多数美国大公司不爱谈论带薪假，原因你懂的

企业在带薪假上的军备竞赛并不像人们想象得那么疯狂。尽管一些雇主——尤其是那些咨询业和科技业的公司——近来公布了引人瞩目的休假政策，但大部分雇主还是保持着沉默。

非盈利机构Paid Leave for the United States（PLUS）的一项新报告试图探寻美国排名前60的雇主的育婴假政策。他们发现，其中的33家并未公布相关信息。在这些公司中，有8家拒绝向PLUS透露自己的政策（剩下25家则根本没有回应PLUS获取信息的要求），他们分别是：波音（Boeing）、联邦快递（FedEx）、霍尼韦尔国际（Honeywell International）、惠普企业（HPE）、印孚瑟斯（Infosys Limited）、万豪国际（Marriott International）、TJX和沃尔格林（Walgreens）。

这些公司没有解释他们为什么不愿意公布政策。然而，PLUS的创始人和执行董事凯蒂·贝瑟尔表示，一些公司希望保密，或许是因为他们员工享受的待遇并不一样。她说：“存疑的一点在于，他们可能对低工资员工存有歧视。”

沃尔玛是美国最大的雇主，这也是唯一证实小时工不能享受带薪育婴假的公司（正式女性员工拥有12周带薪育婴假，男性员工则是2周）。然而，贝瑟尔认为，其他拥有大量小时工的许多公司也有类似的排除政策。

毫无疑问，带薪假政策最诱人的公司——美国银行（Bank of America）、德勤（Deloitte）和IBM都位列其中——都在努力竞争高水平人才。

小时工并不是唯一被忽略的群体。在PLUS能够确认休假政策的27家公司中，有22家的政策并不公平，父亲或养父母得到的假期要远远少于母亲。有7家公司完全不提供陪产假，他们分别是AT&T、CVS、通用汽车（General Motors）、福特（Ford）、星巴克（Starbucks）、超价商店（Supervalu）和威瑞森（Verizon）。

只给母亲提供产假，而不给父亲提供陪产假，这不只是公司的疏忽而已。即将担任总统的唐纳德·特朗普在关于育婴假的提案中，同样只向母亲提供这一假期。贝瑟尔认为这一现象在典型的企业政策中“根深蒂固”。

致力于争取带薪假的联盟Family Values @ Work的执行董事艾伦·布拉沃表示：“（特朗普的）计划太短视了。它适用的人群太少，还不到一半。低工资的员工根本用不上它。我们不认为这是个解决问题的好方案。”

尽管布拉沃不同意特朗普的提议，但她认为提供带薪假的责任不仅在于公司。她解释道：“有许多公司，尤其是小公司，都希望确保自己的员工得到关怀，但他们能力不足。”把带薪假的担子全部压在雇主身上，会让小公司处于很大的劣势，因为他们没有足够的资源来提供这样的假期。

贝瑟尔同意，“最终，解决带薪家庭假要靠国家的公共政策。”目前，美国没有这样的政策。美国也是经济合作及发展组织国家（OECD country）中唯一没有这类政策的国家。

PLUS的创始人指出，在外国开展业务的公司——也就是说，排名前60的雇主中的大部分——都需要遵守他国法律，提供优厚得多的家庭假。例如，即将成为父亲的员工，在芬兰可以得到11周的假期，这期间能获得70%的薪水，而如果在美国，他一天假期也没有。

贝瑟尔表示：“对这些公司中的绝大部分而言，提供带薪假并不困难。他们已经这么做了，只是在美国本土没有这样而已。”（财富中文网）

译者：严匡正

The paid leave arms race isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. While some employers—notably those in consulting and tech—have recently made splashy updates to their leave policies, the vast majority are staying quiet.

A new report from non-profit Paid Leave for the United States (PLUS) that aimed to parse the parental leave policies at the top 60 employers in the country found that 33 of them did not make the information publicly available. Of these, eight declined to share their policies with PLUS (the remaining 25 companies never responded to the non-profit’s requests to provide information): Boeing , FedEx , Honeywell International , HPE, Infosys Limited , Marriott International , TJX , and Walgreens.

The companies didn’t offer an explanation for their reluctance to disclose their policies. However, Katie Bethell, founder and executive director of PLUS, says that some may be opting to keep their policies quiet because they don’t offer the same benefits to all of their workers. “One thing that seems to be problematic is discrimination against low-wage workers,” she says.

Walmart , the largest employer in the country, was the only company to confirm that is excludes hourly workers from its paid leave benefits (salaried mothers get 12 weeks; fathers get two). However, Bethell believes that many other companies with large hourly workforces have similarly exclusionary policies.

It’s no accident that the companies that do have generous leave policies—Bank of America, Deloitte, and IBM 0.39% are among them—are those that compete for highly-skilled talent.

Hourly workers aren’t the only ones being left out. Of the 27 company policies PLUS was able to confirm, 22 have unequal leave, with fathers and/or adoptive parents receiving significantly less time than birth mothers. Seven companies offer no paternity leave at all: AT&T T 1.03% , CVS, General Motors @general m GM, Ford , Starbucks, Supervalu, and Verizon.

Offering leave to mothers but not fathers is not simply a corporate oversight. President-elect Donald Trump’s paid leave proposal also restricts paid leave to moms, something Bethell believes “has roots” in typical corporate policies.

“[Trump’s] program falls far short,” says Ellen Bravo, executive director of Family Values @ Work, a network of coalitions working for paid leave. “It would cover too few people—less than half. A low-wage worker simply wouldn’t be able to use it. We do not see that as the solution.”

Despite her disapproval of Trump’s proposal, Bravo believes that the responsibility to provide paid leave should not fall on the shoulders of corporations. “There are many businesses, particularly smaller business, who might want to make sure their employees are taken care of, but can’t compete,” she explains. Leaving paid leave up to the employer puts smaller companies at a major disadvantage, as they simply may not have the resources to provide it.

Bethell agrees that “ultimately, solving paid family leave will require a national public policy.” Currently, no such policy exists; the U.S. is the only OECD country without one.

The PLUS founder points out that the companies with operations in foreign countries—that is to say, most of them—comply with the laws in other countries that offer far more generous family leave. So an expecting father who is an employee in Finland, for example, would get 11 weeks of paid time off at 70% of his salary, while his American counterpart would get none.

“For most of these companies, providing paid leave isn’t much of a stretch,” says Bethell. “They’re already doing it—just not at home.”