
Holdout Jeff Bezos Confronted by Amazon Moms Demanding Day Care - wallflower
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-04/holdout-jeff-bezos-confronted-by-amazon-moms-demanding-daycare
======
Endama
This may be an unpopular thought here but it seems to me that these
momazonians may seriously consider unionizing. If executives at major tech
companies are not willing to meet the needs of their female workforce (both
current and future) then it seems that collective bargaining would be an
effective means of making their position more convincing.

The risk is that companies may increasingly try and avoid hiring more women in
the future; but it could also be that employers, who want to seem more
socially responsible, may take the financial hit and invest in the up-front-
costs in order to get access to a larger labor pool.

~~~
rebuilder
The underlying assumption here is that women take care of kids, while men
work. That's what an union should address IMO. Instead of maternal leave, have
parental leave that men, too, can take. That way, the playing field is leveled
more.

Of course, there's no quick fix here - it's a deepset cultural issue, and
getting men to take that leave when it's available to them still seems to take
some pushing.

~~~
fastball
That's because it's not merely a cultural issue, it's a biological one.

By necessity, _all_ women that have children need to take time off, at least
in the pregnancy/birth stage. The productivity lost is generally less if you
only need to coordinate one person taking maternal/paternal leave. So the
obvious choice is to extend the leave of the person that absolutely must take
it.

~~~
aaomidi
It's both actually. Different cultures have had different approaches to
raising a child.

Painting it as black and white doesn't help.

~~~
Pfhreak
The phrase 'not merely' implies 'both'.

~~~
aaomidi
Sorry missed this.

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turc1656
_" You don’t want to be the one to step forward and say ‘I’m a mom with kids
and I may not be as single-mindedly devoted to my career as everyone else."_
Then be prepared to lose that promotion to the single-minded person.

This is part of the cause of what the article says is _" women who otherwise
might be promoted to more senior jobs"_. If there is someone else - woman,
man, alien, whatever - who is equally qualified but who is also completely
focused on their career, then why would a manager not reward that person and
instead choose the person who is not willing to dedicate an unreasonable
amount of time to work? What manager would not choose the person with more
time to dedicate and is actually willing to dedicate that time? You're going
to get more out of the singled-minded person.

It seems to me this is really an issue for these women at _home_ , not work.
Why would they not have a conversation with their husbands about this? If the
wives are making more money and have more prospects and opportunities for
advancement over their spouse - the spouse should theoretically be willing to
agree to be the one who makes the sacrifice when surprise child-related stuff
pops up. Right? So it's probably likely that either their spouse is making the
same or more, or they simply aren't having these conversations at home and
instead are asking Amazon to make their lives easier. I'm not sold that this
is an Amazon problem.

~~~
danudey
The problems are:

1\. Society expects women to do this work, and devalues men who do it. This
means that mothers are often left responsible for children, and thus they lose
out compared to men (or women who choose not to have children, or haven't
yet). We're effectively punishing women for continuing our species.

2\. Without these sort of support structures in place, managers will look at
women as a liability; "but what if she has a kid and then she has to miss work
all the time?"

Your argument is basically "these women aren't as dedicated, or otherwise they
wouldn't have had kids". The reality is that having children is important, and
women specifically shouldn't have to look at having children as the end of
their career, or at least their career advancement, because Amazon refuses to
provide something which other companies already do.

Essentially this is an Amazon problem because it's only a liability at
companies who don't provide this sort of opportunity, which other companies
do. Amazon is basically saying "We don't care about what women have to deal
with, that's your problem not ours" and talented women are going to learn that
lesson and go elsewhere where neither they nor their spouses have to make
those sacrifices.

~~~
hnaccy
>The reality is that having children is important, and women specifically
shouldn't have to look at having children as the end of their career, or at
least their career advancement

Why?

~~~
keiferski
Because sacrificing the family unit at the altar of corporate capitalism
_probably_ isn't the right thing to do?

~~~
hnaccy
Daycare while both parents work on their careers all year is the family unit?

~~~
AndrewGaspar
Yeah, honestly amazed that somebody would straight faced make the argument
that not taking time off to raise your children in order to spend more time at
work (which is a perfectly fine choice, I'm not arguing it's not!) is somehow
sticking it to the man.

