Elon Musk cuts parental leave from 20 weeks to a few days, people react
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New York: Twitter's Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk cut down the parental leave granted to the employees from 20 weeks to just paltry 14 days, New York Times reported.
Musk’s drastic of all policy changes will affect employees working in those states in the US where there is no paid leave policy, according to the report.
New York Times reporter Kate Conger tweeted to say that Twitter’s offer of 20 weeks parental leave has been changed.
‘ That's being changed to whatever is required by law in the region where the employees work, along with a "top up" of two weeks of leave, per internal docs,’ Conger tweeted.
No federal law in US mandates paid parental leave, however the Family and Medical Leave Act offers ‘unpaid, job-protected leave’ for up to 12 weeks to certain employees.
Notably, twelve of all the states provide paid family and medical leave of some kind.
Employees in California can take eight weeks of paid leave under state law, while New York and New Jersey offer 26 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave alongside 12 weeks of paid leave.
Twitter’s alleged plan to reduce leave has been widely questioned with some saying that mothers in many US states will get little time to rest and recover, and spend time with newborns.
‘I would only get 2 weeks under this new policy? Also, how does this not breach the acquisition deal of protecting benefits for 1 year after close?’ asked a user.
Another user vehemently said ‘Shame on Twitter. Only two weeks of paid parental leave?!’, adding that this is not the way.
A third user who enjoyed 20 weeks of parental leave said the experience was ‘profoundly meaningful’.
Still another user said only a company facing bankruptcy does this.
"This is how gender pay gap is entrenched. A woman now has the option of either returning to work two weeks after giving birth or taking a long, unpaid break from work. 20 weeks of paid parental leave minimizes that," noted another user.
"Only a company facing bankruptcy does this," said a person.
Another user added, "You can't be obsessed with declining birthrates and then incentivize your employees to not have children."
