Petition to make maternity and paternity leave fairer
Saturday, May 31st, 2008 01:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizziecI got this from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jmkg, and she explains it best, so I'll let her:
"Please sign the petition at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/flexibleleave/ which was set up this week. The current system of new parent's leave in the UK is very unbalanced, where the mother can take 52 weeks off (13 unpaid) but her partner can only have 2 weeks off at a low rate of pay. We believe that this needs to be changed.
We believe that families should be able to choose what works for them, rather than assuming that the mother will always be the parent who will be taking the childcare leave. In a lot of situations the mother may wish not to have a full year off work, or the family may not be able to afford for her to. Yet there is no provision to transfer any leave to the mother's partner, who equally may well prefer to have more than the two weeks allocated to spend with their new baby. Naturally a lot of families would still choose the traditional route of the mother taking the full leave, but *there should be the choice*. Please sign the petition even if you don't think it affects you personally, but you think that other families should be able to choose what's right for their situation.
A flexible system of leave could also have the advantage of reducing sexist employment behaviours. MEP Godfrey Bloom (UKIP) said "No self-respecting small businessman with a brain in the right place would ever employ a lady of child-bearing age", but if parental leave wasn't automatically assigned to the mother then a major incentive for unscrupulous businesses *not* to hire women of child-bearing age would disappear.
The petition doesn't propose any increase in the overall amount of leave allowed to new parents, though that could be a focus for future campaigns. It is just intended as a first step - a large first step, which could make the world a fairer place without costing money for businesses (a major reason why other proposals to make the leave allowances fairer have failed).
What you can do: please sign the petition, and visit our website at equalrights.org.uk for more information. Please pass this message onto other people: tell your friends, tell your online communities, get people interested, help spread the word!"
jmkg, and she explains it best, so I'll let her:"Please sign the petition at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/flexibleleave/ which was set up this week. The current system of new parent's leave in the UK is very unbalanced, where the mother can take 52 weeks off (13 unpaid) but her partner can only have 2 weeks off at a low rate of pay. We believe that this needs to be changed.
We believe that families should be able to choose what works for them, rather than assuming that the mother will always be the parent who will be taking the childcare leave. In a lot of situations the mother may wish not to have a full year off work, or the family may not be able to afford for her to. Yet there is no provision to transfer any leave to the mother's partner, who equally may well prefer to have more than the two weeks allocated to spend with their new baby. Naturally a lot of families would still choose the traditional route of the mother taking the full leave, but *there should be the choice*. Please sign the petition even if you don't think it affects you personally, but you think that other families should be able to choose what's right for their situation.
A flexible system of leave could also have the advantage of reducing sexist employment behaviours. MEP Godfrey Bloom (UKIP) said "No self-respecting small businessman with a brain in the right place would ever employ a lady of child-bearing age", but if parental leave wasn't automatically assigned to the mother then a major incentive for unscrupulous businesses *not* to hire women of child-bearing age would disappear.
The petition doesn't propose any increase in the overall amount of leave allowed to new parents, though that could be a focus for future campaigns. It is just intended as a first step - a large first step, which could make the world a fairer place without costing money for businesses (a major reason why other proposals to make the leave allowances fairer have failed).
What you can do: please sign the petition, and visit our website at equalrights.org.uk for more information. Please pass this message onto other people: tell your friends, tell your online communities, get people interested, help spread the word!"
