Carly Fiorina Backs Maternity Leave Policy Worse Than Afghanistan's

WASHINGTON -- GOP presidential contender Carly Fiorina said on Sunday that she opposes changing federal law to require companies to provide paid maternity leave. Her position is at odds with the policies of virtually every developed country on Earth and considerably worse than the maternity leave policy in war-torn Afghanistan. The Huffington Post reached out to other Republican presidential contenders to see where they stand on mandatory paid maternity leave. None of them, including Fiorina, responded with comment by deadline. Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have, more broadly, backed guaranteed paid family leave. The federal Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 provides 12 weeks of leave for the birth of a child and other needs, but it does not require wage compensation. In addition, employees who have worked at a company for less than a year are not covered. Employers are left with a lot of leeway in how much they choose to accommodate mothers recovering from labor and parents with a newborn child. The result, as Rebecca Traister wrote in The New Republic, is that parenting has become "a privileged pursuit" that "ultimately affirms public and professional life as being built for men." To put Fiorina's position in perspective, Afghanistan requires 13 weeks of maternity leave during which 100 percent of a woman's earnings are covered, according to a report published last year by the International Labour Organization....
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news