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 :)

This is an equal pay issue but not many want to challenge when they have a new baby at home! @Sisterpita thanks for sharing the article, I'm glad to see there has been some progress.

I agree with this, it’s all part of the long game.

Without a doubt statutory maternity (and sick, and paternity) pay should all increase too, but talk of not caring about paternity/shared parental leave pay and how it’s men “playing at childcare” is an absolute own goal.

@grumpytoddler1 employers are responsible for checking what has been put on the application form. This includes what SML/SShPL and SMP/SShPP the spouse/partner is planning to take. These are statutory entitlements and HMRC or NAO can audit.

Lol no!
It's 8 weeks full pay. Then it goes to half for the remaining 4 months, then SMP.

@Didimum as I said previously it’s how you decide to allocate SMP/:SShPP.

If my memory is correct the Civil Service only pays one lot of 26 weeks at full pay even if both partners are CS.

No one has explained how it makes sense when the mother who gave birth can also take shared parental leave.

Personally I think the status quo is a bit depressing (and even more depressing to see it so happily endorsed here!) that the other parent takes a couple of weeks leave paternity and presumably some annual leave. And then the mother is left to take care of the baby on their own day in day out and is set up as the default primary carer.

Nobody is suggesting that OPs DP tries to increase the SPL pay at the cost of maternity pay.

Describing it at playing at childcare might not be helpful, but it's absolutely vital that we examine how the options given to men will impact women. Unintended consequences are a rule more than they are an exception.

We can't have a situation where men are given maternity-like rights at the same time that at least a third of the female workforce (but probably quite a bit more) is only entitled to less than half of living wage on maternity leave.

OP is talking about her DP’s company having better maternity than shared parental pay.

It’s not a case of one or the other, it can be both.

As someone who experienced terrible PND I’d have loved the option of shared parental leave and to have my DH home to support me throughout the day.

@Soundbathfan ah, it’s half past plus smp which takes it close to full pay when put together for someone at band 5.

I didn’t work in the nhs when I had my babies so just got the smp the first time and slightly more the second. I always find it hard to get cross any uk mat pay because my family is from America so to us this is amazing.

@PinkFrogss isn’t the point of “shared leave” that one is home and one at work rather than both off together? Happy to be told I’m wrong. My babies are older so we didn’t have any option and I may have misunderstood the new rules.

It’s always worth trying to challenge, but if it is a male dominated workplace then I expect their response will be along the lines that they pay more maternity pay than other family leave pay because they specifically want to attract and retain women; and also that it’s reasonable to pay more to women because they are the ones recovering from
the physical burden of pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding

I work for one of the Big4. Our ShPL pay policy matches mat leave (and adoption leave) at 22 weeks full pay then SMP. This previously related to the first 22 weeks after the birth, but has now been updated to the first 22 weeks of leave taken at any time during the first year. I do think things are starting to shift and for organisations to stay competitive they’ll need to up their game.

Btw - OP, I’m with you on this! There is so much evidence that fathers taking time off improves outcomes for the child, as well as the obvious benefits to the mother’s career. I am surprised and disappointed by some of the replies here. Some valid points raised by PPs on what type of change would be best, but I think challenging the status quo is very much needed. Good luck to you and your husband on trying to make change here!

My DH got six months full pay on shared parental leave.

I'm self employed so gave up my government SPP and instead just drew dividends from the company. And went back pretty quickly but part time (a choice to keep the business viable).

So yes, there are companies that do what you want. And it does seem unfair for men to get less than women for the same (primary caregiver) role within the same company. I'd challenge.

By this logic, we could give childfree people some extra paid leave as well. After all, it isn't one or the other. As soon as we realise that anyone could go off on paid leave, not only mothers, fathers etc. discrimination on such grounds will surely evaporate.

Since 2015 shared parental leave has been an option, but with statutory maternity pay so low, it isn't necessarily viable for people to use.

On the contractual level, maybe OPs DH should have negotiated this in his contract as would be his right to attempt. It is fair enough for OP to be annoyed about this in a sort of contractual sense over their failure to plan this appropriately or negotiate more effectively. I don't like the entitlement but it's allowed.

