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'm with you OP that it's wrong for a company's policies not to mirror each other, but as a PP has said, the EAT says it's not discriminatory - www.personneltoday.com/hr/not-discriminatory-to-refuse-father-enhanced-shared-parental-leave-pay-eat-rules/

If you're planning to return to work within the first 6 months, then yes it's discriminatory. However, if you're planning to return to work after the baby is 6 months old, then it's not discriminatory, as the NHS only offers statutory maternity pay from that point onwards.

You have to compare like with like for discrimination claims - not in terms of the amount of time the parent has off, but the age of the baby.

Looks like you are assuming it will be statutory which is something you need to clarify first!

In my experience, most enhanced maternity leave policies are generous up until 6 months when they fall back to statutory. Most mothers tend to take between 6-12 months leave so it’s possible that the company he works for is set up for this. When I returned to work after 12 weeks ML and DH took 9 months SPL he ended up receiving his companies equivalent of the remaining ML. This wasn’t clear to us until he received the expected pay breakdown after submitting the leave request.

Realistically though I’m not sure why the provision should be the same. 0-6m policies are thinking about the care of the mother, needs of very tiny babies. Most maternity policies themselves are less generous from 6-9 months.

I do think an easier way round this might be to have better paternity policies full stop like the poster mentioned above that could be used flexibly as shared parental leave seems to have such a low take up. My husband had 2 weeks statutory and didn’t take it (saved annual leave instead) as the loss of income was too great. It would have benefited us all I think if he could have done a month or two later on once I was ready to go back to work.

If no-one has ever asked before, I think you are being too quick to anger. Get him to ask about the terms first.
Then take it from there.

Shared parental leave is essentially a failed policy, though. Uptake has been incredibly low and so likely a lot of organisations have adopted a "we'll sort it out
when someone asks" approach.

Is his company hot on e.g. gender equality rankings? If so, that could be one button to press.

As an aside, I strongly disagree with PP saying e.g. "Well I survived on stat mat pay" - let's not race to the bottom on things like this.

People saying it’s not the same as maternity leave as he hasn’t give birth - you know mothers can take Shared Parental Leave as well right

Paternity leave isn’t the same as maternity leave though as they haven’t given birth or breastfeeding so it’s not going to be the same conditions for every employer or for both parents.

This. It’s “shared” parental leave meaning you aren’t both automatically entitled to the same amount of pay within the period if the other person has already got it. It depends on the timing (even if it is enhanced pay, usually)

Surely it's nothing to do with the nhs policies. OP is asking about her husband company that pays maternity leave at a higher rate than shared parental leave. The fact OP works for the nhs is irrelevant, her husband's company's policy would be the same wherever she worked.

It depends on what his company’s policy is. For example my company pays 18 weeks maternity full pay, then statutory and 18 weeks shared parental full pay, then statutory for the remaining weeks up to 52.

I couldn’t take the 18 weeks maternity pay starting 5 months after my baby was born, as an example, it’s from birth and the same applies to shared parental pay.

If a father or second partner wants to take shared parental leave after their partner has already taken 18 weeks of pay from their company in the period, they get paid the statutory rate from our company. This is checked between the HR teams (you have to provide a notice from the mother saying that maternity leave has been ended and when) They are therefore being treated the same as those on maternity leave - because the whole point of “shared” parental leave is that it is the same as one person taking the whole year of leave.

if the policy doesn’t mirror maternity pay from the beginning, that’s a different matter.

I thought it should follow the mat leave policy. So say for mat leave someone gets 6 months full pay, 3 months half pay and 3 months nothing. And the man takes a few months off starting at 7 months. He should then get 2 months off on half pay. Otherwise surely its discrimination against men? I thought the whole point was that men or women could have the time off and be treated the same

It's perfectly fair.

And your income is irrelevant here.

No it's not about being men/women. It's about being the birthing parent vs not the birthing parent.

I have just challenged this at my husband's work. They currently don't have a policy of enhanced SPL pay for fathers. It's a small company, and my husband is now senior enough to have the ear of the top management. He politely pointed out that not enhancing SPL pay for fathers was not in line with current market trends, and had some talks with HR about what a better policy might look like. The company are still in the process of writing/approving the new policy, but it's looking like the end result will be two weeks of full pay for paternity leave, and between 4-6 weeks of full pay for fathers taking SPL (and we've been assured the policy will be finalised by the time our baby arrives!). It would have been harder to achieve if my husband had been junior, or if the organisation had been bigger.

