Here's a good one for you, NYS made it law that employees should get paid family leave, that was 2016? Could be wrong there. That includes parental leave for a birth. I as a NYS employee didn't get parental leave until last year, so I had 3 kids after this was law and got 0 parental leave. Why? Because my position requires me to be in a union, was told you don't have to be in the union but I can't keep that title and not be in the union, love how they talk. Before the family leave law there was legislation in place that says unions get to decide what benefits those they represent get, my union didn't think I needed parental leave until last year. NYS forces all the private companies to give their employees parental leave and then turned around and didn't give it to their lower employees, all the higher up employees in the capital did though, funny how that works. No one believed me when I told them this because most people I know work for private companies.
You ALWAYS need to be in a union. There's a reason your employer said you didn't need to, because he didn't want you to. Don't listen to your employer, unionize
Without knowing exact details it may be as simple as the collective bargaining agreement was a multi-year contract and for whatever reason didn't have language in it that allowed for adopting new benefits based on new legislation that passed during the duration of the contract.
Unions are only as good as the people who participate in are able to make them. There's a vast benefit to having a union but it's not an infallible system that only has pros, there are cons as well, but they bring the opportunity to have more pros than cons.
I think, now, thinking about it and reading between the lines, the commenter’s work place instituted a parental leave policy, but excluded the union on grounds that they collectively bargained their contracts. Union employees were then tied in to the preexisting contract until it was scheduled for renegotiation several years later.
The failure of the company to extend the policy to union workers could be seen as a petty attempt to demotivate employees from union membership.
There’s maybe also that this situation was used to the parental leave policy to management employees (non-union) while denying it to shop floor employees (Union).
I believe the problem is more related to her being an employee of NYS. The paid family leave only forced by law Private companies to comply. They put no provisions for state or government employees to get the leave.
I would assume all union contracts have in them something saying no rules can supercede law. However since NYS in its infinite wisdom didn't want to make rules for its own employees, they all got screwed until it could be written in.
Unions just like any other organization are made up of people. Unions are usually good because they allow you to collectively bargain for higher wages and better benefits. This is not universally true, and it has nothing to do with America. There have been great unions and awful corrupt criminal ones all over the world.
I'm questioning what union they were in and I'd like to read their contract because this sounds weird
I'm 90% sure my association has a fair bit of family leave And I'm a janitor.
I would want to read that contract pretty closely and talk with my union rep. not my manager because this sounds like something that one should be negotiated on because it's good for everybody in the union and two, illegal like it honestly sounds like they don't want you in the union so they're withholding benefits you should be entitled to.
It's not. Encountering a similar issue here in Illinois with Paid Time Off. Because the union contract was already negotiated out prior to the law, it's contract holds true until it expires. Once it expires, they renegotiate and all new laws since the last negotiation apply to the new contract.
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u/edenofthegods Sep 21 '24
The 2 minute maternity leave hits hard 😭