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December 2010 Moms
lulu8109
member
Questions for California & Canada mamas
lulu8109
member
Hi ladies! I'm just really curious about how your maternity leaves work. I'm totally jealous =P
So from what I've read, the Cali moms get one month of maternity leave before baby. What about after baby? And is it fully paid, partially paid, or unpaid?
And I'm sooooo jealous that the Canadian mamas get one full year after baby. Do you guys get anything before baby? Is the one year fully paid, partially paid, or unpaid?
I thought I got pretty decent benefits at my job. I know some ladies don't get any paid leave =X Or they get some leave, but at a reduced salary. I get 6-8 weeks fully paid after baby. And I plan on taking the full 12 weeks of FMLA, but I'll have to use up all my comp leave and part of my maternity leave will be unpaid because I don't have enough comp leave.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Questions for California & Canada mamas
In Canada we pay EI ( Employmenbnt Insurance). It gets taken off of every paycheque from every job you ever have and it gets set aside. If you get laid off you can use it to have some income while you're looking for another job, etc.
We get 15 weeks Maternity leave and 37 weeks of parental leave ( that we can actually share with our spouse.. but we don't tell them that! lol)
With the 15 weeks, we can take it up to 12 weeks before baby is born and the parental leave starts automatically after the 15 weeks is over.
The pay is 55% of your salary but there is a cap. If you make over $43,000/year you get the maximum $457/week ( minus taxes of course) and thats for the whole 52 weeks. PLUS most workplaces still pay up to 2 or 3 pay periods to "top you up" while waiting for the EI benefits for mat leave to come in.
Also, it's not paid through work it's paid through EI. Your workplace just saves your position for that year and when you return to work you go back to what you were doing or something similar if that's not available anymore.
Hope that helps!
Thanks, ladies! I'm just being nosy, haha. I wish I lived somewhere with better benefits. That's pretty cool that you get more than half your salary in Canada. If I wanted to spend a year at home with LO, I'd get nada.
Yup, I thought my benefits were pretty standard, until I started reading about other Bumpies who don't get paid leave at all. So I consider myself lucky. I work for a really large company and I think that larger companies tend to have good benefits packages. I don't know what DH and I would do if my maternity leave was all unpaid.
I'm in CA and just went over this with my HR yesterday. Here's what I'm taking and I've included which parts I think are state paid v. my company. We can take a total of 6 months off and have job protection. It's not necessarily paid, but our job will still be there when we get back.
4 weeks before the baby at 100% pay - state or insurance paid
2 weeks after the baby at 100% pay - state or insurance paid
2 weeks at 100% - company paid
~10 weeks at 66% pay - state paid
5 weeks of PTO at 100% - company paid
3 weeks at 0%
I think that comes out to 6 months off. Also, the state pays your insurance during the time that you're off. And I think some of the income is tax exempt.
I'm in CA too. But I work at a small company (boss + me) so I don't get any kind of pay from him - no big HR department to help me out there. He just told me I was welcome to take what time I needed and he will continue to cover my medical insurance - nothing he is legally obligated to do just being nice.
From what I understand I get 4 weeks prior to birth paid by the State Disability insurance - we pay into this with taxes on each pay period in CA. I am told this will be roughly 60% of my wages. Then we get 6 weeks after to be home with the baby, also at about 60%.
Personally I am taking 1 week prior to my due date, then 8 weeks after birth, 2 of which I will cover with vacation time. Then when baby is 8 weeks old I will be back at work.
8 weeks feels way too early but my situation is unique, with the small office of just my boss and I he is letting me bring the baby to work so it is all working out just fine.
Might move to Canada though.... ; )
DH works for the EDD here in CA which runs State Disability and stuff so I'm well-versed on this.
It obviously varies from office to office, as some of these require you to work in an office with X number of employees, or to pay into state disability insurance (for ex. when I worked for a church, I didn't pay into SDI).
4 weeks before your EDD you are entitled to SDI (State Disability Insurance, which here is also called PDL or Pregnancy Disability Leave) which is 55-60% of your salary. Although you can take 4 weeks off, no matter what you take (4 weeks, 2 weeks, whatever), the first is always unpaid... so you're entitled to 4 weeks off but only get paid for 3. If you have the baby before your EDD you don't get to carry over the remaining days left... if you have the baby after your EDD, though, you still get SDI for those days. Pregnancy is the only condition required to take PDL... you don't have to be having complications.
On the day the baby is born, you start receiving SDI for your recovery at the same pay rate. It's 6 weeks after a vaginal delivery and 8 weeks after a C-section.
Once that SDI runs out, then you are eligible for PFL which is Paid Family Leave. PFL is something that spouses/SOs can get as well... it's up to 6 weeks for the caring of a newborn/new child (and it must be taken within a certain period of time after the birth--6 months, I think?). It's the same pay rate as SDI/PDL *but* it is taxed.
After PFL if you so choose, CFRA (California Family Rights Act) can continue. CFRA allows a person to take "up to 12 weeks of leave for the care of a family member". CFRA runs concurrently with PFL, though (the law says it doesn't run at the same time as SDI/PDL because that time is for YOU caring for YOURSELF and CFRA is about you caring for someone else)... so when PFL ends, you still have 6 weeks of CFRA left that you can take but it is unpaid.
So 4 weeks post-due date (60% pay untaxed) + 6 weeks for vaginal delivery (60% pay untaxed) + 6 weeks for PFL (60% taxed) + 6 weeks for CFRA (unpaid) = 22 weeks. That's what I plan to/hope to take.
This- nicely put! I live in CA too and work for a big company. I am lucky to get those EDD weeks paid for in full bc my company pays the difference in salary. It's crazy confusing as far as all of the different forms go, but I will not complain as I know it's not this way for everyone.
I purposefully waited until I worked here for 3 months to get PG - adding the 9 month pregnancy to that, knowing I will have worked here for 1 year and qualified for all these amazing benefits.
Im in Canada, and I must say I am so glad of that when it comes to health care and maternity leave. We get 35 weeks of parental leave, 55% our your salery paid up to a maximum of about $470ish per week before taxes (government paid). Also you get 15 weeks maternity leave (only birth mothers can take this, also government paid) at the same rate of pay. For a total of 50 weeks of partially paid leave. This leave can start up to 12 weeks prior to baby being born and no later than your delivery date.
Some employers (like mine) will give you a top up for 6-8 weeks after the baby is born depending on your banked sick time. If you have a doctors note stating the need for medical leave prior to baby coming you can also get short term disability pay. (not sure how much this is though.)
You can also work a certain amount while on maternity leave to supplement your income while on Mat leave. Not sure how much though.
Thats the basics that I know for sure.