A Business Isn’t a Babysitter

Are two of our Los Angeles city councilmembers trying to chase businesses out of the city? This was my question – and apparently that of several others – upon hearing that Nury Martinez and David Ryu proposed that all businesses in the city be required to grant up to 18 weeks of parental leave to new mothers – for up to 100 percent of their pay. That would be way up from current California law, which requires employers give new mothers six weeks off with up to 60 or 70 percent of their pay. It’s the kind of proposal that, if made into an ordinance, may be the kind of last straw that could push businesses out of the city of Los Angeles and into such places as Burbank and Thousand Oaks – which already are home to the two largest companies in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. For that matter, businesses could go to Calabasas, Glendale, Santa Clarita and Westlake Village – and discover why so many of our area’s sizable companies now are headquartered there. I’m not the only one wondering whether this stringent maternal leave policy would motivate businesses to exit. Here’s a condensed and edited mashup of comments from readers of the Los Angeles Times’ initial article about the proposal: • This is four weeks payroll that a business has to pay someone who is not working. This might be OK for a big, thriving corporation but there are a lot of small mom and pop businesses that are barely making it. • Businesses will have three choices: 1) Move. 2) Not hire women likely to give birth. 3) Raise prices. So far, L.A. businesses have chosen option 3. (Go out to dinner and find out). • What a good idea to find another reason for businesses to leave the city limits and head for anywhere they get a better reception. What’s truly astounding is how out of touch Martinez and Ryu are. Enhanced parental leave is the kind of employee benefit offered by large, prosperous companies, as the first commenter above pointed out. But the bulk of the businesses in the San Fernando Valley are exactly the opposite. They mostly are mid-sized and smaller, and many of them are struggling. They are the ones that’d be whacked the hardest by this. Martinez and Ryu should know that, since they represent parts of the Valley. But shockingly, Martinez and Ryu rationalized it this way in their press release: “Companies with increased paid parental leave benefits saw fewer employees leave the company, such as at Google, where the rate at which new mothers left the company was cut in half when additional paid parental leave was provided.” Well, maybe that’s true, and I’m sure it is great for Google and behemoths like it. But, Martinez and Ryu, just where is the company in the Valley – or anywhere in the city of Los Angeles – that can be compared to Google? Look, every reasonable person surely agrees that parents should have time to bond with their babies. No doubt about that. But figuring out how to do that is a responsibility of the parents, the ones who had the baby. Reasonable people can sure disagree that a city should burden companies with that obligation. Businesses are not babysitters. It’s early in the process, and the proposal likely will go through some changes. Maybe small businesses and nonprofits will be exempt. And perhaps a special employee tax will pay the salaries of the mothers on extended maternity leave. Such things will help. But the ordinance would still be wrong. Why? For one thing, many companies can “get by” for a few weeks but not 18 weeks; they’d have to hire a temporary worker. What do you do with that replacement when the mother returns? And if the company doesn’t hire a temp, is it fair for the remaining workers who are burdened with filling in? For that matter, would it be fair to make childless employees pay a special tax to cover the salaries of their child-bearing colleagues? And such an ordinance would incentivize workers to game the system: what new mother wouldn’t be tempted to take the 18 weeks of full salary before quitting to be a stay-at-home mom? And, as one commenter said, would it incentivize companies to bypass hiring women of childbearing age? This entire proposal creates more unfairness and problems than it solves. Maybe it would be best to leave parenting responsibilities to the parents and leave businesses out of it. Charles Crumpley is editor and publisher of the Business Journal. He can be reached at [email protected].