Raging about shared parental pay - has anyone challenged this (vs mat leave policy)

[Soundbathfan]

The nhs mat policy whilst better than many is much crapper than many too
My husband gets better mat leave in his medium sized private tech company than I do.
His company don't have a shared parental pay policy which I am angry about. He has asked about this and has been sent a shared parental leave notification form but this doesn't include anything about pay (which I'm assuming will be stat rate)
Other similar companies to his DO offer comparative mat and parental pay.
Has anyone ever challenged an employer on their offer and lack of comparability to mat policy?
He is the first person ever to have asked about this in his male dominated organisation
Thanks for any advice you have :)

I don't know the answers but I'm begging you (and him) -- DO challenge. (Both of you, that is, not just you.) Document with evidence of what comparable companies do and bask in the knowledge that you have helped improve the world.

I would first clarify how it’s paid, and if it is just statutory I agree it’s definitely worth challenging. Are there any colleagues who would consider challenging with him? There’s always strength in numbers.

The employer shouldn't have to pay the wage twice by paying the person they don't employ.

Plenty of us survive on stat may pay y'know. It's not the end of the world. Nothing to rage about.

Can you explain exactly what you want?

are you saying at his company women get full pay on MAT leave for the first six months, but if he goes on shared parental leave in the first 6 months in he doesn’t get full pay up to month 6?

Or are you saying that because women get the first 6 months at full pay, you expect in to be able to take month 9-12 and get full pay, because women get month 1-6 paid.

It's not compatible to MAT policy as only one of you has given birth.
I get your argument. If I had worked at DH's organisation when I had DC, I would have had 6 months at full pay and 6 months at half. I didn't, but those were the T&C's of my own employment.
It's shared leave, so when you go back to work, he then takes over. It should be in his company HR handbook how this is paid, but it may well be statutory pay only. He needs to ask for clarification. I would think it unlikely to be on full pay.

(There was a thread on here regarding a bloke who did get full pay for shared maternity. He was a bit of a lothario and he allegedly managed to get a new girlfriend pregnant every year! This was debunked by HR bods who said he would need to show the MatB form to his employer - but who knows...?)

@Soundbathfan Its not case law as the employer didn’t appeal but this may help. https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/shared-parental-pay-father-wins-sex-discrimination-case-telefonica-capita/#:~:text=There%20is%20no%20binding%20case,for%20employers%2C%20the%20better.”

Of the 3 real life examples I'm aware of two private companies don't match and pay fathers less (ie statutory). Public organisation does match and pays the same. It's clearly discriminatory and wrong but the unchallenged ruling in the police case has muddied the waters. It should have been appealed. however who's going to do that and create problems at work for themselves when they have another person they are now responsible for. Government needs to step in and legislate.

It really depends on what you mean. If you're talking about going back to work and him going off after your 6 weeks post partum, that's one thing. If it's you do 5 months he does the next 4, that's a bit different. Shared parental pay only has to be paid at SMP/SPP rates. If his paternity policy would be 6 months off paid and you wanted him to take the first stint of leave, and that would only be stat, I can see your gripe. Otherwise, I think most companies are the same in terms of stat only.

The statutory (government) shared parental leave policy allows couples to share a certain number of weeks paid leave, so it depends what you are trying to do. If you want him to take a few months at the end of the leave year, this should be permitted but wouldn’t be paid.

But you knew the maternity pay policies when you joined the NHS Op. There's little point being angry about a condition of your employment when you accepted the contract.

As did your husband when he joined his organisation. Unless either organisation is doing something illegal your employment conditions are what they are.

i dont really get what you’re wanting? To access the maternity pay available at his company…?! I’m a teacher so mat pay not great compared with a corporate organisation. My husband works at a corporate. He gets 6 weeks paid pat leave. I’ll go back after 6-7 months (having spend most of that time on SMP) and he’ll then take a month or so of shared parental, this is only paid statuatory. I don’t see how I could expect it to be otherwise? He’s used up his pat leave already and at that stage of my mat leave I’ll be well into SMP

He needs to find out how it's paid. What do you want to achieve, he can challenge it and maybe get colleagues on board with it. Not sure what you are raging about , surely you both knew the terms and conditions of your companies.

