Discrimination - yesterdays article in the Times

[Eve]

Did anyone else see yesterdays article in the business section of the Sunday Times. They had interviewed the FEMALE owner of a small business, with 450 employees which supplies Agency Nurses. She was complaining about employess getting pregnant and the amount of hassle and money they cost her and her business. One was complaining about 1 employee in particular who didn't tell her they were pregnant at interview and then went on to milk the system by having lots of sick leave.

The jist of the article was about how unfair the maternity egislation is on small businesses. I was infuriated and thought the point of this legisaltion is to protect female employees from empolyers like you!!!

In another article there was a table showing how the birth rate in declining across the world, in the UK the birth rate is now 1.6%. I think business should realise that we need women to have children, who will there future customers be, who will be working in 20 years time paying taxes for public services and supporting an ageing population, delivering meals on wheels etc!!

Phillipat, I think the prob for your company is the low pay, not the maternity leave issue. If the pay was decent, you could be easily 'replaced'. And I bet you are a really loyal, hardworking bunch.

And surely the fact that 66% of students in Medical School are now female to some extent must reflect that male applicants are proportinately declining. Presumably this reflects the perception of relatively poor pay and conditions which seem to matter more to men than women. IIt seems to me that without so many women studying medicine, there would either be a shortage or pay would have to be improved. There are no less than 5 qualified male doctors working at my bank. They took the view that if they are going to work junior doctor hours, they may as well get an investment banker salary for it.

Philippat, I certainly wouldn't suggest that a man per se is necessarily more likely to move on than a woman. Rather that for a woman who has or is intending to have young children, it is often the case that pay, conditions, future prospects matter less than for other employees. Hence it seems that they are more likely to stay loyal.

As a woman with a small child - my part time hours are definitely the biggest factor in tying me to my company.

Lots of really interesting points and experiences in this thread - makes great reading!
I run a new small business I started after having bad experiences with working part time - I work as a specialist lawyer (in the small field of patent and trademarks etc) Part time work is becoming more available, however, if you take it, in general your career stands still and you don't get the 'exciting' work etc. I wanted a job where I could pick the children up from school, be there for them when they are ill and knock off at 3 and start again at 8 if I wanted to..Also have time to see my youngest walk and talk.

I actually wanted the dream of total flexibilty but with interseting well paid work. I figured the only way to do this is to go it alone. A number of male firends in the profession have also done this for similar lifestyle reasons.

• The business has grown and I would LOVE to take on a PA/science or law graduate who could take care of everything expect my professional work, be happy to work part time hours - say around school hours - who would expand the practice with me - any offers!!

seahorse, if only I was qualified in your field of work...

I am pleased about the new legislation on flexible working hours, but, as I said further down I do have misgivings: it may benefit parents who are in jobs already at the expense of parents who are job hunting. I really hope not, but if an employer knows they will have to introduce flexible working hours for many of their existing employees, will they make a point of taking on future employees who can work conventional hours, ie those who have older children or are likely to remain childless for some time?

I have been looking for work both permanent and freelance, but have found more success with freelance and little with permanent. My age could be working against me, coupled with the fact that many ad agencies are shedding staff, not taking them on, but I also feel that my need for 'normal' hours and ideally some flexible arrangment goes against me, and this new legislation makes things even worse.

doctors poorly paid?? I beg to differ here (and yes I do know what I'm talking about!!)

They may not be poorly paid relative to average salaries but if you compare the alternative careers available to people who have the necessary results to get into Medical School (i.e. Law, Finance etc) combined with the number of years training required to qualify then a career in medicine doesn't compare favourably.

I see a junior doctor's basic salary is £26,000. A graduate trainee in the city these days will start at a younger age on £35,000 plus potential bonuses.

Granted, there are not too many careers that compare favourably (money-wise) to City lawyers or bankers

...but that still doesn't make doctors poorly paid, it just means that it is possible to earn more than a doctor.

I didn't say doctors were poorly paid as such, just that there was a perception of "relatively poor pay and conditions". This seems to be the main reason cited by the many who have left the profession in recent years.

Croppy

I disagree with the thread suggesting doctors are poorly paid - £26 seems good for a junior house doctor - I mean exactly how experienced are you at 23. I know GP's who work only part time and are on about £50k for their part time hours.
I also think it takes as long to get qualified in a number of professions as it does in Medicine. eg lawyer 6/7 years including articles and degree. Teacher (now we're talking poorly paid!)5 years etc etc. I'm fed up with the doctors and consultants winging about how poorly paid and stressed they are - plenty of people have v stressful jobs with long hours who are paid much less!!

There - I feel so much better now - rant - rant.