However I think it's wrong to dress this as an issue of archaic rules or a fight for some kind of equality when that's very tenuous. In fact it's crucial that we continue to recognise that mothers are a unique category and not interchangeable with fathers at all.

You can do either, both, or a combination - tbh I think that’s at least half the reason it’s so confusing!

The idea is that the two parents have the 52 weeks between them. The mother who gave birth has to have at least 2 weeks maternity after giving birth, but from then she can “give” her partner her leave. So they could both be off at the same time, and have had between them 52 weeks of leave.

E.g you could do:
Mother gives birth, takes 2 weeks maternity leave.
Mother stays on leave for 12 weeks and her takes the same 12 weeks, they are on leave at the same time. That would use up 26 of their weeks.

Alternatively you could do:
Mother gives birth, takes 12 weeks leave and returns to work. Partner then commences leave and takes 12 weeks. That would use up 24 of their weeks, and the leave would not overlap.

I’ve seen some much more creative combinations than the above though!

At the end of the day OP is outraged that at some point her family could end up on statutory pay, because it’s too low.

But is failing to notice that many mothers are in that exact situation from the get go.

And thinks the solution to that is more rights for fathers to be seen as fully interchangeable with mothers, weakening mothers leverage to negotiate better recognition in society and the compensation that should go with it.

I really hope this helps people see that this might not actually be an equality win.

I had a baby in December my company paid me 6 weeks full pay 12 weeks half then stat. I took 6 months off, my husband is now taking the other 6 months as shared parental leave he is entitled to 14 weeks full pay from his company, the other 12 will be unpaid but his entitlement worked out better than my maternity pay, so I guess it depends on the company.

Our works both have very generous policies (not in the uk) so we are unaffected by this discrepancy, although were in the uk for our first two and I don’t think there was shared parental leave then, Dh got 1 week paid, 1 week min wage I think, so I’m very familiar with the imbalance. Men/partners being able to take the leave is great for gender equality and I fully support it. I cannot however just get on board with anyone calling for the actual policies to be gender neutral. There is absolutely nothing neutral about pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding and recovery and I think policies should reflect that and support the mother baby dyad. A few of the men on my team have taken parental leave and when they do it they have wives at home, wives part time, and they don’t have newborns. Even when my husband did it, he had a wife (me) working full time but it was obviously well post the exhausted newborn stage.

Be careful working privately whilst receiving NHS maternity pay. This would (understandably for the tax payer) stop your nhs mat pay.

I totally agree it should be fair and both parents should get the same benefits a company offers. Regarding private work if that is self employed work then I think it’s allowed but if employed work I think it would stop your Mat pay

@PinkFrogss SPL can be used like that but it can also be used so both parents are at home at the same time e.g. both take the first 3 months then mother takes 3 months then partner 3 months. So by 9 months it’s all been use up.

@PinkFrogss sorry should have replied to @TeenLifeMum

With the exception of Mat leave all family friendly policies can be taken by employees of either sex e.g. adoption, paternity, shared parental leave. These should be written as (unisex) gender neutral as your sex is irrelevant.

Even Mat leave policies assume the partner/spouse can be same sex.

Imagine having a paternity leave policy equal to a maternity leave policy. Absolute win for men. Would it just be for children born in wedlock? How would you police this if so? You could have some men literally off continuously if they timed it right and their girlfriends were game!
it would be very ironic if in the interests of equality between the sexes you ended up with a policy that meant men could spend their entire 20’s and 30’s even 40’s off on paternity leave. Would we need to check they were actually changing the nappies? Whole new level of bureaucracy there. And what if actually they were just working someplace else? Who would check? How would anyone know?
at least with women you can see they are pregnant and at most they would take mat leave two maybe three times. Would we have to limit men’s paternity leave? or unlimited? Plenty of men would love that!

But as it stands men generally are better paid. If it becomes normalised that enhanced packages tend to be the same for men and women then in many cases that's going to mean men get more and it makes financial sense for men to take more of the leave. That's not necessarily what women want and it might not always be what is best for babies. There are women on this thread who are saying that they have been in this position and it isn't always stated as an overwhelming positive. Mother baby dyad is a thing. Men should be able to take more leave entirely separate to women so that we don't have to make these shite choices.