To ask you to consider signing this petition re working parents and lockdown

[MrsMcGLong]

I’ve made a petition – will you sign it?

Click this link to sign the petition:
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/569802/sponsors/new?token=VT-ZgcMbp2qQ73p6Xpnh

My petition:

Provide more help to working parents during lockdown

Consider opening up furlough to one parent per family with kids under 10 (or 16 with special needs) where school/ nursery is closed. This should be at parents discretion: not employers. Legislation put in place to protect parents from losing jobs due to childcare issues caused by COVID

During the pandemic, many families are trying to juggle working (either from home or otherwise ) and homeschooling with no childcare. This is having a severe impact on mental health of families, and particularly impacts women who in general take on the larger load of childcare responsibilities

Click this link to sign the petition:
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/569802/sponsors/new?token=VT-ZgcMbp2qQ73p6Xpnh

I used to manage an admin team of 10 women, most of whom had young children. We had regular absences for child sickness as the husbands all had big important jobs and couldn't possibly stay home for a day, so we were more often under staffed than not when you added holidays, part time patterns, and staff sickness on top . I can guarantee that all of those women would snap off your hand for furlough....leaving the work of 10 people to be done by 3 people who don't have kids. A) all the work wouldn't get done, and we are in a business serving external clients with hard deadlines, and B) how the hell is that fair to the 3 people who didn't/couldn't have kids and now have to work 3 times as hard?

Our employer has been really flexible, we WFH, offered additional emergency dependents leave to those who need it, we can start and finish when we choose, there is a real 'please just do what you can when you can' theme and everyone is working together to support each other. Mandated furlough for parents is not the answer, flexibility is.

Lovely idea, but sadly not workable.

I agree that employers need to be more flexible... and there is already a law for that.

Business, like parents are struggling at the moment , pulling at opposite ends.

Daft idea, OP.

No, this is ridiculous. I can work at home and home school an 8 year old if the school send her enough work. Yes it’s hard sometimes and I have to work evenings but would I rather stop working and get paid 80% while my colleagues struggle on with the same deadlines that must still be met? No! Do I think there are other people who are lazy and would jump at the chance? Yes

I do agree there should be more help in situations where the parent really cannot work because of childcare responsibilities but a blanket furlough for all with children under 10 is just insane and unaffordable.

ridiculous idea and ultimately likely to be extremely harmful to parents. It's hard for everyone.
I agree that the solution is flexibility from the employer where possible

@NothingIsWrong

If you make it parents choice, no one will hire women with children ever again.

Also a vast number of us work in the public sector, me included, and are not eligible for furlough. My husband is self employed and also can't do furlough. We are really not unique.

I agree I’m afraid.

It’s important to support parents to make the lockdown viable, but not at the expense of making women less attractive to employ.

And who is expected to pick up the extra work while people are furloughed? The child-free, and those with grown-up children, as usual, because of course we have no need for a life outside work.

No thanks.

@DecemberSun

Daft idea, OP.

AGREE, TOTALLY.

Many many many jobs that are being done from home can be done around children. It may mean flexibility in your work times - after kids have gone to bed, once partner gets home etc. It’s hard and it’s shit and it’s exhausting but that is where we are at. We cannot furlough every parent! This pandemic is causing enough of an economic nightmare already. Sorry but hard as it is this is just not a viable idea. And what are companies supposed to do when half their workforce is out? How are they going to run?

I have three kids at home and I am working full time. I’m exhausted. I’m working late and up early. The kids watch a lot of TV and have been eating a lot of crap. But we are surviving and we will get through. If I am furloughed my job can’t just NOT BE DONE 🤷🏼‍♀️

@NothingIsWrong

If you make it parents choice, no one will hire women with children ever again.

Also a vast number of us work in the public sector, me included, and are not eligible for furlough. My husband is self employed and also can't do furlough. We are really not unique.

This! OP, your suggestion would do such harm to working parents with children. I obviously dream that this would practically affect working dads as much as mums but we all know that isn’t currently going to be the case. It’s a hideous time but please don’t campaign for anything to get us through a temporary shit time which will damage our futures.

Also where would the money come from and what about self employed / key workers as Pp have said.

I think it would be good if there was an independent 3rd party who could adjudicate between employers and employees. They should have a mandate to work on the assumption that in the absence of overwhelming reasons to the contrary, both parents in a two-parent family where both parents work should be equally responsible for their children. That would help with stopping this from damaging the employability of women. There is currently no onus on employers to accomodate the fact that their employees are real human beings with lives that extend outside the workplace. Employers are currently able to insist on their own decision being the final word on whether a job can be done flexibly, whether it can be done from home etc, with no comeback if they aren't being reasonable. Surely there should be a way to force employers to take a fair share of the pain rather than insisting their employees take difficult and sometimes dangerous actions to minimise the inconvenience to the business.

Ridiculous, OP.

I’ve been doing the work of three people because I don’t have small children. I’m exhausted.

Plus, it would mean pretty much taking women under 50 out of the employment market.

Dangerous and stupid.

They haven't managed to ensure that the CEV have a right to furlough.

I doubt very much this is going to be achievable in the available time.

And has the potential for massive unintended consequences - those 'invisible' on furlough will be the first to be laid off

This would absolutely not work I'm afraid.