------
Pfhreak
I wish them the best of luck. As someone who had to save two years of vacation
time so that I could have _any_ paid time off for the birth of my child while
working at Amazon, I'm not surprised that Amazon is a late mover here. They've
since changed their policies, but it definitely was later than their tech
peers.

~~~
throwaway6497
For a long time, I don't think they even had a formal paternal leave policy or
only had a just a couple of weeks for Dads. They are definitely a late mover
in this area. They had to be shamed (Infamous NYTimes article, peers bragging
their generic benefits etc) to provide better paternity and maternity leave
policies. Current atmosphere of asking for these kind of benefits were almost
laughable within the walls of Amazon 10 years ago; You would have either got
yelled or scoffed at. Glad to see this effort. Hope they succeed. I know a lot
of people in industry will be rooting for them, and many employees secretly
hoping for them to succeed. It is good for Amazonians and industry in general.
If the famously laggard company in providing good benefits is being put on
spot to up its game to take care of employees, we should all cheer for
Momazonians!

------
tracer4201
I take articles like this with a grain of salt. It might be completely
accurate or it might be heavily exaggerated nonsense to drive clicks.

I work at another tech company. We’ve been in the news a few times about
employees being upset and demanding leadership change some policy. Reading the
articles, it gave the impression at least hundreds of people were demanding
this change. In reality, it wasn’t even a dozen.

------
MrStonedOne
Anybody else take issue with this groups insinuation that child care is a
single gender issue?

All this lip service to inclusion, and keeping an eye out for the minority,
but nobody thought the minority of single parents, (single fathers) might take
issue with a group called _Mom_ azonians.

Ya ya, sure, most single parents, or working parents who have child care
concerns, are women. Yet most firefighters are men but we don't call them
firemen anymore because we recognize that as bad.

~~~
eesmith
I don't. The article mentions that there is currently a cultural bias for
women to handle child care. For examples: a) "many senior executives had stay-
at-home wives", b) "most men in the U.S. earn more than women, she says, moms
are more likely to stay home when children are sick since the loss of the
father’s income is more likely to be detrimental to the family budget.", and
c) "Studies demonstrate that mothers continue to bear the brunt of childcare
responsibilities and companies that provide day care support can reduce
employee absenteeism by as much as 30 percent."

As such, women are the most affected by these policies.

The question I see is, are these Momazonians advocating for policies that
support all genders equally, or are they advocating for policies which only
help women? Your comment suggest the answer is "no" or "only accidentally",
but nothing in the article supports that.

My reading of the article suggests that they want "backup day care benefit for
employees ... providing help for parents", that is, it would apply to all
parents, including single fathers and families with two married fathers.

You mentioned gender neutral terms like 'firefighter'. I think there are
better examples which show how a group can use a seemingly discriminatory term
to support equal rights.

One example is the National Woman's Party. They had an important role in
passing the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, which provided suffrage - women
didn't have special voting rights compared to men, but _equal_ voting rights.

They then proposed the Equal Rights Amendment in 1921: "No political, civil,
or legal disabilities or inequalities on account of sex or on account of
marriage, unless applying equally to both sexes, shall exist within the United
States or any territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof."

Again, equality of genders, not preferential treatment. Indeed, this was a
sticking point _against_ the ERA. Women had special treatment. Quoting
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment)
:

> Their debate reflected the wider tension in the developing feminist movement
> of the early 20th century between two approaches toward gender equality. One
> approach emphasized the common humanity of women and men, while the other
> stressed women's unique experiences and how they were different from men,
> seeking recognition for specific needs. The opposition to the ERA was led by
> Mary Anderson and the Women's Bureau beginning in 1923. These feminists
> argued that legislation including mandated minimum wages, safety
> regulations, restricted daily and weekly hours, lunch breaks, and maternity
> provisions would be more beneficial to the majority of women who were forced
> to work out of economic necessity, not personal fulfillment

The NWP continued to support equality between the genders in the civil rights
era of the 1960s.

Thus, just like the "National _Woman 's_ Party" didn't seek special treatment
for women, I don't think it's correct to look at a term like "Momazonians" and
conclude they want special treatment for moms.

As another example, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People" seeks "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic
equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination",
not the advancement of African-Americans over other races.

~~~
MrStonedOne
The ends do not justify the means.

None of those points are correct.

The fact that there is a NWP, a NOW, a White house council on women and girls,
and no equivalent for men, is a problem. An infectious one that leads to
things like the "violence against women act" that reminds the minority of DV
victims that they are an after thought.

The name of this group, and the name of NOW, NWP, WCoWaG are all symptoms of a
larger problem. We took a easily generalized concept about how we should treat
and respect each other as human beings, and applied it in an excessively
specialized and snowflake way.

As hackers and programmers most of the people here should be smart enough to
know why snowflake code is bad. The same applies to our laws, and even our
societal norms.

