Maternity leave « A Midwife’s Muse

Maternity leave

July 16, 2007 at 2:07 pm | In Musings, Work | 3 Comments

I really think that maternity benefits, specifically leave, should be standardised for all employed women. There are huge differences in the workplace as to the leave allowances provided by employers. I know that maternity leave has now been extended to 9 months but here we are just talking about statutory leave and pay not how employers, as individuals, offer different benefits to their employees.

At clinic on Thursday I saw a woman who I booked 6 weeks ago, she is a bus driver. When I booked her the company had taken her off driving duties and given her ‘desk duties’, sensible, caring company I decided. On Thursday I asked her what was happening to her now at work, I’m on Maternity Leave she replied. I immediately thought that, far from being a caring company, they were taking advantage of her pregnancy and seeking to save themselves money by forcing her to take leave too early. When I became all righteous about it she told me that what they have done is sign her off, on full pay, until she gives birth at which point her paid maternity leave starts, for a year. Wonderful for her, I would have thought an economic problem for the company, and a real kick in the guts for all those women who have equally demanding, often more physical jobs than her but who have to struggle on for as long as possible in their pregnancies so they can spend more time at home afterwards with their new baby. Here I’m thinking of examples like midwives who carry on working right until the end, I have literally been working with midwives whose waters have gone whilst they have been working and who have given birth before their shift ends. I’m not overly keen on ‘guidelines’ and dictates from quangos but I am thinking that perhaps there should be more equality as far as benefits to pregnant workers, every other ‘perk’ seems to be categorized and valued, why not deviations from a standardised practice?

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While the new 9 months regulation is a good step forward (and I so wish I’d have fallen pregnant a month later), statutory maternity pay is fraught with problems. A friend of mine, whose employer “synergised” with another organisation, thus effectively changing her employer while she was pregnant, lost all statutory maternity pay entitlements although she’s still doing the same job and has been doing it for 5 years. I worked until 2 weeks before my due date because due to changing jobs (from an insecure temporary contract to a permanent contract) while pregnant, thus missing out on additional maternity leave and statutory pay. The last two weeks at work before my leave started were horrendous and I wasn’t even able to take a sicky as this would have automatically started my maternity leave, yet having so little leave as it is, I simply felt it was more important to keep going to have the time with my daughter afterwards. Then I gave birth 15 days after my EDD, and each day I was overdue I was acutely aware of losing another day of spending with my baby before she has to start full time childcare at now only 5 months.

I find it particularly worrysome that women who change jobs while pregnant lose statutory pay entitlements, even though they’ve been working for years without a single sick day. In fact, I think this is indirect discrimination, and I contacted my MP about this and will summarise the response on my own blog in the near future (a copy of the letter I wrote is already there).

Comment by cartside — July 16, 2007 #

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I agree some standardisation would be useful. As I’m self employed it wouldn’t cover me but I’ve met other doctors who say that they have had junior pregnant doctors in their departments who have refused to see any child with an infectious illness – effectively making them useless. I think standardisation would work both ways – for the employer as well as the employee!

Comment by geepeemum — July 18, 2007 #

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Having statutory maternity pay is excellent but, as pointed out in the comments, open to abuse by both employers and employees. On a personal note, daughter is pregnant with twins, higher risk pregnancy, twice the size of Mum pregnant with singleton but no concessions are made with regard to maternity leave.

Comment by midwifemuse — July 18, 2007 #

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