrth.

[Minskiev]

Alexander Smith, Tinhamptonian Delegate-Ambassador to the World Assembly: Mr Russell, while I would like to reaffirm my support for any and all repeals of this monstrocity, I remain convinced that you could have written something much better than a reheated version of an unfortunately-defeated repeal by Maria van Nysen - my good friend, former ambassador and current Prime Minister of Daarwyrth.

“Arf arf arf arf arf, arf arf arf arf arf arf arf. Arf arf.”

You’re unsure of the exact meaning of this, but it sounds a good bit like “If you put the two proposals side by side, you’d see a difference. I added quite a few more cases against.”

[Minskiev]

Made it prettier.

[Outer Sparta]

Are you planning a replacement?

[Daarwyrth]

OOC: If you're serious about passing this, then you might have to consider that a replacement is necessary alongside it. Even with Tinhampton's replacement at the time a lot of the opposition to my repeal proposal was that it was an attempt to undermine worker's rights, which it was not. Yet no matter how many times I explained and repeated myself, that perception stuck and was perpetuated.

So, unless you have a watertight replacement alongside this repeal proposal, my advise would be to not pursue a repeal of "Protected Working Leave".

[Imperium Anglorum]

No objection to repeal in principle.

[Minskiev]

Are you planning a replacement?

OOC: If you're serious about passing this, then you might have to consider that a replacement is necessary alongside it. Even with Tinhampton's replacement at the time a lot of the opposition to my repeal proposal was that it was an attempt to undermine worker's rights, which it was not. Yet no matter how many times I explained and repeated myself, that perception stuck and was perpetuated.

So, unless you have a watertight replacement alongside this repeal proposal, my advise would be to not pursue a repeal of "Protected Working Leave".

Here it is!

[Minskiev]

Bump

[Minskiev]

Alright, I'll submit this tomorrow evening if there's no further feedback.

[Outer Sparta]

Same thing with this, wait for further feedback from the secretariats.

[Minskiev]

*sigh*

Bump again, I guess.

[Bananaistan]

OOC: Argument 1g. Please explain further.

The rest of section 1 is a bit nitpicky and tending towards exaggeration which I'd let through but I'd like to see more opinions on these before you'd submit rather than people subsequently challenging the proposal.

3 is problematic. I don't think there's a contradiction - the target requires that employers give the same or comparable job on return if it's reasonable to do so. If it's impossible then it can't be reasonable to do so.

Arguments 2 and 4 and the general gist of 1 are the key points. Perhaps 1 could be pared back a bit and 4 restated to more succinctly get to the point that it's potentially open ended leave.

[Minskiev]

OOC: Argument 1g. Please explain further.

The rest of section 1 is a bit nitpicky and tending towards exaggeration which I'd let through but I'd like to see more opinions on these before you'd submit rather than people subsequently challenging the proposal.

3 is problematic. I don't think there's a contradiction - the target requires that employers give the same or comparable job on return if it's reasonable to do so. If it's impossible then it can't be reasonable to do so.

Arguments 2 and 4 and the general gist of 1 are the key points. Perhaps 1 could be pared back a bit and 4 restated to more succinctly get to the point that it's potentially open ended leave.

For 3: say that a worker at some fast food chain comes back from paid leave, and it'd take 3 million to return their job or a comparable job even though they're only paid like 30k a year. From an everyday view that's unreasonable, yes? This proposal both forbids denying that fast food worker their job even if unreasonable yet also allows denying them their job if unreasonable. A problem, right?

The rest I shall get to. Thank you.

[Minskiev]

Alright, I'll probably be submitting this in a few days.

[Minskiev]

Submitted. Link

[Greater Cesnica]

---

The Europeian Ministry of World Assembly Affairs recommends a vote AGAINST the General Assembly Resolution, Repeal: "Protected Working Leave".
Its reasoning may be found here.

---

[Smooches]

The Smoochian delegate, through a heavy yawn comments "Sure, there's maybe a point to be made about the vague language... But these repeals! They are all the same! The same handful of boring nitpickers cuddling up to the wretched empires to say the workers ask too much. Nonsense."

[Bootacia]

The Bootacian delegate gives a "hear hear" for the Smoochian delegation's comments. "Repealing this without a replacement would harm the workers of the world. Let us expand protections before making reductions to fix what amounts to typos," he spats with protest.

[Minskiev]

The Smoochian delegate, through a heavy yawn comments "Sure, there's maybe a point to be made about the vague language... But these repeals! They are all the same! The same handful of boring nitpickers cuddling up to the wretched empires to say the workers ask too much. Nonsense."

OOC: Apologies for snippyness. Been at something excruciatingly tiring for 4 hours straight now.

IC: “Arf arf arf arf, arf arf!” Wallace remarks. This angry comment feels a lot like he was telling you to read the resolution instead of making an uninformed generalized take on it. Indeed, workers are allowed to get randomly demoted under the standing resolution, not to mention all the conditions employers may place.

The Bootacian delegate gives a "hear hear" for the Smoochian delegation's comments. "Repealing this without a replacement would harm the workers of the world. Let us expand protections before making reductions to fix what amounts to typos," he spats with protest.

“Arf arf.” Such brevity can only imply something on the lines of “Same applies to you.” First, there is a replacement. Look at the original post. The great god in the sky Cormactopia Prime gave you eyes. Use them. Second, I’m not sure why you believe correctly-spelt words in GA#527 would be typos, especially considering its 4-month drafting period. “Reasonable,” “serious,” etc. are not typos, they are get-out-of-tricky-wording free cards.

[Daarwyrth]

Konstantyn Keysers, newly appointed Representative of the renewed Daarwyrthian WA delegation: "My predecessor, the honourable Dame Maria vyn Nysen, began our endeavours within the World Assembly with an unsuccessful repeal of GA#527, a combination of numbers that she would never forget afterwards. As Daarwyrth stood behind the repeal of this resolution from the beginning, it should come as no surprise that we have cast our vote in favour of this proposal. Albeit I must express my concern over the apparent blindness phenomenon that seems to be affecting some of my diplomatic colleagues here... For surely it is not too difficult to spot the replacement proposal attached to the addendum of the proposal text? Or was I the only one that bothered to look at the addendum?"

[Amerion]

The South Pacific's World Assembly Delegation has cast the Coalition's vote FOR this proposed resolution, Repeal: “Protected Working Leave”, and warmly encourages fellow member regions to vote FOR.

'No Rec' or No Recommendation indicates a vote where, in the absence of a recommendation from the Office of WA Legislation, the Admiral Delegate General voted according to the majority stance of World Assembly members in the South Pacific.

[Smooches]

"I was, perhaps, too harsh. This is not like 'electric chair for addicts' or whatever it was called I was made to read a few weeks back. Our... skepticism regarding the votes that carry these types of repeals aside, at the very least the replacement is acceptable, push come to shove." The delegate concedes, tsunderely.

[Minskiev]

"I was, perhaps, too harsh. This is not like 'electric chair for addicts' or whatever it was called I was made to read a few weeks back. Our... skepticism regarding the votes that carry these types of repeals aside, at the very least the replacement is acceptable, push come to shove." The delegate concedes, tsunderely.

The Minskievian delegation thanks you.