Proposed changes to flexible working, and flexible parental leave - what do you think?

[KateMumsnet]

Hello

The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills have asked if we'd like to contribute to their Modern Workplaces Consultation, which contains proposals for changes to flexible working and flexible parental leave (as well as updates to equal pay, and to working time regulation). 

Possibly the most significant of the proposed changes concern statutory maternity pay (or maternity allowance), and maternity leave - the idea is that the existing system would be partly replaced with a statutory parental pay and parental leave allowance, to be taken by either parent.  Have a quick look at the executive summary for the detail.

You can let the government know what you think about these proposed changes by filling out their surveys on flexible parental leave, and flexible working. Do also post your thoughts here on the thread - we'll be passing it forward to BIS on Monday 8th August, when the consultation closes.

[toniguy]

Edam, andrew is quite correct that failure to allow the same rights to a section of the workforce which is predominantly male, would indeed constitute sexual discrimination.

[edam]

Andrew, that's an impressive piece of reverse logic there. But I'm sure you actually understand that removing discrimination against women does not equal discriminating against men.

I do agree with you, though, that flexible working should be available to non-parents too, as long as there is a valid reason, such as studying or volunteering. Not convinced the current government would go for it though, the Tories tend not to be terribly in favour of extending workers' rights. Can you imagine the belly-aching from the CBI?

[toniguy]

Agree Andrew. People with no family responsibilities at all may have perfectly legitimate reasons for wanting to work flexibly, and indeed, it would be discriminatory to suggest otherwise

[Andrewofgg]

Adela as the father of a now adult DS I am concerned that you are concerned for "family-centered employment".

People without dependent family or any family at all have just as much right to their private life as those with. They must not be treated as more available to cover the difficult shifts or the holiday months. I know it is difficult but any other rule is grossly unfair and potentially unlawful (indirect discrimination against men).

If you don't like the sound of that remember life BC and think of life when yours are grown up.

[AdelaofBlois]

@eastegg

I actually contacted someone about this. What they envisage is that for a self-employed woman some of the nine-month period she is entitled to claim Statutory Maternity Allowance for could be counted as if 'leave' if her partner were employed.

Hence, for someone like yourself, you could claim 18 weeks on SMA. You could then have further weeks financially supported this way, or your partner could use part or all of the time as formal leave. Similarly, a couple in which both were self-employed could split the period when one or other of them was claiming support between them.

Which doesn't really solve the problem of what 'leave' is if you are self-employed, since getting the business back is hard and you don't get support at anything like 'pay', but does mean that it is not absent from the consultation. In fact, one of the great advantages would seem to be precisely for self-employed birth mothers with externally employed partners, since the it would enable them to reduce the long-term risks of deciding that care is provided by a parent by shifting them to the employed parent, who is perhaps more able to return to work at same pay than the self-employed one.

Am I missing something huge?

[aliceliddell]

There was an article in either Guardian or Observer a few days ago on this. No, of course I can't find it. Thought maybe one of you could? Share the general lack of faith in the Condems good intentions when they're simultaneously cut cut cutting. But that's just me. Bitter.

[eastegg]

fluffles at last, someone has raised this question. Was checking through the thread and surprise surprise no-one thinks about the self-employed again. The last time I read about these proposed changes, my understanding was that the entitlement to be shared was the woman's entitlement, not a stand-alone entitlement that both the father and mother would have based on the benefits offered by their individual employers. So, in other words, if mother is SE'd and father is employed, like me and my DH, the entitlement which can be transferred to father is zero, unless there's a plan to allow him to share my maternity allowance. Why can't the terms of DH's share of the leave be based on what a woman working for his employer would get? If it's not, we perpetuate the idea that parental leave is a woman's thing and leave self-employed women not one jot better off.

[edam]

While they've got us all busy talking about parental leave, they are slipping through a watered down crappy response to the call for equal pay audits. Employers will only be made to check whether they are discriminating against women (or men) once an employee has brought a successful case. So if no employees are prepared to put their necks on the block, companies can get away with it. More than forty years since the Equal Pay Act and employers can still get away with paying women less...

[SurprisEs]

harrietjones yes, both parents can request flexible working but the employer is allowed to refuse it. Been there.

[AppleAndBlackberry]

I have had a year off for both children and DH got 1 week full pay (and was offered a 2nd week statutory, which he didn't take) and took a further week of annual leave. I would not have wanted to take any less but it would have been nice if DH could have had a 2nd week at full pay, so from that point of view the new proposals look good.

