Unpaid time off work

[Tigermoth]

Reality check please! Who has taken advantage of the right to unpaid emergency time off for dependents (open to all employees with or without children), or the right to up to 13 weeks of unpaid emergency time off if you have children under 5 years old?

I have read that the latter is now being extended to all parents of under fives. Previously there was a cut-off date, but Cherie Blair won the legal appeal, hurray!!!

Few people, if any, at my large workplace have taken unpaid leave for children, and broadly speaking, we are not encouraged to do so. What is the situation like elsewhere in both public and private sectors, and, given the need, would you take it?

Well, nice to know its there - haven't had any official memos from our HR dept regarding unpaid parental leave. HOWEVER...I couldn't afford to take any unpaid leave. I certainly wouldn't take it for minor ills and spills. We get paid compassionate leave for serious ills/deaths/marriage break-ups which officially is 5 days, but unofficially its as long is needed which is reassuring.

I doubt I would take unpaid leave currently - I don't have much leeway on my monthly salary.

I think the problem with taking unpaid leave is that no-one can afford it really. Rich or poor, a day's unpaid leave is approximately 3-5% of your monthly net income and if most households are like ours you commit your income 100% (or more in December). Result = worrying gap. I appreciate how lucky I am to be able to take odd days for crises without my holiday entitlement being affected. I work in the public sector as a fairly senior manager but this flexibility is extended to all grades of staff and applies equally to people with elderly parents/ commitments other than children.

I think there are lots of conditions attached to this i.e. two weeks notice!!! (So hopefully we will all get a warning before our children become sick!!) General idea is good but (call me cynical) employers will just find more reasons not to employ people with children and as others have said how many people can afford unpaid leave?

I recently phoned the DTI and harrassed them until they gave me some info on this (related to dads participation) - aparently (and this was before the recent backdating ruling), only 29% of the dads who were eligible for the unpaid leave actually knew about it, and only 4% of them had taken it!
I'm sure this is true for mums as well, especially when you have a large whack of the household income. Dads earn on average 2/3rds of household income, so it's no great surprise to find out we're not taking unpaid leave.
I'm off to my website to ask dads "If you are expecting a baby, would you take two weeks paid paternity leave at £100 per week?". Wonder what the results will be...

I'm not at all surprised by the messages here.For so many of us (me included) lots of unpaid leave is just too expensive an option to consider. Batters and Tom you have confirmed my suspicians that many people are still in the dark about these rights.The powers that be in companies are not exactly shouting about them from the rooftops are they?

Yet I've has so many converstions with mothers and fathers in full-time work about how nice it would be to have a little more flexibility in the working year. Lots of us would like to cut our hours a little, even if it meant taking a little less pay. Even if we did this just for a year or two while our children were very young. We all complain about only having the standard 4 weeks or so holiday.

Spread over the year a few extra days or half days make it that bit easier to meet all those family commitments and last minute crises that beg for attention. Unpaid, yes, but a legal right. So that means you don't always have to rely on the limiited good will of your employer. And if your employer also at times turns a blind eye and pays you if you're off lookig after a sick child for a day, you have the best of both worlds. Apart from a lighter pay packet sometimes!

Having spoken at length to the human resources department in my company, I've decided to compromise and only take unpaid days for emergencies towards the end of the year, when my paid holiday is running out. I'll still feel really up tight about asking though. It seems to me that few employers are making this easy for their workers. I'd love to be proved wrong!

You can get time off for dependents, which anyone can get for any outside of work emergency eg house broken into, or needing to look after an ill relative, child etc.

But I don't know how long you have to be working somewhere to get ToFD and how many hours you can have. I imagine if you had an "emergency" every other week, they might get suspicious.

Can anyone tell me how long time off for dependents is? How many weeks you can take in a year etc?

When I went back to work after my maternity leave I used the Parental Leave Directive to enable me to go back for 4 days a week instead of 5. I did this for 6 weeks until my baby's nursery could take him full time. I had thought that Parental Leave Entitlement had to be taken in blocks of a week at a time but my Personnel Dept. said I could use it as a day at a time. Up until now my salary dept has not deducted the money from my salary!