The trouble with doctors is that it is such a highly specialised field that they are not really trained to do much else. It's all very well humanities graduates etc. doing law conversion courses, but when you spend all your uni life doing m/choice exams etc. essay writing and fancy arguments are things you are not educated in.

I would be interested to know where all the medics that leave the profession end up. Other than scientific research, also crap pay and you have to wake up inthe middle of the night and check cell cultures etc. not v family friendly.

Fair point seahorse. I would also say that a lot of salaries look better than they are. The young graduate who works for me gets paid £33k. But he works a minimum of 65 hours a week and has in the past done 90. If you look at his salary on an hourly basis, suddenly it doesn't look so good even if he is young and relatively inexperienced.

According to an article in the Guardian, 25% of all junior doctors work more than a 58 hour week. Taking into account holidays, I would be interested to see the difference in hourly rates between doctors and say teachers. I do agree however that teachers really are poorly paid.

my sister is a teacher and she certainly works more than 65 hours a week! - granted a few more weeks holiday a year!
dh is in the army and regularly works 10-12 hour days - at the moment in the Gulf working 18 hur day - being doing that an awful lot over the last 10 years - I worked out that his hourly rate is below the minimum wage!

Still ranting away today - must be the hormones!

Croppy

really funny - that comment about having to wake up in the night to check cell cultures - is that what you do?

Doctors are not poorly paid. The average GP in the UK earns £80k. Only in someones mad dreams is that a poor pay. I know - my dh is a doc, and yes they work hard, but for not much more hours than I would do as a full time teacher, he gets paid more than 3 times as much as I would. And Gp's are on the verge of negotiating what could be a 25% pay rise plus they are cutting their oncall responsibility and giving more of that over to co-ops and locums. Doctors are not poorly paid!

80k outside London is very different to 80k inside London.

80k here in Nottingham would pretty much buy a 2 bed house near a good school. I don't know if it would buy anything in London!

You think Doctors are poorly paid (hah!).

Recent Assistant Curator post at Tate Modern. Full time, masters degree essential, phd preferred.

Guess how much?

£9,000.

Still got hundreds of applications...

80K outside London looks fantastic compared with 35K outside London.

Dere readers, never go into retail. My DH (IT manager) works - at work - about 45 hours a week, commutes another 15 hrs a week if he's lucky (ie leaves home at 6.45, gets to work at 8.15, leaves work at 4.45, gets home at 6.15 - for every 5 minutes later, either way, his journey is about 15 minutes longer.)

Then he gets calls on his mobile, from his staff and from shops whose tills have packed up, every evening and weekend, is often woken at 3/4/5am by warehouse staff because the printer isn't working or something, can't go on holiday at the same time as any other bod in the office because they are so short-staffed, spends an hour or two every evening on the laptop checking things are working as they should....admittedly this is still a private company, and the pursestrings are as tight as a crab's bottom, (Archers listeners might get the reference!) but it is a big company with 200+ shops. Annual payrises were due last month - nobody got one because sales are so poor. He deeply regrets ever leaving the national branded children's clothing co. he used to work for. (9-5, pop out for shopping when you need to, 2+ weeks shutdown at Christmas etc.)

He got a BSc in Computing Science in 1973 - one of the first I think. Most of his contemporaries - not in retail - are doing far better. Not sure how relevant this is to this thread but, god, the thought of getting 40K, never mind 80K, for the experience he has and the hours he puts in...ain't no justice.

But Phillipat, looking at that beautiful building all day, I would work for that salary!!!!

Clucks, funny you should say about checking cultures. My parents are both profs of biochemistry and I remember my mother going off to check cultures (my father stayed at home to babysit) after putting us to bed. But they picked a house only 5 min. from the University specifically so that they could do things like that.

I agree that part time employees can be very good, efficient (particularly if they are female )and loyal. My objection is to the government telling me what to do and how to do it when it comes to maternity leave. As far as I'm concerned only my mother has the right to do that...but that's the American (freedom of the individual) in me.

Even £35k outside London is riches to us! Poor dh is a digger driver who works really, really hard and long hours, he gets about £18k pa. But the worst paid of them all is...mothers! We work 24hrs a day, 7 days a week, no holidays, no sick pay, our work includes domestic duties and selling our bodies to ungrateful men (or man!!!), and what do we get paid for this? Nothing! We can't even go on strike! It's bloomin' criminal!

I'm a vet and i dont see how women are going to be able to train in a few years time. The training takes between 5 and 6 yrs at university, can you imagine the level of debt with Student loan and tuition fees. On graduation, you earn about £20K and vets working for me, qualified for 10yrs plus are on about £35K. How could you work part time and earn enough to finance 6 yrs of debt?

Hmmm, freedom of the individual. And perhaps the shortest statutory minimum holidays as well as least maternity leave and pay than the rest of the civilised world. Of course, it depends on your perspective.