However I would probably change the 18 weeks to 26 otherwise I think some women will feel pressured to go back before then. It also seems costly to administrate and would be worth considering whether there is a real demand for men taking extended leave after the first few weeks. Anecdotally I don't think I know any who would want to.

[MysteriousHamster]

I just can't imagine having to leave him at only 18 weeks (though I know this happened frequently in earlier years), and that's before you take going overdue into consideration. I was two weeks over with my son, so when I returned to work he was only 8 1/2 months.

I'm the only mum in my area I know who went back at 9 rather than 12 months, but that's all we could afford/afford to risk job-wise. Six months would make me sadder and I think it's bad for women generally if we move back to under that as the general amount of leave taken.

[MysteriousHamster]

I think women should have a minimum of 24 weeks allocated as leave for the mother. Otherwise some women will feel they have to return at 18 weeks, which is fine for those who want it, but not otherwise.

I returned at 9 months because that's how long statutory pay went. I have already considered that if I have another baby I might have to return at six months - because currently that is how long your job is protected for (last time my role changed).

I'm not convinced that in the proposals, that after the 18 weeks the exact same jobs will be kept open for employees. And for me breastfeeding to six months was important too.

[Solopower]

Sorry if I misunderstood.

But as you say, no matter how carefully thought out this might be, there will always be people at the margins who get 'clobbered'. In order to cater for them the legislation gets really complicated - and less flexible - and could still miss the target in some cases.

That's why I think a month here or there for father or mother doesn't really do much to help. I can't help thinking there must be a simpler solution that would cost less in the long run by avoiding too much bureaucracy and would make people happier and healthier (less stressed).

[AdelaofBlois]

I didn't intend to say that. I intended to say that the overall emphasis here is clearly welcomed and would work better for many people, but that I could see some real disadvantages to some women-in particular those with abusive partners (and DV rises after childbirth). I find it worrying that this has not been addressed-that a shift from a single allowance to sharing and joint applications could really damage. But there is very little detail here to understand how the margins get clobbered-just nice vanilla Mums and Dads sharing equally and getting alone great, with Nick and Dave helping them chat to the big bosses.

I find concurrency a much bigger problem-I really think that the norm must be one parent caring, not two at once, and can't find a justification for that here except for very limited periods. I think that when Bloke appears after Mum doing 18 weeks care he will support not care unless forced to.

So if there is approval it is on balance from now, not for all this might entail.

[Solopower]

Yes Adela, since this is the only proposal that's up for discussion at the moment, it's worth discussing it. But although it might be better for some, even most families (?), I think it's worth remembering that there are alternatives, because this new measure still won't suit everyone.

(In one of your earlier posts, you mentioned how having the father at home in a dysfunctional family might not be an ideal situation - but that in spite of that the proposal was still better than the existing situation).

I am in favour of strong government, but time and again they get this wrong!

[AdelaofBlois]

@solopower

You don't have to look far to see how genuinely family centred employment might work. Many professions dominated by women-nursing, even teaching-offer far better models of employment-family balance, flexibility and career structure than the 9-5 'rise to level of incompetence' 50-week norm. And, at the risk of a history lesson, the period of time in which carers have not also worked is very limited-even Victorian factory owners took care to employ sisters on different shifts, for example, to allow them to look after kids.

But there is no real desire, or legislative possibility, of reforming what it means to work or have a career away from a very limited model, so the state steps in to provide something which reconciles false model of employee with false model of parent. And that's all that's really worth discussing here, surely? This seems a much better bet than now, albeit with needs to protect existing women's rights.

[Solopower]

Toniguy, as I wrote earlier in this thread, I understand that at different times in your life your child care arrangements need to change, and teenagers also need supervision. Also what suits one family doesn't suit another.

But it saddens me to see families under so much stress, whatever stage their children are at, and I'm sure that a lot of it is avoidable.

[toniguy]

The thing is solo, your suggestion does assume a rather 'one size fits all' approach. Not all parents do agree that the first few years of a Child's life are the 'most important' time, and that it's necessary or even desirable to take extended periods of time off at this point. People run their lives in different ways. For some people, the early years of childhood may be when they are at the peak of their career and they don't want to downshift. Others may feel that primary school, or teenage years are when they want to have more time at home. And others again, may have other caring responsibilities later in life, looking after elderly relatives. Or they may want to downshift then to pursue hobbies or interests. Or they may not be in good health by then, and not be able to 'tack on' the extra years they took off work 'previously.

I am not saying some people wouldn't agree with you that they want time off when their children are small- but I'm wary of any one size fits all approach which assumes that every mum and dad sees this as the time they want to downshift at work

[AdelaofBlois]

@solopower

I agree, and liked your first list, but every journey a single footstep etc.

