It's always pretty funny to see companies like raytheon participate in pride parades, or companies that don't give any kind of realistic maternity leave talk about roe v wade.
I do not see why it is gross. Employees have more utility if they get an abortion and less utility if they have to spend time out for parental leave.
If society wants to promote parenting, then society should pass laws about parental leave. Individual businesses have no obligation to reduce their competitiveness in the marketplace.
Why should the legal system have to step in to coerce people to behave like decent human beings?
Plenty of other businesses remain competitive while treating their employees like fellow humans who have their own lives to live.
By your reasoning, if anyone is able to abuse their freedom to do something immoral, it isn't that person or organization's fault, it's society's fault for allowing that to happen. Then why bother with freedom at all?
> Why should the legal system have to step in to coerce people to behave like decent human beings?
Because the statement below is not true:
> Plenty of other businesses remain competitive while treating their employees like fellow humans who have their own lives to live.
See the widening of income/wealth gap in the US over the past few decades, the movement of manufacturing and industry to places with even fewer labor and environmental protections, even in the US. Nobody is going to pay Target $1 or $2 more if Target started treating workers considerably better, they will all go to Walmart.
> By your reasoning, if anyone is able to abuse their freedom to do something immoral, it isn't that person or organization's fault, it's society's fault for allowing that to happen. Then why bother with freedom at all?
That is not my reasoning at all. Immoral and moral is an opinion, and not offering subsidized health insurance to employees falls far short of the “universal” immoral line. If Walmart was beating it’s workers with whips or something, you might have a point.
But Walmart’s job is to get goods from manufacturer to consumer. Not providing its employees with a minimum quality of life. That falls on the government and society as a whole, simply for practical purposes. Expecting anything else is fantasy.
That's exactly why it's gross. And why nations should codify parental leave and similar policies. Failing that, it's a race to the bottom in any employment relationship where the employee doesn't have higher-than-average power.
Everyone likes to say that, and then goes out and buys things from the vendor selling to them at the lowest price.
Societal benefits fall squarely on the government’s shoulders, and their shoulders alone. Admonishing and expecting businesses to not optimize within their boundary conditions is a waste of time.
> Employees have more utility if they get an abortion
This is exactly what people find gross about it. This is like defending walmart for avoiding hiring full time employees so they don't have to provide health care because you think healthcare should be provided by the gov.
I am not defending Walmart. But I will not attack Walmart for playing by the rules.
> This is exactly what people find gross about it.
Calculating that an employee out on parental leave will cost you more (and hence cause you to be less competitive in the marketplace) than an employee that is working is not gross, it is simply math.
"Don't hate the player, hate the game" is horseshit.
If the action is inhuman, I will hate you for it. Maybe those excuses help you sleep at night but if we want to pretend we aren't just especially smart monkeys then we should act like it