Petition For Working Families To Receive Full Pay During Their Paternity Leave

[Banks85]

Please Sign our petition at:petition.parliament.uk/petitions/118284

This page is dedicated to bringing to the Governments attention the unfair treatment and monetary entitlement for all working men received during their two week paternity leave.

The current rate for paternity leave is a taxable payment of £139.58 per week. This means during your paternity leave you will only be entitled to £279.16 in total. After tax you will have to settle for the grand amount of £223.33. Irrespective of what your actual rate of earnings are!

This is completely unacceptable and needs to be urgently addressed!

Paternity leave is supposed to be about supporting your partner, and just as importantly creating a bond with your new born child. Sadly thousands of men are being robbed of this right every day and are forced to return to work early and as they cannot afford the loss in earnings, especially if the other wage earner is already on maternity leave.

In this day and age where we have created so many benefits, created so much aid for other causes, surely every working father should have the right to these two weeks. With our current Government backing 'Family', Surely a father bonding with his child is something they should be encouraging.

These precious weeks are stressful enough! For some of us it is the first time we have had to deal with nappies, crying, the severe lack of sleep, the hormones, the fear! and the upheaval created by this precious little human being. There is the possibility that there may be complications! Your child may have to stay in hospital, possibly be relocated to a specialist hospital and sadly for some, not survive. For those Fathers, these may be the only weeks they will have with their child. It is not right that they have to deal with the concerns of earning their living whilst all this is going on.

Just keeping a new born baby in nappies for the first month will cost around £60, This will take up over a quarter of your paternity pay immediately. This is without considering the costs of your Mortgage, Rent, Council tax and all your utility bills.

Sadly the Government doesn't seem to understand the issues - they believe men do not require more paternity time! Because we are not utilizing that which is currently offered! This could not be further from the truth! Most of us cannot afford to utilize it!

I personally would be more than happy to take a full year off to bond with my child and support my partner – It seems rather sexist that I don't have this option! I will however settle for two weeks fully paid at the rate of pay I have achieved through my own initiatives! I would settle for this because, just like every honest, hard working man I appreciate I have to provide for my family and will do so until the day I collect my pension (Hopefully).

I am only one man and in the grand scheme of things maybe I cannot change anything? I am however willing to try because this wrong needs to be corrected.

I have created a petition to get matter debated in parliament - but I cannot do this without your support! I need people to sign the petition then confirm your signature via an email which will be sent on behalf of the government. If I get 10,000 signatures the government will have to give me a response.

However my goal is to achieve 100,000 signatures! - so the government has to take notice! I will do whatever is in my power to see that this injustice is corrected.

Realistically any changes will be too late for me and may already be too late for some of you, but ensuring that our sons do not suffer the same injustice will drive me on.

Please Sign our petition at: petition.parliament.uk/petitions/118284
Follow us on facebook at: www.facebook.com/Fair-Paternity-Pay-For-Working-Men-809642629163932/?fref=nf

If you agree that this wrong needs to be corrected please share the link to the petition on facebook and twitter.

Together We Can Make A Change

Thank You For Your Support

[knackeredknees]

1. Men (and women) have 9 months to save enough to cover 10 days' drop in income.
   

1. Why should employers foot the bill for their employees' lack of foresight?
   

1. So many !!!!!s are irritating.

[ceeveebee]

I thought fathers could take off a full year now instead of the mother (or share with them) with the new shared parental leave rules?

[Parker231]

Maternity pay isn't paid at the full rate of pay (unless agreed by employer and this is becoming rare in the private sector) so I can't see how/why paternity pay will become so. Many new Fathers I know take annual leave in addition to their paternity leave which has the advantage is extending the time at home in the stressful early baby days but is also paid at the full rate of pay.

As the previous poster has mentioned there is 9 months to save up for the loss of income during paternity leave.

[TannhauserGate]

Wow! I guess all the women of MN have never noticed their paycut whilst on maternity leave?

[Scrowy]

Meh. Many women suffer a lifetime drop in income because they have children. Men do now have the option to share parental leave if they wish (which kind of undermines a lot of your petition). If you feel so strongly perhaps you could try this rather than just having the two weeks off? If more people did then it may start to make things fairer for everyone if men were equally affected by the impact taking parental leave.

[TannhauserGate]

As ceeveebee points out, the year of 'maternity' leave is now parental leave, and either parent may take it.

But of course men won't, because they're worth more than women, aren't they?

[Becles]

I came on the thread to write a short and ithy response to the 'entitled' subject line and the original post but TannhauserGate and knackeredknees got there first and to the point.

[Scrowy]

It demonstrates nicely the often voiced opinion on here that if childbirth/maternity leave happened to men suddenly it would become a more important and better resourced issue.