And there are real questions here-would making men much more aware of the fact that their employment environment affects the time their kids can spend with a parent change the environment to make it more family friendly? The TUC points out that many middle-manager men are seriously pissed off their shift working male colleagues achieve a balance they can't, and that this has produced change in such work places, but can you generalise?

And will it address the pay gap-huge amount written as if leave was key but most analysis suggests it is not the major factor in women's underpay?

Look, I like the proposal, but it also worries me. I assess it against those broader issues too, as well as in the detail, but just think a basic should be 'no woman is worse off with this change than without it', and don't think that's just about leave length.

[Solopower]

Could a person take as much leave as s/he wants/needs and then add it on to their working life at the end? After all, the period in your life when you need time most is when you have young children, isn't it?

It might even be a way of stopping people feeling so aggrieved at the raising of the pension age.

[Solopower]

Engaging with the nitty gritty of these proposals is useful and informative, but wouldn't it be better to send the Dept of BIS back to the drawing board and ask it to come up with something more family-friendly?

I see the moment a child is born into a family as the most important event in the life of that family, and it breaks my heart to see parents struggling with the incredible stresses of trying to balance work and childcare. (As someone else has pointed out, when you are old and look back at your working life, you are unlikely to think you spent too little time at work).

Over the course of a working life (40 - 45 years) is 3 or 4 or 6 months really the most we can spare to get used to a new baby? I realise the point of this exercise is to treat fathers and mothers equally, but is that going to mean equally poorly? It would be much fairer, imo, if each family had the freedom to work out what suits it best - and I am sure it is not beyond us to work out a way of doing this.

[toniguy]

Totally agree that parental leave should protect the workers' rights as strongly as maternity leave.

Re the issue of employers being able to veto leave if its not taken in a continuous block- its all a case of balancing up what works for the employer as well as the employee. It would be extremely difficult for many employers to manage odd bits of time off here and there. If conditions are weighted too favourably towards the employee, it will end up backfiring on all parents. Likewise with flexibility about when to return to work. If a woman can go off on ML and doesn't have to make any decision until very late in the day about whether to return to work after 3/6/9/12 months, it becomes virtually impossible to run a business effectively. There has to be realism about this

[AdelaofBlois]

@fluffles

I think the suggestion is that the period for which you entitled to SMP as a self-employed mother could be allocated accordingly. Hence, after 18 weeks your partner could use the other (I think 21 weeks?) of paid 'leave' from his employer, or if he is freelance too he could claim SPP while you worked.

[AdelaofBlois]

Some further comments on the document re toniguy's points.
It is obvious that renaming 'maternity' leave as 'parental' is not just a linguistic accuracy, but legally important. p.17 points out that parental leave is not covered by EU law as maternity leave is. p.19 stresses employer agreement is needed for more flexible arrangements than presently, but does not note the concomitant problem is fewer limits on the reasons they can refuse. Employers will be able to veto anything but each parent's leave as a continuous block (pp 20-1). Hence while Fawcett (thanks LeninGrad) is right to recognise potential here, it has not engaged with restrictions on how that potential may be used practically. The most worrying implication might be that 'parental' leave offers less protection and less favourable conditions to the person taking it, man or woman, than 'maternity' leave, in that the only proposed statutory obligation is the right to leave itself (hence women would be legally less well protected from their employers).
There is no discussion about how to safeguard women whose position is weakened. It is assumed the only issue is fraud, and both parents should sign-no attempt to ensure that consent is not coerced. This does weaken a woman's position-at the moment she has control over her leave.
Concurrent leave is touted as being useful for two specific purposes-early support and a 'handover'. Those two reasons to me would be better served by allowing concurrent leave at fixed points around the start and end of the 'maternity' leave, not a blanket allowance which may never leave men caring on their own. I would have liked to see 'care for sick birth mother' there too, but suppose it's implied even its omission is revealing.
None of this means it ain't a huge step forward, but I'd feel easier knowing that the government was thinking of the downsides for some women, and if it were spelled out clearly what the differences in employment law between parental and maternity leave were. Above all, some detail on how leave is to be applied for beyond it being 'flexible' and 'non-burdensome' (i.e. essentially unregulated) would be nice.
PS: It would also be nice if government documents weren't so damn cutsey as to use 'Mum' and 'Dad' for persons who are legal categories, especially since not all birth mother's partners are men, and not all who are men would wish to be called 'Dad' yet (Daddy surely nicer way of thinking of how a 1-year-old thinks?).