~~~
eesmith
If what you say is true then bear in mind that your last paragraph - "As
hackers and programmers" \- is itself a snowflake thing, since "Programmers
for a Just Society" is the same construction as "Moms for an Equal Workplace".
Hackers and programmers are not special snowflakes that are any better than
others at understanding and opposing racism and sexism in society.

That said, I strongly disagree with your statement that there is a problem.

The original goal of the National Woman's Party was woman's suffrage. What
would the equivalent for men have been? There is none, because men already had
the right to vote.

The NWP then pushed for the Equal Rights Amendment. What would the equivalent
for men have been? Answer: The Equal Rights Amendment.

Had ERA been ratified then there would have been no doubt that the Violence
Against Women Act would equally be applied to men in the same circumstances.
As it is,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_Against_Women_Act#Cov...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_Against_Women_Act#Coverage_of_male_victims)

Do you support/would you have supported the ERA?

NOW's foundational goal was "To take action to bring women into full
participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all
privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men".
Do you support that goal, but just have a problem with the word "Women" in the
title?

Do you support the goals of the NAACP, but are simply opposed to the name?

What of 'Black Lives Matter', which also has the goal of racial equality? Note
that I am firmly on the side of the critics of the term "All Lives Matter"
described at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Lives_Matter#Criticism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Lives_Matter#Criticism)
. That is, "All Lives Matter" ignores the use of "Black" to highlight
structural racism in the US and the lesser value placed on black lives over
white ones.

Note that NWP was also racist, but it's not like changing the name to
"National People's Party" would have fixed that.

I have no idea what 'WCoWaG' means.

Circling back, do you support the goals of the Momamazons, but are simply
opposed to the "Mom" in the name? Is your opposition to their goals based on
information given in the article, and if so, what?

------
dev_dull
On the one hand I think women in general _deserve_ this. The burden of raising
our children falls disproportionately on women in our society (all
societies?). The moms deserve a lot more than this in fact.

On the other hand, the idea of children being stuck in a daycare all day every
day because both of their parents have to work full time just to survive
breaks my heart.

------
marcell
Is this really standard at any tech company? When I was at Google they had
some deal with a local day car franchise, but it wqs just a discount or
something.

~~~
BeetleB
Not sure that the article does a good job explaining this.

In my company, they do provide this (or a similar perk). As an employee, you
are responsible for "regular" day care, which I don't think is being discussed
here. What is being discussed is backup/emergency daycare. As an example, my
kid goes to some kind of school/preschool. But things happen (bad weather,
etc) that causes the school to close on a given day. One option is that I stay
home and take care of the kids, but then it becomes a gray area: How much of
my time at home am I actually working? Should I use vacation time for this? So
the "perk" is that I come to work, and arrange for some kind of "emergency"
day care just for that day. My employer will pay for that.

I think at my company, this is mostly optional. However, depending on your job
function, you may simply really _have_ to be at work for some reason on that
particular day, so the company pays for the daycare for that day.

~~~
dantheman
Is there any reason parents can't just buy this service for themselves?

~~~
BeetleB
Of course they can. Just like they can pay for any other perk their company
provides (parking, public transit credits, meals, health insurance, etc).

------
turtlebits
I don't get this. When my son was born I took plenty of PTO/WFH/sicks days due
to child care, either helping out my wife catch up on sleep or doing mid-day
pickups from school/care. My son is in elementary, and I still take lots of
WFH/leaving early days with no issue from my employer.

I don't get why backup day care should be offered - picking child care can be
a pretty sensitive topic for the level of care/attention given to your child.

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itchyjunk
What does `backup daycare` mean? Do you have to prove you are using it as
`backup`?

~~~
PeterisP
Short-term day care that's available with minimum notice.

As opposed to "default" day care that's expected to cover most days for months
or years, and where it's possible to make arrangements long before you
actually start.

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ethan_robot
I'll just leave this here
[https://techworkerscoalition.org/](https://techworkerscoalition.org/)

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mesozoic
I'm hoping for doggy day care as well.

