David Green who owns Hobby Lobby is worth more than $5 billion.
The Supreme Court is about to hand down a ruling on whether the privately owned “Christian” company Hobby Lobby can be exempt from the Obamacare mandate that employers must provide contraception to their employees. Hobby Lobby lawyers say providing contraception to employees goes against the company’s deeply held religious beliefs.
So, we wondered if Hobby Lobby’s deeply held religious beliefs also included providing paid maternity leave to its employees. After all, if you want your workers pregnant, certainly you’d be willing to join the rest of the industrialized world by paying for the mother’s eight or so weeks with her newborn. Certainly Hobby Lobby CEO and founder David Green whose net worth is north of $5 billion could afford to offer paid maternity leave.
Alas, Mr. Green’s Hobby Lobby doesn’t want to pay for maternity leave either. Here’s what we found from an anonymous Hobby Lobby employee who wrote four years ago…
Why does such a successful business not provide BETTER maternity leave for their employees than just the FMLA? I’ve been with this company for almost 8 years and work myself to the bone and take good pride in my job, but yet I’ll have to take my vacation that I have worked so hard for and my PTO time off in order to still be able to get paid when I do take maternity leave.
If all I took was just the FMLA I would lose my house and my bills wouldn’t get paid. If I were rich the FMLA wouldn’t bother me a bit, but I’m not and it does. I just feel that such a “Christian company” would look after their faithful employee’s alot better. I don’t feel that I’m asking for much, but some payment for maternity leave is better than nothing if it means that it will keep food on the table. Thank you for your time.
David Green should purchase this book to learn about where he’ll be spending eternity.
The FMLA she is referring to is the 1993 Family Medical Leave Act which only requires employers to provide unpaid leave for medical and family reasons. During this week’s Working Families Summit, President Obama drew attention to our nation’s dismal record on providing for newborns and their mothers by telling his audience…
“There is only one developed country in the world that does not offer paid maternity leave, and that is us… And that is not the list you want to be on — on your lonesome. It’s time to change that.”
The Supreme Court will rule on Hobby Lobby any moment now. Corporations we are told are people, so we’d like to think a company WHO calls itself Christian would behave like a good Christian. A good Christian would worry about the health of a mother and her newborn by providing maternity leave.