Being an underpaid faculty member is hard. Worrying about how to afford a new family member is hard, too. Combine the two, and the situation is what faculty members with new children are facing at the University of Idaho.
UI currently adheres to federal standards dictated by the Family and Medical Leave Act. However, only faculty who have worked at the university for at least a year are eligible for the 12 unpaid weeks of leave after adding a new child to the family or leaving to care for injury of self or immediate family.
If they want to be paid during those 12 weeks, they can use up their accrued sick leave and annual leave to support their families. It’s not like they might need that time for vacation or getting sick, anyway.
An unpaid 12 weeks off is not enough anymore. Faculty should be able to support their families without fearing if they have enough time to take off while they’re sick.
It’s been long known that many federal standards are providing the bare minimum of human decency in the workplace, especially with record-breaking inflation over the past couple years, and the FMLA is one of hundreds of laws put in place which do just that.
During the pandemic, people who lost their jobs, began working remotely or began their own business realized their worth. The essential workers of the working class, who are often mistreated and seen as less valuable, realized the same society which degrades them needs them.
Teachers, servers, nurses, cashiers, stockers and the rest of the working class finally got one step ahead during the pandemic, and the labor shortage is 100% not because people are “lazy.” It’s because workers are tired of the lack of benefits, flexibility, pay and human decency in the workplace.
Professors will spend just as much time as students, if not more, designing lesson plans, grading assignments, tutoring students who ask for extra help, advancing their own career through research and who knows what else. They work hard to keep the university running and are told that, in return, the university will meet the bare minimum federal standard to support them and their families.
Other higher-education institutions in Idaho, including Boise State University, Idaho State University and Lewis-Clark State College, provide at least 8 weeks of paid parental leave.
“Boise State University recognizes that supporting employees as they balance career, childbirth or adoption, and family life ultimately benefits the University,” the BSU parental leave policy states. “This Paid Parental Leave policy regards family care concerns as legitimate and important by allowing employees to spend time with a newborn or adopted child while maintaining active employment.”
Other universities in the state are doing it, and UI is a bit late to the trend.
Understandably, UI President Scott Green and his administration inherited a very large amount of debt when former UI President Chuck Staben left office and recovering from that while coping with a pandemic is no easy task. Green has done a wonderful job so far getting the university back on track, and while not every move he’s made has been perfect he’s done well.
But paid parental leave is something staff and faculty need. Hardly anyone at the university is in a place where they can afford to take an unpaid 12 weeks off to deal with a family emergency or care for a new family addition. Paid family leave shouldn’t be something the university holds back on because of some budget issues.
ASUI, Faculty Senate and Athena, a professional women’s organization on campus, are all working toward and supporting a move to 12 weeks of paid parental leave to be available at the time of hire at UI.
Athena gathered stories from current and past UI employees who faced struggles due to the current policy. One of these women, associate professor in the Department of Culture, Society and Justice Ryanne Pilgeram, discovered she was pregnant right after she accepted her position.
She was denied deferral and worked into her third trimester, then began labor during a faculty meeting. She only had four weeks of disability leave to care for herself and her child, who had medical difficulties.
The only thing stopping the university from changing this policy is itself. Many organizations within the campus community, including The Argonaut, support the move toward 12 weeks of paid parental leave available to employees immediately after being hired. We believe this should be a priority for the university.
The working class is realizing it’s worth, inflation is sky-high and the employees who make this university possible more than deserve these improved benefits. Step up, University of Idaho.
-Editorial Board
This article has been updated with the correct link for LCSC’s parental leave policy.
Hailey L
Hi Arg team! Thanks for your work on this opinion piece. I did want to flag - I am unsure if LC State has a paid family leave policy - the current link is to Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR's paid leave policy. Lewis & Clark is a private liberal arts school, LC State in Lewiston is an Idaho public college :)
Anteia McCollum
Hailey, thank you for bringing this to our attention. A staff member has called LCSC Human Resources to confirm the information in the article and retrieve the correct link.