You need to be careful with accusations of discrimination here. Firstly, because (depending on exactly how much mat pay your partner's company offer) it isn't discrimination. The Ali v Capita case referred to above was in fact appealed as far as the Court of Appeal. The current legal position is that companies are allowed to give special treatment to women in connection with pregnancy and childbirth, which includes enhancing their pay. The degree to which employers can have a discrepancy between women and men here isn't entirely clear yet. But we can confidently say that anything up to 14 weeks of maternity pay with no equivalent for fathers is legally fine. Comments in the Court of Appeal indicate that extending this to 26 weeks is also probably fine, but not quite as definitive. Anything above 26 weeks is, legally, a complete grey area.

Secondly, because the most likely outcome of scaring companies about possible discrimination here will not be that fathers get their pay enhanced, it will be that mothers get their enhanced pay cut. This has already happened (Network Rail case). This would be a terrible outcome, and it's why everyone is moving very gently in this space, and also why the Working Families organisation intervened in the Ali case on the side of the employer (ie, arguing that equality of SPL pay was not legally necessary).

Moomoo, it is absolutely not fair, because if it is 'fair' that assumes that all birthing women want the role of primary caregiver and only birthing women should be compensated for this. It makes no provision for same sex couples or folks who don't subscribe to this traditionalist view

Extremely helpful thank you. Did you challenge this yourself or did DH do it? Slight aside but my DH is not particularly assertive so wondering how much to get directly involved.
You are completely right about not using the word discrimination or implying this, too. That was more part of my raging about it last night but is a very good point. Thank you.

@Sewannoying Thanks for confirming that, I just couldn’t find it in the early hours.

It is 100% fair because mat leave acknowledges the impact of pregnancy and birth on the mother physically and mentally which can take a very long time to recover from for some. This is backed up by the fact that new mothers continue to get free prescriptions etc for 12m after the birth because the effects can last a while.

I'm always surprised that people are surprised at employers policies around these things. Yes its great if they enhance it but for a lot of companies its just not financially viable.

But what if the birthing parent takes Shared Parental?

There was a tribunal case a few years back against Ford Motor Company over additional paternity leave (predecessor to shared parental leave). Ford paid 52 weeks full pay maternity but only 2 weeks full pay paternity and additional paternity at statutory rates.

Ford claimed that the enhanced maternity pay was a legitimate tool to attract and retain more women in a male dominated company/industry as well as recognising that child birth had a bigger physical impact on women than men. Ford won.

As long as the rules on shared parental leave apply equally I would think any discrimination claims are going to be difficult to win. The way that shared parental leave works applies to same sex parents as well as the mother who might give up her maternity to share parental leave and then take some shared leave later.

The improvements over the last 10 years are in the right direction but there is still a long way to go. There is also the fact that women shouldn't feel forced back from maternity leave earlier so that their legal entitlement can be shared.

Did you challenge this yourself or did DH do it? Slight aside but my DH is not particularly assertive so wondering how much to get directly involved.

The answer is that you don't, you don't work for them. Your husband needs to deal with this in his workplace

Then she'd lose any enhanced pay after the mandatory 2 week mat leave period which would be a bit of a strange choice but up to her, unless the other parent has better SPL pay in which case it might make sense for them financially.

What pisses me off about NHS/Police Mat leave is that if I was sick... I'd get 6 months full pay as a PO. But I get shit mat pay.

I always wished I could go off with stress 2 weeks before my due date and get 6 months pay. Always drove me mad.

My employer doesn't match maternity and paternity pay. They are pretty progressive but despite well over three years of people asking, haven't equalised them. I don't think it's even as "good" as 6 months full pay for women and 3 months for men.

However, a couple of competitor businesses have recently published their new policies which also include adoption leave pay etc so I suspect they will get their arses into gear soon. I am too old for it to affect me now - my childbearing years were over 20 years ago but I do think they've been dragging their heels over this.

I don’t think mat pay should be comparable to paternity pay. Mat pay should be better and for longer , it’s the mum that does all the hard work with pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding and needs the longer time to recover. It’s the mum that undergoes dramatic changes to her body and hormones not the dad. I felt like I’d been in a car crash after birth number one and actually it was a textbook birth with no complications luckily.
don’tgive away mat pay for all women because you want your husband to get paid more with paternity. Parity between the two types of pay will only be bad for mothers!