Here is an interesting post from the pro-employer blog The Employerologist by Janette Levey Frisch . Here is how she explains the core of the matter:
Currently, IKEA employees receive up to 5 days’ paid parental leave, and up to 8 weeks’ paid disability leave to new mothers. Effective January 1, 2016, under IKEA’s new policy, new parents who have worked at IKEA for at least one year can receive up to four months’ paid leave. This new policy applies to both mothers and fathers, whether they are birth, adoptive or foster parents. For the first six weeks they will receive their full base pay, and half their base pay for the next six weeks. Workers with 3 or more years of service will be eligible for 8 weeks of full pay and 8 weeks of half pay. By U.S. standards this is a very generous policy. Compared to IKEA’s home country however, this is quite stingy. In Sweden, workers can receive up to 68 weeks off and the government subsidizes it. Other countries also provide more generous, paid time off. Is that why IKEA made this move? Not really.
IKEA says it expects that this expansion of paid leave will improve productivity and reduce turnover. IKEA is not alone. Other US companies, such as Netflix, Adobe and Etsy have also rolled out comparatively generous paid leave, though their programs tend to apply only to either top-tiered or salaried employees, whereas IKEA’s benefits apply to both hourly and salaried workers.
Let me repeat our mantra: when is Microsoft going to emulate IKEA and improve upon its minimal paid leave standards for all its suppliers employees? When googling about this info, I find references to articles in USA Today, The Atlantic, Forbes, but no Washington State publication. if I did not subscribe to this specialized blog I would not know about this. My mistake as there was a reprint of an AP wire in the Seattle Times.