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An article in Deseret News today outlines some dress code and parental leave changes for employees of the church. Women can wear pants and get 6 weeks paid maternity leave. Men can wear colored shirts and remove jackets. I don’t see the dress code trickling down to Sunday worship, but it’s a tiny light. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865683828/Pants-for-women-parental-leave-for-all-LDS-Church-employees.html ” class=”bbcode_url”> http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865683828/Pants-for-women-parental-leave-for-all-LDS-Church-employees.html FWIW, we do have a couple women who regularly wear pants to church, and about a third of the men and boys in my ward regularly wear colored shirts, often without jackets (I count in the latter group).
Those all are good moves, but I am most pleased with the maternity leave policy. :clap: DarkJedi wrote:
Women can wear pants and get 6 weeks paid maternity leave. Men can wear colored shirts and remove jackets.
Seriously, I love the paid maternity and parental leave… but did I just hear that until this change men had to wear white shirts and jackets and women had to wear dresses?
Quote:Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles said, “I would hope that Latter-day Saints would be at the forefront in creating an environment in the workplace that is more receptive and accommodating to both men and women.”
Forefront…..
:lolno: I thought women have always been able to wear pants in Church for years… the whole dress/skirt thing has always felt more cultural than anything. As for the paid maternity leave, the US law states that employers must hold an employees position for 12 weeks after giving birth. I realize that companies don’t HAVE to pay you for that time (and many don’t), but 6 weeks paid leave is still pretty awful. EU law states that all women are entitled to
14 week of maternity leavedande48 wrote:Forfront MY BUTT.
If you go back to when most of the Q15 were “in business”, they feel this is really progressive.
So until now all male corporate LDS employees had to wear white shirts and jackets and all women had to wear dresses? What a joke! So glad I don’t work for the church! dande48 wrote:
I thought women have always been able to wear pants in Church for years… the whole dress/skirt thing has always felt more cultural than anything. As for the paid maternity leave, the US law states that employers must hold an employees position for 12 weeks after giving birth. I realize that companies don’t HAVE to pay you for that time (and many don’t), but 6 weeks paid leave is still pretty awful.EU law states that all women are entitled to
14 week of maternity leave
Yeah, generally speaking the US is way backwards on this. There are some great employers who offer paid maternity leave, most don’t. I’m actually not aware of any in my area that offer paid maternity/paternity leave unless you use accrued sick or vacation time.
Slacks and light colored shirts are good, and maternity leave is an excellent change, but they are nowhere near the forefront of employee benefits. As far as paid maternity leave goes, I would guess this actually puts the LDS Church somewhere around the top 10% of all organizations in the USA. The Catholic university where I worked is as vocally pro-family as it gets, but they have no paid maternity leave at all. In fact, I think none of the three small colleges/universities where I worked did. That is a sad commentary, but, for this country, the new policy is somewhat progressive. (I think of the old description: Damning with faint praise.) Seriously, though, I am not about to criticize that announcement at all. Kudos to the Church on that front.
Also, one clarification to dande48’s comment:
Women have been able to wear pants to church for a long, long time – common culture notwithstanding. This is a change for church employees who work in settings where dresses and skirts were worn traditionally.
In Canada my wife got one year of paid maternity leave by the government. And her employer had to hold her job. It is funny. I hear some folks on Reddit saying that this was announced right now to distract from the 12 year old Savannah’s mic being cut story (which is getting some expanded press coverage). It wasn’t done via a tweet, so I think they can’t say it was from the Trump playbook.
Old Timer wrote:
As far as paid maternity leave goes, I would guess this actually puts the LDS Church somewhere around the top 10% of all organizations in the USA. The Catholic university where I worked is as vocally pro-family as it gets, but they have no paid maternity leave at all. In fact, I think none of the three small colleges/universities where I worked did. That is a sad commentary, but, for this country, the new policy is somewhat progressive. (I think of the old description: Damning with faint praise.)Seriously, though, I am not about to criticize that announcement at all. Kudos to the Church on that front.
Also, one clarification to dande48’s comment:
Women have been able to wear pants to church for a long, long time – common culture notwithstanding. This is a change for church employees who work in settings where dresses and skirts were worn traditionally.
Hi Curt,
I agree – this is a good step forward. Paid maternity is a very good thing. They have some work to do as far as other dimensions of employee benefits such as diversity and working from home, although I hear their health insurance and pensions are good. But the #1 benefit for many people is pay which is below average. I just think that the comment about being at the forefront of benefits is a stretch.
About woman wearing pants to church. A few years ago when there was a “wear pants to church Sunday” my bishop at the time said no problem, women should wear whatever they want. It was a total non issue. It’s probably a bigger deal in some parts of Utah. I know that in the wealthier parts of SLC women don’t wear black shoes after Easter and they don’t wear white shoes after Labor Day. That’s more of a conservative fashion thing than a Mormon thing. The same may be true for women wearing dresses to church.
A policy change like this takes a long time to decide on and implement. The only way it could be a diversion from Savannah’s story is if they already had it in the works and just moved the date up. That seems unlikely. Might as well claim this was done so Savannah would feel more welcome in the COB in her red tie.
Reuben wrote:Might as well claim this was done so Savannah would feel more welcome in the COB in her red tie.
She was wearing a white shirt though!
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