It shouldn't be comparable to maternity leave, it isn't the same thing.

All this is a surprise to you?

Most private companies offer statutory mat pay after month 6 so unless he is taking months 1to6 off YABU

It’s fairly standard for mat leave to be better than pat leave in an organisation. It’s only the very high earning organisations (usually finance) that make them equal, it sucks but for now in this country it’s just not something you can expect.

challenge it by all means but I don’t think you’ll get anywhere. As the father he’s not going to be able to access the leave designed for mothers!

I find this to be a topic that I have quite complicated feelings about.

When I had my DC, I took all of the maternity leave available, paid and unpaid. Some friends were in the position where dad did a portion in the final few months but pay disparity in our household made that impossible for us.

At the same time, I was still breastfeeding over a year and so even when I did return I was exhausted. Promoting the either/or approach to leave has potential to erode the recuperation time that new mothers need, when probably what we really need is something more akin to the Swedish system, where fathers have their own allocation of leave available to them.

My friends company didn’t have a shared leave policy, he wanted to do shared leave as his wife is a gp and the higher earner. He sat with hr and they write the policy over several weeks. Wife took 9m mat leave and he took final 3 months, unpaid as everyone’s (women’s and men’s) is. But point of my anecdote was to show you someone has challenged and helped create the solution

"Challenged"? Or offered feedback regarding the benefits of improving the provisions?

A few confused PPs on here. Understanding of SHPL needed.

What you’re asking is - why can’t there be the same #weeks enhanced SHPP available to your DH as there is mat pay for mothers at his work. Nothing to do with what your employer pays.

If it was equal (at his work), it would enable you to share some of your leave with him (leave, not pay) once your mat pay drops and he could take time off, paid SHPP, while you either return to work or spend some time off parenting together. Right now if you were to share your leave, for him it would either be statutory SHPP or unpaid, making it unattractive/impossible.

Im not aware of any case law where the father has won here. The base line is that companies can pay mothers more/for longer than fathers due to the medical impact of giving birth to a child.

A lot of companies are slowly changing this, faster than legislation is changing, by offering equal SHPP or even just offering equalised paternity pay (no sharing required). Your DH should have a sensible discussion with his employer about this. They’re unlikely to change just because it would benefit him, but if it’s a male dominated company he might want to point out that developing better parental policies shows a commitment to diversity and lifestyle choices, which will aid overall employer proposition and recruitment/retention of women. Allowing fathers the option to share the responsibility of early childcare (by paying enhanced SHPP) enables mothers to return to work and further their careers (important if desired, but even more important if they’re the breadwinner). Only when more companies start doing this will we see gender balance at work start to improve, and we might eventually see a statutory movement.

i dont really get what you’re wanting? To access the maternity pay available at his company…?!

No, I think she's saying that his company has decent maternity pay, but only statutory shared parental leave pay (although she isn't sure). I think she's annoyed that if they did shared parental leave, his company don't pay fathers (or presumably lesbian mothers) the same as mothers who've given birth.

Where I work, it's the same pay - full pay for 6 months whether it's maternity or shared parental leave. Men frequently take decent chunks of time, which (assuming their partners are happy with it) is good I think. It's also good for women in the company, when senior men are taking 6 months off for parental leave.

This isn't what I'm asking for. My post must have been unclear. I'm a doctor and the higher earner. His maternity pay is better than the nhs, but the shared parental pay is statutory only, meaning he cannot take any meaningful time off to enable me to return to work and spend time with baby without us losing out financially despite the good mat pay his company offers. This to me feels discriminatory and archaic

Actually, it did go to the court of appeal and the court held that it was not sex discrimination. One of the reasons was that maternity leave is in part to allow the mother to recover from childbirth, whereas parental leave is about caring for a child.

Exactly this.

I think it’s generally different but trending towards being more similar. My employer offers 6 months at full pay as maternity leave. It used to also offer 2 weeks at full pay as paternity leave and now it’s 3 months. The change is largely the result of both men and women at the company questioning why leave isn’t more equal so I think it’s worth raising but that it’s unlikely it will change for this baby